Episode 106: Black Zombie (2026)

You know, it's funny, I have to admit, too, I'm almost ashamed.

I was 40 years old, and through white meat appetizer, I learned that there were that many slaves buried in Washington Park.

I was not aware of that.

And I thought I was pretty, you know, for someone my age, my skin color, my background, all that stuff, I thought I was pretty aware of black history in this country.

Nope, had no idea.

I was like, okay, I'm not nearly as with it as I thought.

Oh, yeah.

And there's there's surprise.

I learned a lot, too.

I think for me, the even more surprising thing was that there were slaves in Philadelphia at all.

Right.

I grew up, you know, my high school education kind of assumed the North was all slave free and the South was all slaves all the time.

But it was way more complicated than that.

And yeah.

But no, one of the fun things about this project has been learning about black history and specifically Philadelphia black history, which is just fascinating.

To that point, I remember probably around 25 or something, I remember reading a book of essays that had been collected.

And one of them was about the last lynching to happen above the Mason-Dixon, which was in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, about a few miles from where I live.

And that blew my mind just how recent that was and how, I mean, no lynching, but just how barbaric it sounded in the description, right? And it was like, oh, wow, I didn't realize it was...

That reason.

And then, of course, you start looking into it and you're like, oh, wait, Pennsylvania, that ain't there's plenty of that element, you know, even today.

Oh, yeah.

There are there are sundown towns, I think, to this day in Pennsylvania.

And for those of you who don't know, a sundown town is a place where if you are black and you're still there when the sun goes down, your life is basically forfeit.

There's a great scene about it in the pilot episode of Lovecraft's Country, if you ever get the chance.

Yeah.

You know, it's funny, I have to admit, too, I'm almost ashamed.

I was 40 years old, and through white meat appetizer, I learned that there were that many slaves buried in Washington Park.

I was not aware of that.

And I thought I was pretty, you know, for someone my age, my skin color, my background, all that stuff, I thought I was pretty aware of black history in this country.

Nope, had no idea.

I was like, okay, I'm not nearly as with it as I thought.

Oh, yeah.

And there's there's surprise.

I learned a lot, too.

I think for me, the even more surprising thing was that there were slaves in Philadelphia at all.

Right.

I grew up, you know, my high school education kind of assumed the North was all slave free and the South was all slaves all the time.

But it was way more complicated than that.

And yeah.

But no, one of the fun things about this project has been learning about black history and specifically Philadelphia black history, which is just fascinating.

To that point, I remember probably around 25 or something, I remember reading a book of essays that had been collected.

And one of them was about the last lynching to happen above the Mason-Dixon, which was in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, about a few miles from where I live.

And that blew my mind just how recent that was and how, I mean, no lynching, but just how barbaric it sounded in the description, right? And it was like, oh, wow, I didn't realize it was...

That reason.

And then, of course, you start looking into it and you're like, oh, wait, Pennsylvania, that ain't there's plenty of that element, you know, even today.

Oh, yeah.

There are there are sundown towns, I think, to this day in Pennsylvania.

And for those of you who don't know, a sundown town is a place where if you are black and you're still there when the sun goes down, your life is basically forfeit.

There's a great scene about it in the pilot episode of Lovecraft's Country, if you ever get the chance.

Yeah.