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There is, according to academic Emmett Price, “six degrees from Harry Pace.” It refers to the man born in 1884 who founded the first major record company in the United States; a disaggregated part of Chicago; mentored the founder of Ebony and Jet magazines and led the career of blues singer Ethel Waters. Pace is a character who is seemingly everywhere at once, but his name has been strangely absent from the history books.
“This story sums up how progress happens in America – and it’s never in a straight line,” says Jad Abumrad. “It is often a cycle – a cycle that contains hope and despair, broken together.”
Best known for their work on Radiolab and its successful spin-off, Dolly Parton’s America, Abumrad and co-producer Shima Oliaee speak from New York about their latest podcast, The Vanishing of Harry Pace. The five-part series examines the life and legacy of its main character – the founder of Black Swan Records, who helped coerce the term ‘rock’ n ‘roll. Pace was also a civil rights attorney, a WEB Du Bois contributor, and, one would think, a black American pioneer erased from history because of his race.
But that’s not how this story unfolds; it was “an American enigma, shrouded in a family secret”. Pace was not a forgotten pioneer, but a man who decided to spend the last years of his life posing as white for fear of persecution.
The first two episodes tell the story of Pace’s life, from his years at the University of Atlanta to the founding of Black Swan and then to his reconversion as a lawyer. The third examines the impact his death had on his children and grandchildren, while subsequent episodes trace Black Swan’s musical legacy. Throughout, Abumrad and Oliaee are an easy-going presence, gasping with every revelation, while more than 40 expert voices – from writer Margo Jefferson to musician Terrance McKnight – bolster their research with thoughts on racial significance. and cultural history in the United States.
This series follows Dolly Parton’s America, who chronicled the country singer’s impact on American life, and Pace’s story echoes that of Parton’s. “They are both blurring figures that we see in culture – those distinctions that say a certain type of music is for a certain type of person,” says Abumrad. “Harry summed up a middle space between being black and eventually coming off as white, being a ‘purebred man’ and then seemingly turning his back on his accomplishments in a way that has affected his descendants today. hui. “
Pace’s story wasn’t discovered by his family until 2006. We hear in the first few minutes how a family reunion was called when it emerged that great-grandfather Harry wasn’t in. not an Italian lawyer (Pace previously thought to be an anglicization of the pronunciation Pache), but rather a Métis descendant of slaves and a slave owner. “Everyone was very proud of Harry and also devastated by the loss of his family, not knowing who he really was,” said Oliaee. “The revelation has since caused a falling out because some wanted everyone to know Harry’s story, and others didn’t for fear of what it might have done to their status in the world. C ‘was really like watching people grapple with the complicated issues of race in America in real time. And it shows us that this historic era of slavery, emancipation and Jim Crow is much closer than it is. don’t think so.
As Albumrad and Oliaee researched Pace’s story in the summer of 2020, this sense of historical closeness was also reinforced by the global Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the murder of George Floyd. “When we started reporting it looked like a very revolutionary time,” says Oliaee. “There was a possibility of change in the air, but there was also the harsh reality of the murdered people of color. Harry was the first post-emancipation generation, so he had the potential to build a different society for people of color from scratch. But this excitement was associated with the harshness of reality.
Abumrad adds: “I felt like he could have been a young man alive in 2021.”
While Albumrad and Oliaee had ample time to interview Parton for their previous series, the fact that much of Pace’s life took place before the commercial advent of recorded sound was a challenge. “We’ve been around the world trying to find a part of Harry on tape,” said Abumrad, “but he didn’t even keep a diary, so there’s nothing to give you an interiority. This makes deciphering his motives so much more difficult.
The biggest unanswered question hanging over the series is why Pace is listed as “white” in the 1940 US Census. Two decades earlier, he was visibly promoting his breed, pushing Black Swan records as Black-owned and Black-owned, before selling it after a period of success with Ethel Waters, Louis Armstrong and Ma Rainey. He then trained as a lawyer in Chicago and managed to disintegrate the Woodlawn neighborhood by representing black real estate broker Carl Hansberry – father of playwright Lorraine – in a case against white landowners in the neighborhood who had tried to enforce respect. a restrictive racial convention in their region. .
After moving to Woodlawn, it looks like Pace has started to move on, and the podcast lists many possible reasons: so her light-skinned children could marry white partners; so that he can progress in his business; so that he is not unmasked in a neighborhood that is still extremely hostile to blacks.
“He was standing right now where no one wanted him,” Abumrad said. “The white world did not want him, and his success had made him transcend the typically oppressed representations that blacks had then as well. But he didn’t want to be seen as an underdog – so he was stuck, struggling between truths. “
“Death was not that rare at the time,” says Imani Perry, professor of African-American studies at Princeton. “What’s interesting is that it was seen by many as a form of betrayal. It ultimately speaks of a tragedy inherent in the fact that such extraordinary people like Harry Pace have always never been able to avoid the reality of a racist society. “
One of the show’s editorial consultants, Perry sees Pace’s life as an example of the nuanced history we should strive towards. “Its story is a window into a widely discovered world,” she says. “I’m hungry for a time when we begin to understand the history of people of color as much more complex and colorful, in addition to all the tragedies of the transatlantic slave trade. Historical forces can flatten the individual, but the incomprehension of the individual is one of the greatest obstacles to progress towards a more just world.
For Abumrad and Oliaee, Pace’s story acts both as a parable of a tumultuous period in US history and as a parable that resonates today with the continuing struggle for racial equality. “We can all feel like we’re the only ones having our experiences at this particular time, but then you learn from people like Pace and you see what they went through was not just what you are going through, it was amplified, ”says Abumrad. “The fact that there is a continuum can be heartwarming. We can always learn from what has happened before and strive to do better, even if that means living in hope and despair.
The Vanishing of Harry Pace is available now
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