The Sunday Interview: Black Moses: A Saga of Ambition and the Fight for a Black State with Caleb Gayle

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Welcome to the Straight White American Jesus Sunday interview.

I'm Leia Payne, author of God gave rock and roll to you a history of contemporary Christian

music and host of Spirit and Power, Charismatics and Politics in American life.

Today, I am speaking with Caleb Gale about his new book, Black Moses, Asaga of Ambition

and the Fight for Black State.

Gale is an award-winning journalist.

He's also a professor at Northeastern University and a contributing writer at the New York

Times magazine.

His work has also appeared in the Atlantic, Time, the Guardian and many other prominent

news outlets.

Black Moses has been longlisted for the National Book Award for Nonfiction, named one of the

Washington Post's best nonfiction books of the year and was selected as a New York Times

editor's choice.

In this powerful work, Gale tells the remarkable story of Edward McCabe, a black political

leader who attempted to establish a black state within the United States.

A bold vision shaped by the hopes of reconstruction and ultimately thwarted by racism, politics and

competing claims to land in the American West.

Welcome, Caleb Gale, to the Straight White American Jesus Sunday interview.

Thank you for having me.

Actually, I want to start with a question about how you decided to introduce the characters,

the main characters in Black Moses because it's very cinematic.

The introduction to the book that when I first started to read this excellent, excellent

book, I enjoyed that they're listed as cast of characters.

Was that your choice?

How did you come to frame this in such cinematic terms?

Yeah, I mean, you know, you and I are both, you know, creatures of the Academy and so

as such, we don't usually think that those sorts of terms.

I, this book initially was, or at least, presented the first kind of draft of it.

It was about 30,000 words of an intro about Quakers and questions of fugitivity.

And my editor was like, no, editors take all the fun stuff out.

They do.

They do.

And so as the book was revised heavily over the course of a couple of years, I had buried

the scene of Edward McCabe, the main character, getting shot at.

I buried it like 50,000 words deep.

And my editor was like, well, doesn't that just encapsulate everything?

And so then as it felt more and more and more cinematic, we then realized that it would

be really helpful for the reader, just for their knowledge, so they could follow.

If they could see this cast of characters, almost like the rolling credits before and

after a film, and that, that's what really was, that, that, I would love to take credit

for that.

But that was really the creation of my editor who was like, all of what you've presented

to us sucks.

How about you make it suck less by ensuring that people can follow along?

Yeah, editors.

Well, I think that's very helpful.

In fact, the thing that I was picturing, and maybe because of, it's the setting, is

I was picturing the kind of old western where you get a little picture of someone.

Maybe you get a little real and then their, their face is frozen and it's seepia-toned.

And so that's what I was picturing as I opened the book.

This, this is helpful feedback because that's what we were aiming for.

At least that's what the, that's what the archival material lent itself to us.

And so it's great to hear that that resonated with you in that way.

For people who haven't read Black Moses yet, hopefully by the end of this interview,

you will have ordered your copy.

There are some very well-known characters, people that almost need no introduction.

Theodore Roosevelt is, is one that most people know who that is, Abraham Lincoln, heard

of him.

But you're introducing readers to a figure who, I think most Americans have never heard

of, Edward McCabe.

And I would love for you to share first of all what drew you to history.

And why you think someone with such ambitious political goals has largely disappeared from

mainstream histories of the United States.

And also I'm thinking of the American West since we brought a western into it.

What drew you to Edward McCabe?

Sure.

So I think there are two things that drew me one, which is like some thematic obsession

that I have, and then two, which is kind of what I'm going to call the luck of the Irish.

So the thematic draw that I have, so I'm really attracted to losers or people who have

that history as kind of deemed as losers, right?

Edward McCabe, where I repressed McCabe, had this grand vision as is clear with the subtitles

of my book to create a Black State in the American West, specifically in the Oklahoma

Territory, at the conclusion of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, right after

Reconstruction had faltered and as redemption had rolled through the American South, introducing

Jim Crow and really decimating the dreams of a lot of African-Americans.

So that's kind of that I am deeply interested in people who dream very big and lose very

big.

And McCabe was that because that feels very iconically American that someone would envision

something so quote-unquote crazy and get really close, but very much like Icarus, get those

wings singed on the way up and down.

So that's why, and I think that's also part and parcel why history is relatively obscured

from view, even if in the remains of what he built were 50 Black towns, 13 of which

dole stand tall in Oklahoma, several of which dole stand tall in Kansas, that his work

was really to try and architect a narrative of Black belonging in America that was done

by their own hands.

And I think that that runs quite counter to the narrative of Black people, especially

at that time.

So that's one, too, this is the look of the Irish, is that I long time ago saw McCabe

a plaque in Dothry, Oklahoma where he had his office.

And I just saw he was an Irish or a Scottishman because no Black man that I would ever met

would be like, yeah, I want my own Black State die would run as the governor or senator or

congressman will vote for all three, I don't know.

And so to some extent, I think that's what really drew me is that this loser who I thought

was not a Black guy was in fact Black and got close but ultimately failed.

That's what attracted me most.

I love thinking about him as a in a long line of dreamers and maybe even alongside Utopian

American Utopian communities.

So the United Community or John Alexander Dowie.

So I think that's I love thinking about him that way because it sort of gives you a road

map for that audaciousness because it is kind of out there to just say, let's do it.

But Americans are kind of out there definitely, definitely, especially relative to their peers

all over the world.

And you mentioned Onida, like of course, not only is he kind of a an inheritor in the sense

that's the Dia Hartner would talk about where we choose our inheritances, I mean, his who

we believe to be his pastor, who's featured very prominently really on the book, Henry

Highland Garnett gets a lot of his training in abolitionism in as a part of the United

community, right?

He's he's part and parcel a an inheritor both by choice and by lineage, if you will, of

this this effort to try and reach for something as close to Utopian as possible.

But to also do so in a way that that also positioned him in a narcissistic way, a lovingly

narcissistic way as the progenitor and leader of said Utopian effort.

It makes a lot of sense in a lot of ways because you have to have a pretty healthy sense

of self to to make such a claim.

So I totally understand that puts him kind of in the same territory as a Joseph Smith,

those types.

You have to have a vision that people want to participate in.

One of the things that I think is really distinct about him is being a black American who

wants to create something new in the American political system in the American political

project.

And I you talk about this a little bit in the book.

I wonder if you could tell me or tell us a little bit about how his vision compared

to his contemporaries in this era.

What was what was really striking about what he was trying to do versus the many other

efforts at black liberation that were going on that might not have done it in this way.

Certainly.

Yeah.

So I think the easiest way to answer the question is that the question of the quote unquote

Negro problem had been attempted to be answered by so many people.

And in this book, you're not just going to stay in the American West.

You're going to go to library.

You're going to go to Haiti.

You're going to go to a lot of different places because there were efforts made on behalf

of black people often without their consultation to create homes for them elsewhere, right?

To dispatch them outside of the United States to go elsewhere and part of the innovation

that McCabe is offering or offered was that how about we do it right here in the United

States of America.

And I can solve your Negro problem by consolidating them all into one constituency in America

within the Oklahoma territory.

And that is the peculiarity, if you will, of the McCabe idea is that, well, I'm going

to take it under my own consultation to take my counsel from other black people here in

America.

The difference is is that even though Haiti didn't work, Liberia didn't work, they were

supported heavily by both private and public interests.

And part because it wasn't a black person leading set effort, right?

It was, it was in many cases white guys in rooms deciding probably over some good bourbon

I would imagine that let's figure out a solution to the Negro problem that doesn't require

much of us.

In fact, it requires expelling them from this place in order to see a future come that we

might, might not actually agree with.

There were two iconic Western images that were in my mind when I was reading this book.

One, Gold Rush, thinking about the Gold Rush, the other transcontinental railroad, its

construction.

And I was thinking about that kind of that free pacing of, I mean, it was closing the

frontier.

It was making, you know, commerce and military, industrial military efforts a lot more

doable for this growing American empire.

And then I was thinking, I had never really thought about the, in some ways, the pace

at which Americans, both black and white, were trying to adjust to post civil war life

and what that would look like, what role black people would play in the United States.

So your book helped me think about what must have felt, I wonder if in some ways it felt

sort of frantic, like how, like, how do we do, so I loved the pacing that you, yeah,

thank you.

And I just wonder, with that Western imagery in mind, I wonder if you could talk a little

bit about how McCabe's work is situated in this concept of the Western frontier and

how his vision was.

Yeah, you know, without taking your listeners through Aryan historiography, which should,

you know, don't, if you ever hear someone starting to go into that, you can just push pause

and move on.

What I will say is, is that, look, we're probably all familiar, even if we don't attribute

it to this guy, Horace Greeley, we're familiar with the Go West young man, right?

Right.

Go, go try and figure it out, strike out on your realm.

These parts of America are settled, but the West is completely unsettled.

And we know that that was false part of the, the conflictual nature of McCabe's project

is that he called it the Negro colonization scheme of Oklahoma.

And for the listeners who might not be aware, there were a lot of people already in Oklahoma

who were promised the Oklahoma and Indian territories as the last instance in which the

United States government would interfere with their lives as indigenous people and nations.

And so as such, what made it that much more kind of quote unquote iconically American,

a iconically American Western story is that he was doing what a lot of people in these

Westerns do.

Oh, yeah, come on out.

It's going to be great, right?

Far and away.

Tom Cruise and Nicole.

I thought of that when I was like, exactly, Daniel Plainview and there will be blood.

It's going to be a Kormac McCarthy and blood and reading it.

It's going to be amazing, but there were already lives, customs, rules, laws, nations,

people with generations of history and attachment to those places.

And so what makes it iconically American isn't that they were destroying any one person's

dreams is that McCabe was really kind of representing the collision of many people's

dreams in an environment that had been constructed to be very suited to kind of zero some politics.

So that if any black person won that meant that several other indigenous populations

or white people or poor white immigrants lies as portrayed by Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise

and Far and away, like it means that someone has to lose when actually there could have

been perhaps an opportunity for lots of shared abundance.

So even though I wrote this book in part to kind of get away from our toxic zero sum politics,

I found myself in meshed it that just 100 plus years before.

It's really fascinating and it's fascinating how Oklahoma, I don't know of any other place

where this would have been possible, but when I think about other forms of American expansion

and other forms of colonizing forces, this one particular place, you can see that it's

a land of opportunity, but then it all for someone like McCabe, but then it's also, it sort

of makes what had been happening in a variety of context for indigenous people, it makes

it so literal, like this land is just gone, yeah, yeah, that's really fascinating.

I did think of Far and away when I was, when I was reading this because I was a certain

age when that movie came out and it took you in, I mean, it takes everyone in when you

watch it.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

Absolutely.

That last image where their hands are in the stake.

Yes.

And I haven't seen it in 20 years and I thought of that when I was reading your work.

I wonder, one of the things that I found to be so impressive about McCabe was how he was

able to, and I just want to emphasize how close he came to doing, to succeeding in his goal,

which is an incredible accomplishment and how savvy he was about coalition building and

lobbying and political maneuvering.

And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about his skill on that front.

I was very impressed.

Yeah.

I think what, you know, first of all, thank you.

But also what I think is instructive about McCabe is that I didn't find him to be a lofty

or a tourical, you know, person who believed that all of the power came through rhetoric.

In fact, he's quite sparing in his public remarks, but quite stated in his political actions.

Like he was focused explicitly, part of the reason he got so close is that he wasn't offering

these lofty speeches at the, you know, said Republican or Democrat national convention.

No.

In fact, he was just saying, I am going to advertise explicitly to black people.

I'm going to get as many black people oftentimes by stretching the truth and making it seem

as if Oklahoma would be easier to quote unquote, colonize.

I'm going to just say this is my town.

I'm going to call it that I'm going to actively start to put the pieces in place, such

that even if the president of the United States doesn't say, and here is McCabe's land

and it shall be called black Oklahoma, even if that didn't happen, that when it came time

for Oklahoma and Indian territory to become the state of Oklahoma, he felt as if if I could

just get enough black people here, I will be undeniable that the black state will be inevitable

if I can get enough black people.

If I can get a university founded in the name and honor of a good friend of his John Mercer

Langston, he thought if I can just start putting the pieces together such that it's not, it's

not a function of distant academic or opinion punditry.

It was much more a function of organizing on the ground that he thought would get him

even closer and admittedly it did, right?

It got that much closer and probably closer than we ever have been and closer than we ever

will be ever again to anything of the sort.

I'm really fascinated by the idea that he has a lineage to the United community, these

visionary upstart type innovators and I wonder if you could talk a little bit more about

the influences that would have made, how do you make McCabe in this era?

What are the ingredients that go into making someone with that kind of vision and also that

style of leadership because you're right.

When you think about the charismatic figures that would create such a project in other

settings, you think of, you know, sage on the stage type of person.

What made him?

Him.

Yeah.

I think a few things.

One, he was born far and away, just keep on using that, far and away from the horror

of American slavery.

He was born in New York.

He became a, you know, a feature on Wall Street.

He advised people in Chicago.

He was relatively unattached from that experience too.

He wasn't doing it alone.

What this ends up being is, even though it's called Black Moses, it's that at the time

and your listeners who will soon hopefully become my readers, will encounter people

who were telling themselves and telling reporters at the tail end of Reconstruction, look

like we've tried Lincoln, we've tried Jackson, tried all of these people, but every man

is his own Moses.

It's the direct quote from a formerly enslaved person who is like, I'm getting the heck

out of the South.

I'm going to the American West for some, some of the opportunity and I'm not just doing

it similar or akin to what we would see in the Great Migration during the 20th century.

It was that we were going to build explicitly to construct our own place because we're

done trying these other figures who might not be able to deliver to us this total salvation

that we're looking for here in America.

And the last thing is that what really, really made him was examining the failed projects

from some of his other peers, right?

There are the blanche bruises, right, the very first black person elected to the US Senate

to serve a full term from Mississippi, Governor Pinchback, Lieutenant Governor Pinchback

who then became Governor of Louisiana, Pinchback.

The work of people like John Mercer Langston, that he would often go about naming towns

or streets in the towns that he would create after some of these figures.

But in many cases, they were providing case studies through reconstruction and its failure

that presented to him clear examples of what not to do or what not to count on.

So to some extent, I think he was an astute learner of his peers propped up by a lot of

his peers who decided to enter into that project with him, the thousands of black people

that came over to really help make the case on his behalf.

But then also, he grew up incredibly privileged, like incredibly, incredibly privileged.

And I think that offers a very different lens through which he likely viewed what was

possible.

I think I really appreciate that point about him growing up in a privileged setting

because he would have had some insight into how bureaucracies work and things like that.

And I think at least, I think I could see someone who has had a certain amount of privilege

being able to analyze political realities in a way that would be helpful for his organizing.

But of course, this story, I don't want to spoil too much of it, but it's not a surprise

to say that there is no independent black state in the United States to any listeners that I know of,

but his vision ultimately collides with forces of white settlement, political ambition, racism.

And I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what his particular failure.

So he learns from other failed projects what the failure that he experiences tells us

about the limits of those reconstruction era possibilities.

Yeah, I think that it was the main lesson that he learned in real time was that America,

without giving away too much, was that America made its bet and its bet was not on the future

that he wanted, but it was on the South. And there are tons of really phenomenal works

that your listeners can kind of go read, but in Monty Perry's South to America as an example,

where you really can't understand America without understanding the power that the American South

has had for many generations. And it's really forced over the course of this country's history,

the force, the hand of the government to contort itself to exceed to the wishes of it.

So Oklahoma decided when Oklahoma was becoming a state not necessarily to depart from

the lessons of the Americans out, but rather to align itself with the American South.

There's a reason why part of the book, both books that I've written kind of contemplates the

moments at which Oklahoma became the American South, where it embraced Jim Kroflossi,

not just in a in a broad way, but explicitly through its very first set of laws that it passed.

It wasn't, you know, water rights or what kids should do.

Other things you'd expect in that.

Other things you'd expect.

Some kind of community.

Even in examples of the American South, right, you can look in Arkansas, you can look in Texas,

you can look in Missouri, like a lot of the first laws that they passed had nothing to do with

the divisions based upon race, but in Oklahoma, they decide we're going to bare hug this because

like we have done throughout American history, is that we're going to bend to the worst impulses

of the American South that we can imagine, and that's exactly what they did.

And that's what then did make Abe ultimately.

This is fascinating to me as someone who I was raised on the West Coast, lived for a number of

years in national Tennessee.

Oh, no.

Yes.

And one of the confusing things to people who are not Southern is that Southernness is so much

more than a geographical look.

Correct.

Exactly.

So frame of mind, I was very confused about that.

And I think if you just look on a map where Oklahoma is, you can see how it,

you can see that in action.

Yes.

So I, that is very helpful.

I can appreciate it didn't necessarily have to be that way.

No.

I think that's really a helpful takeaway from, from, from this book in particular.

So one of the things that I've been thinking about listeners to this, this podcast

are really interested in the intersection of religion and politics and race and ethnicity and

so for listeners today, especially in a moment when conversations about race and democracy

and self-determination are so intense.

What do you think McCabe's story reveals about the unfinished project of American democracy?

That's a witty question.

And I'm, I'm certain that-

In a minute.

I'm certain there's a dissertation that I'd love to read about that.

I think what's interesting to me is that I, I remember when I turned my book in and my agent

read it and my editor read it and they're like, whoop, that's a tragic tale.

And for me, I didn't see it as such.

I, I saw it as yet another attempt and an encouragement to keep on attempting.

I, you got to kind of imagine like America had in the, in the early phases of McCabe's efforts

to try and found a black state.

None of us currently are trying to do that.

We're, we're trying to hold on to existing laws on the record.

We're trying to not see the complete demolition of all diversity efforts.

We're, we're, we're holding on for things that have theoretically been agreed to in, in the law,

right?

Whereas McCabe was literally imagining and there is something very powerful about the imaginary

because it, it then extends what you then ask for, understanding that you might not get it.

And so to some extent, I, I found McCabe enlisting us long after he had gone

in this project of imagining what can we achieve, right?

What, what can be possible, right?

Not just, you know, how do we maintain contract rule fairness when it comes to the

issuing of vendor agreements at the state and local level for women and people of color?

It's not, it's not just that like we, we should dream a touch bigger than that.

Yeah, we should fight for those things.

Yes, we should aim to ensure a certain degree of fairness and equity,

along matters of race and identity.

But can't we possibly be doing more?

And it's not as if the, you know, the US government has asked federal troops like they did in the 1870s

to withdraw from places that were actively becoming more hostile towards black people.

We're not asking them to, to do some base level considerations of safety.

Perhaps then in that case, we should do more than just fight for these scraps because I think

what McCabe was offering or at least what he was aiming for was a much more abundant life,

right? A not, not just theoretically black people were free.

They were allowed to vote theoretically on paper.

But he was not satisfied with that modicum of opportunity.

He wanted more.

And so I think likewise to answer your very complex question,

hopefully somewhat succinctly, is that we should be dreaming for more.

We should be aiming for much more.

What I find fascinating about your response there is that it echoes something that I heard

the newly elected mayor of New York say recently about the left or progressives or Democrats.

I can't remember, which version he was talking about that they needed to take bigger swings

in terms of creating a vision.

And he compared national level politics in the DNC unfavorably to the RNC

by saying, hey, look, you know, on the right, they're, they've got vision.

And I don't really see that on the left.

So this is a really fascinating potential call to action in that regard.

So dream bigger dreams, because I was saying, yeah, I like that.

Do you have 10 more minutes?

Sure.

Okay, okay.

So I want to ask you one question and feel free.

I can take this out of the interview if you don't feel like you want to listen or respond to it.

But I was thinking about, because I've known you from this other podcast where you shared a lot

of your personal story, and I was thinking about your own family's history in Oklahoma and Tulsa.

And I wondered how, if you'd be willing to share how your personal background

informed the way that you wrote this book or even just the way that you approached McCabe.

I went, my so for listeners who aren't familiar, my family moved from New York

to Oklahoma when I was younger.

And like, we weren't in Florida, New York, or Westchester County,

or upstate, or Western New York, or Buffalo.

Like, it was a radical culture shock to go from New York, New York, to Tulsa, Oklahoma.

But what has always struck me, I mean, from the days after we moved, was that even though I

expected to not see one other black person, because I like you on listening to this podcast,

probably have a very distorted or myopic view of what Oklahoma was and is.

I just thought Oklahoma was a bunch of white people.

And to some great extent, it is, but I didn't realize that when I would see black people writing

horses to Walmart to go grocery shopping in the middle of a major city in Oklahoma, like Tulsa,

or Edmund, or what have you, Yukon, Oklahoma City, Lawton, Fort Sill, that they were harkening back,

whether they realize it or not, to a much grander story about the ways in which we

experimented with extending our dreams beyond what we thought, you know, was possible, right?

That it harkened back to a story where the very first black rodeo was founded just miles from

where I grew up in a town called Bolio, Oklahoma, which was created by black people who were once

family enslaved by the Muscogee Creek Nation, right? That sentence probably made your headspin.

Listener, but that's what happened that in fact, most of the PBR, the professional bullwriting

circuits, challenges, bulldogging, hogtiding were invented down the street by a bunch of black people.

Like that story is, is as odd as it is true. And so kind of, the task in many cases as

Imani Perry would say was not for the past to haunt me, but for me to haunt the past,

as a way of better understanding my present and future. So this entire book was very much inspired

by the eight-year-old kid who was bewildered when he would see an entire family of people

who shared my skin tone riding on horseback in the middle of the street, as we were driving on

set street. Well, one thing that I'm struck by is the power of media to shape our

imaginations. Of course, this shouldn't be a surprise, but I remember being, I was in like

honors high school history class when I was shown by my teacher, Mr. Ross, a picture of some of

the earliest pictures of cowboys. And there were not that many white people in a picture. And I

remember that being very big surprise to me, but of course that was because my imagination had

been shaped by 20th century American film and all of that. So I really appreciate that to that

to that point. This is such a cinematic book. Maybe this seems like a silly question,

but this should be made into a film for sure. And so we talked about a lot of deep and heavy stuff,

but I would like to know, who would you cast as Edward McCabe? Has anybody asked you that? Because

I want to know. Yeah, so that has been a topic of much discussion lately because of some

interest from several folks, both about this as well as the story that I wrote about the bully

rodeo. That one definitely needs to be a film. Okay, keep going, yes. But you know, I am so,

I don't know actually, you know, I think that there are what I find really interesting about

McCabe is that he was as committed to the doing as he was to the speaking. And he was so committed to

it that he was not the best father or husband as you will come to learn. And so to some extent,

you know, I could see like an Aaron Pierre playing him, right? The guy that you all might remember

from Rebel Ridge is going to be in the lantern series. I could likewise just as easily see a host

of other people. I could see, you know, John David Washington and others play, play him. But,

you know, I just, I don't know. That's a great question. And it's been the response that I've given

to people who actually do like need to know, like, who would you cast? And I am completely flummoxed.

I think even LaKite Stanfield, especially after seeing him. Yeah.

Did you just in the black Messiah? I could see Daniel Kuluya playing one of, one of McCabe's best

friends, AT Hall, Jr. So there are a lot of people who I could see playing a part, but admittedly,

I don't know. I had, I had a thought not for casting, but I was thinking about if I were watching

a movie about this, I almost wondered if his best friend's funny that you brought him up. They

appalled could make a good proxy for the viewer. Yeah. He's the character. Anyway, make it happen,

Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Cause he lived to over a hundred years old. He lived a really

long life was a newspaper man was kind of an iconic figure of Kansas and Pittsburgh politics. So,

oh, yeah, it'd be very interesting. I can see him telling his great, grandkids and make it happen,

Hollywood is what we're saying. I want to thank you for joining me. And to everyone who's

listening, please go out and buy Black Moses by Caleb Gale. And to find out more about Caleb's work,

check out his website, CalebGale.com. All right. I'm going to ask Caleb one more question.

Subscribers stick around. And if you are not a subscriber, today is the best time to sign up.

See the show notes to get access. Thank you for listening to the Sunday interview at

Straight White American Jesus. I'm Leah Payne, author of God gave rock and roll to you,

a history of contemporary Christian music. Find me at drlayapayne.com or at drlayapayne on

substack and most other social media platforms. Check out our website for the content schedule and

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