The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Mansa Musa: Welcome to this edition of Rattling the Bars. I’m your host, Mansa Musa. In African tradition, we have what is known as the griot. The griot is a storyteller, but more importantly, the griot is one that translate our oral history into telling events, activities, and monumental accomplishments of African people. Today we have a griot, but more importantly, we have a revolutionary griot. We have a woman that has been inspired to take and tell the stories of African people that’s under the 13th Amendment, but more importantly to educate people about the humanity of these people that we call prisoners and to give them a space so their voices can be heard and the value can be turned up. Liza Jessie Peterson is an activist and actress, playwright, poet, author, and youth advocate who has worked steadfast with incarcerated populations for more than two decades. Her critically acclaimed one-woman show, The Peculiar Patriot, was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, Elliot Norton, and a recipient of a Lilly Award. The play is also available on Audible. Liza performed a peculiar patriot in 35 prisons across the country, and a documentary ain’t to do you hear us voices from a plantation features her historical performance of the play at Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola. The documentary is in streaming on Paramount Plus and Amazon Prime and made a prestigious shortlist for an Academy Award. Welcome to Rattling the Bars, Liza.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Thank you for having me.

Mansa Musa: Okay, so let’s start by introducing yourself to our audience and tell ’em how you got in this particular space. I know you got a lengthy bow and we’ll get into that later on, but tell our audience a little bit about yourself and how you got in this space.

Liza Jessie Peterson: I, I’m a writer, actress, a poet. I like to call myself an artivist because I’m an artist, but I use my art as activism. So the two intersect, and I started, I really got into, I’ve always been an artist, but my activism in the car spaces dealing with incarcerated populations started in 1998 when I started teaching poetry and creative writing to incarcerated adolescent boys at Rikers Island in 1998, and they were 16, 17, 18 years old. And when I first got the assignment, I had never been to prison or jail. I didn’t know the difference between prison and jail. Again, this is in 1998, so mass incarceration was not even a term that people were using at the time. And I went in, not for any other reason, but to teach poetry as a teaching artist for three weeks, and then you get assigned to another school. So the first school that I was assigned was called Island Academy. An Island Academy happened to be at Rikers Island. And so my three week workshop turned into three years because all the teachers kept passing me around.

The workshop was so effective. And when I walked in the doors of Rikers Island in 1998, I knew nothing about the prison industrial complex outside of just kind of a little bit what I heard about. I heard about Mia, and I’m from Philly, so move, but I didn’t have an intimate understanding of the system. And it was literally a correctional officer who said to me in my first week there, he said, you don’t know where you are, do you? And I said, yeah, I’m at Rikers Island.

He said, no. He said, you’re on a modern day plantation. And he pointed to the boys who were in uniform who were 16, 17, 18 years old. He said, that’s the new crop. They’re the new cotton. Come on. And I said, Ooh, I never heard that. And he saw the shock look on my face, and he said, yeah. He said, when you go home, he said, you put prison industrial complex into the computer, see what you find, and next time I see you, we’re going to have a conversation about it. And I literally was boot kicked down the rabbit hole of all this information. So as I’m learning information, I’m becoming an evangelist because it’s new to me.

It’s shocking. It’s new and shocking. So I’m bringing that information into my classroom. So my poetry workshops became political ciphers with the boys. And so that’s why the workshop became so popular. And I became the poet in residence at Rikers Island.

Mansa Musa: And in every regard, unpack the impact that they had seeing out young men. How did that make you feel as you became more conscious? Because like you said, he made you aware of this industrial complex, but your consciousness was there beforehand, but this put you in a specific space of how did you see the relationship between the prison industrial complex and the new crop?

Liza Jessie Peterson: So when I first was at Rikers Island, and I’m looking at the boys, and they’re all black and brown, black and brown adolescent boys, and I could feel something, I knew something was, I said, this doesn’t feel right. It was a feeling, but I couldn’t articulate what I was feeling.

It’s like when you walk into a spider web, you can feel something on you, but you can’t see the web. So I knew I was in something, I could feel something, but I couldn’t articulate what it was until I did the research and I understood the intentionality of what I was seeing was an intentional web that was entrapping our young people and was criminalizing normal adolescent behavior because in 16, 17, 18 years old, their prefrontal cortex is still developing, right? So they’re challenging, they’re bucking up against authority. I mean, that’s the nature of adolescent development. But black and brown adolescents are criminalized for adolescent behavior and criminalize harshly and not given second chances most times.

Mansa Musa: Right? Yeah. The fact that we here in America was the one chance we had was taken away from some movies born here has chatter. But to your point, I think it was like a spiritual awakening that led you ultimately to where we at now. And without giving out too much information about the peculiar patriot, and it embodies so many facets, so much knowledge and so much emotion, so much information. Talk about that without giving it away. We want our audience to go see it. Can you talk about some of the characters and some of the different moving parts?

Liza Jessie Peterson: So The Peculiar Patriot is about a woman whose name is Betsy, Betsy Laquanda Ross. And it’s a play on Betsy Ross, who claims she sewed the flag, but we know that one of her enslaved women sewed the flag. We know that she took the credit for it. And so the main character is going to visit her best friend, Joanne, who’s incarcerated. So the play takes place over a course of visits on the visiting room floor of a women’s correctional facility. So the audience is eavesdropping in on an intimate homegirl conversation between two friends on the visiting one floor of prison.

Mansa Musa: And you know what, the interesting thing about that, and I was listening, looking at some of the clips, because you visit so many different prisons, I think over 40 and jails, and I was listening to some of the response that you was getting from the oils when you opened the floor up.

And one that stuck out to me the most was when I said something to you off camera when the guy said, you did a bit. And he said it was so much intentionality, almost like, what was your jail number? Where did you do your time at? That’s what we do when we locked up. You say, I was locked up. Where was you locked up at? But when he said that you did a bit able, why did you think he had that kind of perspective about that coming out, looking at that space and saying the resignation with this is, I can identify with this, but why you think he, wow, wow. I’m curious if that took you by surprise when he said it.

Or did you really think that it was going like, okay, I know the impact it’s going have. Wherever I go at, I know the impact it’s going to have on terms of awakening people’s conscience or giving a common identity?

Liza Jessie Peterson: Well, I never know the impact it’s going to have, so I never know what the impact is. But because I started working at Rikers Island in 1998 and worked there in many different capacities, and because I had traveled with the show and over 35 prisons in penitentiaries across the country, and I had a loved one who was incarcerated. So I’m on the visiting room floor. So all of that time that I spent in those carceral spaces professionally, personally, I had the jungle on me. And you could smell the jungle. That’s the simplest way I can put it. You know what I mean? I got you. I’m not writing from outsider who’s a spectator. I was in it and I wasn’t just a teaching artist, I was going to court dates, I was doing court advocacy, I was a counselor. So I’m in the day room playing spades in the, I’m in it, I’m on the top of the slave ship, and then I’m in the bows of the slave ship in an intimate level. So the only way I can, like someone said to me, he said, who’s incarcerated? He said, yeah. He said, you got the jungle on you and we could smell the jungle on you. So there’s an authenticity that just resonates, that is nothing but a feeling. It’s not anything that I can tangibly say. It is like when I went to Angola, they could smell the jungle on me. As soon as they saw me, they could smell the jungle on me.

Mansa Musa: And you know what I did 48 years prior to being released? And one of the things that, so we always imprison, always stro to have a connection to the community with the visiting aspect of the visiting floor. As you talk about, and you got long-term, the family members come in. So in the visiting room, the extended family is established in the visiting room. I see you every time I come because you going to see your brother, your mother, your husband, or somebody. So we visited the same time. Eventually we developed a relationship in terms of communication, but I know your loved one inside. So when you come in, I see, oh, he, that’s my man. We on the tier together. Then he introduce me to you. That’s my sister. Right? Okay, cool. This is my mother. But ultimately, as the years go on, we become like family. And that part of this, the story is people can identify with because they know the relationships that come out of that space, but that you always, when did you get to a point where you say, I got to do something with this experience. I got to put this experience in a package that to take it on the road to educate people, to let people feel my spirit, to merge with other spirits. When did you get to that point where you say, alright, this is where I’m at with this now. I’m going in writing a play, or I’m going to find some people that can help me. I’m going to build this out because it’s what the spirit do with the ancestors is called me to do.

Liza Jessie Peterson: It was a combination of two things. So when I was teaching at Rikers Island, I was in it. So I didn’t go to Rikers Island thinking, oh, this will be a cool story to write about as a job. It was a gig. I’m thinking, I’m just going to be there for three weeks. I mean, I’m out and I’m going to another school. And I wound up being there for three years. And then when I was in Rikers Island, at no point did I say, oh wow, this would be an interesting story. Because remember now I’m an evangelist. I’m learning about all this about the prison industrial complex. So I’m on fire. So I’m there bringing this information that I’m learning, this new information I’m bringing directly into the classroom. So as I’m learning, I’m teaching this information to my students. So I’m deep in the trenches of it. And I remember going the first time I went to go visit my boyfriend at the time who was upstate, and in New York, they have this area called Columbus Circle. And at Columbus Circle, you have to go there at 12 midnight because that’s where all the fleet of buses to take the family members to the different correctional facilities upstate. And this is my first time.

So I get down there and I see all these men, women, children with bags. It looked like people were going on a casino trip, and it was maybe about seven or eight fleet of buses, and they’re all going to travel to the upstate correctional facilities to visit their loved ones. And I remember thinking to myself in that moment, I said, this is the greatest love story. Never told. I said, because it’s nothing but love getting on these buses, traveling for eight hours to sit with their loved one for however many couple hours come on, and then get back on that same bus. And then we’re just walking through this city on the subway. We have no idea who we’re sitting next to or who we’re passing by on the street that was on that bus the night before. So I knew that that was the greatest love story that needed to be told. And that was the first instinct, the first time it hit me.

Because I’m teaching, I’m with the boys every day on the weekends, I’m going to visit my man. And I remember calling my best friend who’s a writer, because mind you, I’m an actress. So I’m still trying to pursue that dream as an artist. And I called her up one day and I said, I didn’t sign up for this. My whole life is in prison. I’m teaching in prison. I’m learning all this stuff about this industry. On the weekend, I’m going to go see my man. I said, I’m an actress, I’m supposed to be acting like, what is this? And I just broke down. I started crying. I was like, I did not sign up for this. I didn’t want this. And she literally, she laughed in my face on the phone and she said, are we allowed to curse from here? Yeah. She said, bitch, you got a story to tell click and hung up the phone. So I just got my journal out. And remember, I had been doing all this research, I’m with the boys, so I have relationships, personal relationships with my students. I’m on the bus, so I’m meeting the other women. That’s right. And family members. So I have relationships with the familiar faces of going to the same facility. And seeing the women and how’s your man doing? How you doing? How the kids, so there’s relationships in the building with the family members who are trooping to go see their loved one and then being the vision room floor. So I had all this in me and my cup just runneth over. So it really just took my best friend saying, you got a story to tell and hanging up on me. And I said, oh. And it just came out of me.

Mansa Musa: And the story you have told, because like I said earlier, we was talking off camera, the prison industrial complex is so vast, everybody got a story. But it’s how the story’s being told. And in this regard, this story never been told. It’s been told, I know from being locked up, the guy next door to me, I know his story in isolation. I know the relationships I built over 48 years in prison. I know individual stories, but you telling if it’s 2.5 million people in the prison industrial, you telling our story, every time you talk about this, you telling the story of somebody’s family in California, in Philadelphia, in Mississippi and Alabama. They get on these buses, they go through all this crazy hardship to visit their loved one. They endure unimaginable things in order to spend a little time with their family. That’s right. That’s right. And when they leave, they leave hurt. Happy, elated, but they never leave full filled. But now they got a story that’s being told that can give them some fulfillment because now I can say like, oh, that’s me right there. But okay, so now you find yourself in Angola. Alright, we going to go to the clip.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Because of the significance of the land I was on, it was more than a performance. It felt like a calling. It felt like a mission. Angola was a plantation. Just because you see prison with your physical allies, what do you see beyond that? Start questioning. Why do we send people to prison? And who’s actually here? My best friend, she said, you got a story to tell. Write that shit down. I just put the rage on the page. I’ve had to do something, man, we need help. I’ve been to 35 prisons across the country, but this I knew was historical. To be on a prison plantation, not just to perform, but to activate everybody, clung on to every word that she said. I’m telling you, that place erupted. You jumpstarted our hearts in our minds. Here was some truth that somebody couldn’t handle. Everybody knew why it was being shut down.

When I walked out on stage, I didn’t even give it any thought. It was instinctive. I said, babe, I was in the presence of a whole bunch of sleeping giants. And I said, oh, they awake now.

Mansa Musa: Okay, so talk about this experience and you call it rage on page, right? Revolutionary storytelling. Why was it rage on page? What made it rage on page? And is that a misnomer?

Liza Jessie Peterson: No, because when I started doing the research about the prison industrial complex, the information was so horrifying. The profiteering off of human suffering, it made me angry.

And then I’m literally seeing the outcome, seeing our children being warehoused. So I’m not just reading about it. I’m showing up every day at Rikers Island and I’m seeing our children 16, 17, 18 years old being warehoused. And so not only was the prison industrial complex warehousing the mothers and fathers, but now I’m seeing it warehousing the children in real time.

So that’s where the rage came from. I was incensed that this human rights atrocity was happening in our front yard. And it seemed to me like nobody was ringing the alarm outside of small academic circles. But I was like, we are the artists. This needs to be amplified. What artists do we amplify?

That’s our role. That’s right. And so the rage came from just the indignity, the injustice and the correlation with the similarity of the slave industry to incarceration, mass incarceration industry. And I said, oh, wow, they’re still enslaving us. So I mean, as a human being, you have to be enraged when you’re faced with injustice, when you’re reading about injustice, and then when you’re witnessing it in real time, I’m seeing it every day. I go to work, I’m looking at it, I’m reading about it, and then I go to work and I’m seeing it. So that was the rage. I put the rage on the page.

Mansa Musa: And so talk about when you went down in Angola and they shut you down, they shut down the play. And before then you had been to different places. So one this two part question. Did you ever get that response from any other institution? And then how did that make you feel when they did what they did In Angola, mainly when we know we on big Masters Plantation, this is one of the largest plantations, they still riding on horses with shotgun. They crop dusting with the windows open and killing out people. So we know where that background is, but talk about how shut you down when they came in and did what they did, what was your reaction and how did you process that?

Liza Jessie Peterson: So it was so interesting. I knew, well, first of all, I have to give a shout out to Norris Henderson. He is a triple og, deserves so much praise and credit. And he’s the one who brought me down. So I was there on his invitation and on his reputation.

Mansa Musa: Right, which is impeccable.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Yes, absolutely. So when I had the opportunity to go to Angola, I knew, and as I said in the documentary, which I hope the audience will have an opportunity to go and watch that I was on sacred ground because it was Angola, which is Angola Prison, which is Louisiana State Penitentiary. That’s the official name. But the reason why it’s called Angola is because it used to be a plantation and the majority of the enslaved Africans were from Angola in Africa. So they called the plantation Angola because the enslaved people were from Africa. And when it transferred into a prison, they kept the name of the plantation as a nickname for the prison. They called it Angola. So-

Mansa Musa: That’s a history lesson.

Liza Jessie Peterson: So that’s why they call it Angola. So I knew I was on sacred ground. I knew, and I did some research prior to me going to Angola, even before I even knew that I was going to have an opportunity. When I first wrote the play in 2001, 2000, I had read about the Angola three and did like 45 years in solitary confinement just because they were Black Panthers. And so I had had a little bit of background information about Angola. So to have opportunity to actually go to Angola I knew was special because of the land that I was on. I knew it was sacred ground. I knew my ancestors had toiled, that land had suffered in that land, their bones and their flesh was in that land.

So that’s what made it special for me. They had a resonance, but I didn’t know what was going to happen. I had no idea what should be down. I went down there with the intention to have my play filmed while I performed it. We had gotten permission to film it.

Mansa Musa: Right, right. And in terms of once they came in and said, shit is over with, Donald Trump was on 60 minutes of day Leslie Stall, and he got a question that he didn’t particularly key to say, oh, I’m finished. I’m out here. How did that make you feel in terms of what you leaving behind? Like you say, I got permission to come down here to film this. I’ve been doing this everywhere I’ve been going. So it’s not like you don’t know what’s coming. And like I’m saying, get a gun and kill all the police in the prison. I’m doing my piece. What did you feel when they shut you down though? And they said like, yeah, this old what? And I didn’t let you finish.

Liza Jessie Peterson: I was really hurt and angry because Norris came backstage and he said, we have to shut it down. There’s been an emergency. But standing right behind him was a white correctional officer. So I knew that. I knew it wasn’t Norris. Norris was just delivering the message. He was just a messenger. And so I looked at him and I said, oh, and I immediately knew what it was. I said, oh, it’s the information they couldn’t handle with the information about the play. And I was really upset because I had planned to talk back. I wanted to talk to the brothers afterwards. I have dialogue. I was going to go visit. They have a drama group. So I was going to go visit the drama group and just make a day of it, really having dialogue about art and just this art and storytelling. So I was really angry. I was very, very angry.

Mansa Musa: And you know what? And the George Jackson got a quote where he talk about the real dragon and he say, and this is what I got out of it, and I haven’t seen the piece yet, but my background in this space and being in the presence of artists. And like I told you, we had this activity where they was beating the drums and everybody was like, every time you had that boom, but they seen from the beginning that the veil of these guys’ eyes are going to be taking off. They seen from the beginning that, oh, we can’t teach ’em how to read because if we teach ’em how to read, they’re going to become informed. And they become informed. They’re going to be turner. They seen her Tubman spirit being ready to be generated. So yeah, they had to get you out here. It ain’t had to do with nothing other than that because of that environment and because just like you say, it’s sacred ground, it’s hollow ground. And because hollow ground, they experienced the same thing we experienced. They experienced from the other side. It was your ancestors that did this.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Absolutely.

Mansa Musa: And you should be in internal fear all the time. So when you come to work, you come to work with, am I going to go home tomorrow? Not because somebody, you got that kind of instinct that something going on in the environment, but you know that at any given moment this thing could flip. So when somebody come down, you diffusing the fabricate. But talk about, because you talked about the transformative aspect of being an actress, and we know that like Amir Barack, we have Austin Wilson, we have people that wrote plays that later became movies and came in a theater. Fences. Talk about in this regard the transformative aspect of it from your perspective in terms of being an actress and the transformative aspect of the theater and things of that nature. If I’m clear on my question, when you say transformative aspect, you’re talking about me personally or the transformative aspect that it has on audiences? On audiences. Well, the beauty of theater and the power of theater is that audiences are seen. They can see themselves. And when people can see themselves, art touches the heart. And when you can touch the heart, then you can transform and change consciousness. And when you can change consciousness, that can transform and change action. But it starts, but art goes to the heart. You have to touch the heart. So that’s the power of theater. And even in film is to, when you see yourself, there’s a power in seeing a reflection of yourself or an aspect of yourself being dramatized that has a healing and inspiring capacity.

Mansa Musa: It relates to that. Let’s talk about the black culture production as a vehicle for black liberation in terms like that, the theater and the transformative. Can you make a connection between that and liberation, black people’s liberation, raising people’s awareness that they become a space where they start looking at self-determination. They start looking at taking control over their lives. Because I seen, oh yeah, I seen Liza, I seen a play. And the guy told you, go back and research this. I said, oh, I seen that. I just came on the whim. Somebody said, oh yeah, let’s go down and see that. And I go down and see, now I could leave. I said, I heard her say something about plantation, prison, industrial complex. Next thing you know, I’m a social activist. I done been moved enough to say, I’m looking for places to put my energy. I want to be involved much like yourself. Do you see that coming out of this space?

Liza Jessie Peterson: Absolutely. Absolutely. Art or the kind of art that I create, my intention is to activate, to activate inspiration, to activate healing, to activate consciousness. And again, I never know what the activation is going to look like, but all I have, but when I’m writing and I’m creating, I’m performing… My intention is to activate. And I’ll share a story about what happened after Angola. Brother Norris shared this with me, brother Norris Henderson. So after my experience at Angola Penitentiary, which I hope the audience will go and watch, go watch that documentary.

Mansa Musa: We watch and we watch.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Watch Angola. Do You Hear Us? Is streaming on Paramount Plus and Amazon Prime. So after that experience, about two years later, our short documentary, 26 Minutes comes out. So Norris Henderson, he had a screening of the documentary of Angola for his community at his vote, voices of the Experience down in Louisiana. He does outreach work with the community. So maybe about a hundred people were in the audience. And so he said, of the people who are sitting in the audience watching the documentary, he said, how many of you all were in the chapel the day she performed, about seven men raised their hand, their home. So the men who were home started giving testimony. And this is what blew my mind, talk about activation. One man said, he said, after you left, because it created an uproar, not just in the chapel, but throughout the entire plantation because they were live streaming it. So the men who were not in the chapel, they were watching it on the tv, in the housing area.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Listen, listen, listen. So the whole plantation was activated. So he said the lines for the phones was the longest we ever seen them, right? I said, Ooh. And he said, prior to that day, he said, maybe one or two men will be released a year. That’s it. He said, but you had activated the whole plantation to the point where Norris, now he had already done the groundwork, A community activist. So he had already identified candidates in the upcoming election who were for prison reform. So all he did was take that electric energy from the show. And he just steered it. And he said, okay, y’all want to do something? He says, you tell your family members to vote for these judges. You tell your family members to vote for this prosecutor. You tell your family members to vote for this sheriff. And so as a result, through their family members, now, the men couldn’t vote, but their family members could. They elected two black female judges. They unseated an incumbent sheriff.

And they elected a progressive prosecutor. So cases that were ignored and were just languishing, when you go to appeal, they can ignore the appeal. That’s right. The two black female judges who were in the audience at the screening, they said, well, at least let’s give these appeals redressed. Let’s at least look at them. Yeah, let’s look at, they may not have merit, but at least they deserve to be, get a second chance to at least be seen.

Mansa Musa: Right. Get a second chance.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Exactly. 300 men came home. So my director, the director of the film, and we looked at each other, we said, wait a minute, this is not because of us. They said, oh yeah, it was a combination. You, your art activated, created this electricity of awakening, the sleeping giant. The infrastructure of the political framework was already there. So Norris just said, he just steered it, said, we put all that energy, you put it right here. And that’s what they did. And they were able to liberate themselves.

Mansa Musa: That’s a powerful story right there. And like I said, I interviewed Norris, I interviewed his collective down there, him and another guy. So I know

Liza Jessie Peterson: Chico.

Mansa Musa: Yeah. So I know their attitude and I know how intentional they are about doing things. And they’re doing some remarkable work in Louisiana

Liza Jessie Peterson: In the Jim Crow South.

Mansa Musa: Oh yeah. That’s a thick layer that he’s navigating. And like she said, he was able to get some essential places changed because of his activation, his activities. But more importantly, you ignited the energy that made people want to do something. Yeah, want to do, I was locked up always. This was something that we always try to do when we locked up. We always try to get legislation changed. We always try to mobilize our family. So this is a common practice in the prison industrial. This is our response to what’s going on in prison. Industrial comp. This is our response. And I try to impact policy to make a change. Whereas though now, like in Maryland, the doors is being opened because of our activism. So it’s like Lord has been passed that now people can stand up and get another chance. But talk about what’s the future of the peculiar patriot? Are you planning on expanding it, add more to it, bring other people in it? Where you at with that? Talk about that.

Liza Jessie Peterson: So the future of the Peculiar Patriot. Well, I started the prison tour in 2003, and my first tour was at Rikers Island, and I toured it in 35 prisons in penitentiaries across the country. And then in 2017 was when it got its first traditional American off-Broadway theatrical production. So from 2003 to 2017, theaters were not fucking with me. Right.

But in 2017, the National Black Theater in Harlem, they opened up their doors, showed to production, loved. Absolutely, absolutely. I love the National Black Theater, Barbara and Tears Legacy Theater and with her daughter and is now running with Jonathan. So I’ve done several productions of it in different theaters. So now I’m at the point because when people see the play, they’re seen not only are incarcerated population scene, but the family members of the incarcerated are seen, told from their perspective. So many and students are learning, family members are seen. And there’s so many communities that want and need to see this play. I’m one, it’s a one woman show. I can’t be everywhere. I can’t go to, there are other incarcerated populations who I want to see this play as well. So what’s next is the dream is to film the peculiar patriot play so that it can have a life outside of me physically being on stage. I don’t have the capacity to. It’s gone after I leave Baltimore. The play is going to New York. It’s going to be a New York Theater workshop at an off-Broadway theater at the end of April. It’ll be there for six weeks. So the goal, the dream, the vision is to film the play so that it can be a network special that people can watch.

And then it can go to all the communities. And I don’t have to be there in person to perform it. I cannot do that.

Mansa Musa: And you know what? In every regard, that’s exactly what need to be done. Because the conversations that come out of it is, it kind of reminds me as you talked about it, when Jesse Jackson ran for president. He didn’t win. But what happened was he went all across the country and everybody registered voters. And in the black community in particular, Maxine Ward got elected to a position because after he left, they was sitting back saying like, well, we got all these elected registers. What’s the next thing to do? The next thing to do is to start taking over these offices, these places, on all levels. So this is the same conversation that’s going to come out of this. Okay, we look at this, our money’s going into building these bohemoth places we call prisons. Taxpayers money is being misused and misrepresented. You got people that’s hungry. So now you have a conversation about what this is. And now the family member say like, you know what? I can change this and get my family member out.

Liza Jessie Peterson: And that’s the other part of it too, that if this play activated the incarcerated population and then the men activated their family members. And there are a lot of community activists who are doing the same work that Norris is doing all over the country. So art has the ability to activate and to get the attention. You were talking about you and your comrades when you were down. It might’ve been like a small community circle of y’all. But you see a play and you have more of the general population kind of awakening to maybe things that you had already been saying. But then you have artist coming to reiterate what you were saying and go, oh wow. You know what? That’s right. What you were saying is right. So it’s just kind of that affirmation of what the groundwork. And so the power of having a film, having this play filmed is that I want to show that art and activism is a blueprint for liberation. And to show what Norris, he already had the groundwork done, laid down. He already had the candidates targeted, targeted of who to vote for, and then how an incarcerated population can become a powerful voting block through their family.

Mansa Musa: And in DC, speaking of that, in DC, we got the right to vote return census. No matter where you at, you can vote. If you’re a DC resident, no matter where you at in the country, you can vote. So we in the process of trying to do something with that. But is there anything you want to talk about before we close out? Anything you want to say? I really appreciate this. I was sitting back thinking that when we was talking about the youth in Rikers Island, I was saying, how would I describe that? Would that be maternal? Would it be a maternal? Then I said, nah, that ain’t maternal. That’s the matriarch. That’s what that is. It shows itself in maternal ways, but it’s really the matriarchal aspect of what goes on with our women. And no matter what they tell you say when a woman present is present, I’m talking about being present and understand where she at in terms of who she are, who she is. Everybody falls in line.

Liza Jessie Peterson: Oh, they were my sons. Yeah.

Mansa Musa: Everybody falls in line because I know this is what I know. And you said it said this is a love story, but you represent the love. So it don’t make no difference how we look at it. When we see you in this role, we see love. And my Conrad, she just got a doctor’s degree and she did a part called Black Love. And when she explained it, and she was representing her thesis, representing her doctoral, like when she started explaining black love, they was like, everybody was in awe because she was saying like, this is exceptional. So when as a black woman, you express an exception. But I digress. Is there anything you want to say before we close?

Liza Jessie Peterson: No, I’m just grateful for this conversation and I hope that the audience will watch the documentary and you, if there’s anybody out there that can support filming The Peculiar Patriot and making the dream a reality, holler at me.

Mansa Musa: Holler at you. Girl. We want to thank you, Liza, for coming in and engaging us in this conversation and ushering our ancestors. We love our ancestors. Absolutely. And we love that our ancestors are proud of us for representing what the spirit that they generate throughout this country.

Liza Jessie Peterson: That’s right.

Mansa Musa: Liza is the epitome of that in terms of identifying the spirituality of our ancestors and putting it out there in a manner that anybody can relate to that got a brain. And if you’re in the DMV, come check out The Peculiar Patriot at the Baltimore Center Stage. This is the closing weekend for it. And we ask that you continue to support The Real News and Rattling the Bars. Guess what? We are actually the real news.