In Pursuit of Common Ground

After viewing several episodes in the historical series In Pursuit: Philadelphia and the Making of America, I came to an important realization: The love-hate pendulum of feelings that some Philadelphians feel about the city – that some Americans feel about America – is a natural consequence of our complicated history.

 

In Pursuit is an extraordinary 10-part docu-style series of films by Sam Katz’s History Making Productions detailing the history of the United States through the multifaceted lenses of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania history. It is, at times, a painful watch. The contradictions of this nation: the erasure of the indigenous stewards of this land, the enslavement of Africans, and the sheer plunder and violence of it all; the lies the colonizers told – all of it is at times too much. But there is also the endurance of legends, heroes who fought and fought back against these contradictions, in pursuit of freedom for all.

 

Because of this (and more), In Pursuit should be required viewing for all Philadelphians, all Pennsylvanians, all Americans, all immigrants, and all oppressed peoples. On November 9, Episode 9: Liberation (1968-1990), will have a public screening at The Fitler Club. The episode traverses years of startling upheaval and profound struggle in America’s birthplace, from the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. to the bombing of the MOVE house.

 

As a whole, the series tells the story of the iterations of oppression, the fallout from that oppression, the resistance to that oppression, and the tyrannical leaders who set the stage and framework for these United States. It also spotlights all the nameless individuals who were displaced, shot, maimed, and killed in the name of our liberation. It’s messy in all the ways that the founding of this nation was.

 

On a Saturday in late October, I had the opportunity to speak with the series writer, Nathaniel Popkin. Two things struck me as powerful moments in our exchange before a modest audience at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Early in our hour-long conversation, we established a few things. First, although this was a modest audience, Nate said that it takes only a small group of people to create a lot of change in this world; I co-signed that.

 

PAFA had just finished screening Episode 5 in the series, “Who Won the Civil War?” (1838-1876). If you believe that the title of this episode is a rhetorical question, consider venturing down the “Lost Cause” rabbit hole on the internet.

 

“Who won the Civil War?” concludes with the murder/assassination of Octavius Catto, an educator and voting/civil rights activist who was made a martyr by thuggish Democratic Party forces in Philadelphia in 1871, a moment in this city’s history when Black men had just attained the right to vote. They shot him on South Street, just outside of his home. He was one of at least six people shot to death that day. Many others were beaten and otherwise threatened for trying to vote. It’s an episode in the series made more potent by the fact that we are in the midst of the midterm elections – a moment that might represent the last opportunity for establishing any balance to the unchecked executive power that remains a hallmark of the Trump administration. Octavius Catto is a kind patron saint for this moment in our political timeline – an historical figure who reflects the complex challenges of our contemporary body politic. Catto’s memorial statue, “A Quest for Parity,” stands 12 feet tall at City Hall.

 

There were several important, inspirational moments in our conversation. When I asked Nate, near the end, whether this series is “in pursuit of common ground” or concludes that we will never reach it, he said he could have named the whole series Common Ground. Nate, like me, is an optimist. He didn’t take the bait in my question. He said immediately that this has to be about the pursuit of common ground — about never giving up that pursuit. That spirit filtered into a couple of questions, answers, and exchanges that Nate and I had with audience members.

 

Early on, in response to one of my questions about the episode centering on Frank Rizzo, Nate mentioned, almost offhand, that Frank Rizzo was a prototype for Donald Trump. He was not the first to make this connection. But one couple in the audience may have taken issue with this comment. The couple, an older man and woman, got up and left immediately. It was early enough in our discussion to raise an alarm, and I watched nervously as Nate watched them get up and walk away.

 

Later in our conversation, Nate returned to that moment. He said the couple may have left because he spoke ill of Frank Rizzo. He said this while trying to explain the complexities of Germans and Scotch-Irish settler colonists coming into Northeastern Pennsylvania and displacing the Lenape, sometimes violently.

 

Although the couple had already left, Nate took the opportunity to apologize to them. He said he had spoken too quickly in equating Frank Rizzo with Donald Trump. There are no simple or binary reductions in Popkin’s approach to writing this series, which attempts to honor movements for liberation in their accurate historical context. He conceded that, even in the short time he had, he could have offered a more fully fleshed-out portrait of Rizzo as someone more complex, rather than reducing him to a prototype of the current president of the United States.

 

 

Later in our exchanges, I was confronted with a similar moment. For me, one of the most fascinating things about In Pursuit is that viewers are challenged to acknowledge the many ways that oppression in this world is iterative. Yes, sometimes those who are oppressed are incentivized to ignore their own oppression in the past under repressive regimes as they pursue the American dream. This accounts for the displacement of the Lenape by the Germans and the Scots-Irish. It doesn’t excuse it; it provides context.

 

I asked Nate a direct question about how the films’ framework situates itself in a way that allows us to think about contemporary global politics — the geopolitical arrangements that iterate oppression over and over again. I mentioned Israel in that comment. When we opened the floor to the audience a gentleman started with a comment directed to me:

 

As a professional moderator, my gut instinct was to respond to the comment in the moment. But something about the conversation I was having with Nate made me pause and think a little more about it. I waited until the program was over. Then I walked up to the gentleman, approached him directly, shook his hand, and apologized if I had offended him in any way by bringing Israel into that context.

He said he and I might never agree on Israel, making certain assumptions about where I stand with respect to Palestine. I respected that and reiterated that I did not mean to offend. I simply wanted to situate the broad framework of In Pursuit against the backdrop of the iterative nature of oppression around the world.

 

And my formation? You could argue that the Palestinians are oppressed. You could argue that Hamas oppresses the Palestinians. You could also argue that Israelis have historically been persecuted and oppressed. And now, many people argue that Israelis are oppressing the Palestinians. The way I framed it could work either way. But my argument was beside the point, and I did not make it to him when I spoke with him after the program. I simply wanted to acknowledge that maybe I had offended him.

 

Maybe we wouldn’t agree. But we could find common ground to respect each other and talk as human beings, without an audience witnessing us try to resolve whatever conflict or tension had arisen between us.

 

This, I think, represents some of the spirit of In Pursuit: that we should always be in process, that we must always be in pursuit of common ground. No matter what forces are at play—incentivizing us to hate each other, antagonize each other, fight with each other, and, yes, at times, kill each other—we must resist those forces in pursuit of a more powerful goal: that somehow, we might find common ground.

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