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WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh

0:21

Air Weekend. I'm Dave Davies. Stephen

0:24

Sondheim's 1981 flop

0:26

is now a Broadway hit. The

0:29

revival of Merrily We Roll Along

0:31

is nominated for seven Tony Awards. Today

0:33

we hear from two of those nominees,

0:35

Jonathan Groff, one of the show's

0:37

stars, and Maria Friedman, the director. Groff

0:40

has performed merrily about 300 times,

0:43

but he still gets emotional just

0:45

talking about the songs. I'm

0:47

thinking about a specific dialogue line.

0:49

It's just after... I can't talk

0:53

about it without crying. It's like

0:56

so beautiful. Also

0:58

MSNBC host Ali Velshi talks

1:00

about his ancestors' migrations from

1:03

a village in India through South Africa,

1:05

Kenya, and Canada. One of

1:07

the figures in the story is Mahatma Gandhi,

1:09

who knew Velshi's grandfather and had a powerful

1:11

influence on the family. That's

1:14

coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. This

1:18

is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Dave Davies.

1:21

Terry has today's first interview. I'll let

1:23

her introduce it. Stephen

1:25

Sondheim's 1981 musical, Merrily We Roll

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3:15

We roll along, closed after only 16

3:18

performances. Since then,

3:21

it's developed a cult following, and

3:23

now it's a Broadway hit with

3:25

seven Tony nominations, including Best Revival

3:27

of a Musical. The

3:29

person behind this new production is

3:32

my guest, first-time director Maria Friedman.

3:34

She's nominated for a Tony, as

3:37

are the three leads, Jonathan Groff,

3:39

who's also with us, Daniel Radcliffe,

3:41

and Lindsay Mendez. This

3:43

is Friedman's directorial debut. She's

3:46

also an Olivier Award-winning actress.

3:49

She worked closely with Stephen Sondheim.

3:52

She co-starred in a London revival

3:54

of Merrily in the mid-'90s, under

3:56

Sondheim's direction. She also had leading roles

3:58

in British productions, including The Devil Wears Prada, and The of

4:00

the Sondheim musical's Passion, Sunday in

4:02

the Park with George and Sweeney

4:04

Todd. She became good friends with

4:07

Sondheim and he became the godfather of one

4:09

of her children. Jonathan Graff

4:11

was nominated for a Tony for his

4:13

performance in Hamilton as King George III

4:16

and for his performance in Spring Awakening.

4:19

He's also known for his performances

4:21

in movies and TV shows including

4:24

Frozen, Mindhunter, Looking and Glee. People

4:27

sometimes complain that Sondheim doesn't write

4:29

hummable melodies, which isn't true, but

4:32

it's particularly not true of the

4:34

songs in Merrily as you'll

4:36

hear when we play excerpts from the new

4:38

cast recording. The story

4:41

begins with three old friends. Jonathan

4:43

Graff plays Frank, a composer turned

4:45

film producer. Daniel Radcliffe

4:47

plays Charlie, a lyricist and playwright

4:49

who wrote songs with Frank and

4:52

thinks Frank abandoned his calling as

4:54

a composer to make money as

4:56

a crowd pleasing movie producer. Lindsay

4:59

Mendez plays Mary, a bestselling novelist

5:01

turned theater critic who's become bitter

5:03

and drinks way too much. Charlie

5:06

and Mary feel abandoned by

5:08

Frank. The story spans 20

5:10

years starting in 1976. Each

5:13

scene goes further back in time until

5:16

1957 when

5:18

the friends first meet. Let's

5:20

start with Jonathan Graff singing Old Friends

5:22

from the new cast recording. Hey,

5:27

old friend, are you okay?

5:31

Old friend, what do you

5:33

say? Old friend,

5:36

are we or are we unique? Time

5:41

goes by, everything

5:43

else keeps changing.

5:47

You and I,

5:50

we get continued next week.

5:54

Most friends fade or they don't

5:56

make the grade. New

6:00

ones are quickly made

6:03

and in a pinch sure

6:05

they'll do But

6:07

us, old friend,

6:09

what's to discuss, old

6:12

friend? Here's to

6:15

us, who's like

6:17

us, damn

6:20

few That

6:24

was old friends from the new revival of

6:26

Stephen Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along Jonathan

6:30

Graff, Maria Friedman, congratulations on

6:32

the show, congratulations on your

6:35

Tony nominations I love

6:37

this revival so much, I'm

6:39

so happy to have you on the show Thank you,

6:41

we're happy to be here The original 1981

6:44

production of Merrily We Roll Along was a

6:46

big flop, it closed after I think 16

6:49

performances This

6:51

is the first commercially successful production

6:54

of Merrily In

6:57

the show, when the characters

6:59

have the first successful production, they're

7:01

standing outside the door listening for

7:03

the applause And when they hear the applause

7:05

they're saying, it's a hit, it's a hit

7:08

So where were you on opening

7:11

night on Broadway for this show? And

7:14

I'm also wondering if you all went somewhere afterwards

7:16

and saying it's a hit Well,

7:24

I was in the auditorium,

7:27

I can't tell you how much I missed Steve that night Because

7:34

for me this has been a love letter to him from

7:37

day one Not that he wanted the love

7:39

letter, may I say He always would

7:41

say, for God's sake, don't do it for me, do it for you And

7:44

I'll come and see it and if I like it I'll let you know

7:46

and if I don't trust me I'll let you know But

7:49

I went into, if it

7:52

any way sounds arrogant, then

7:54

I've not made myself clear I

7:56

was really calm on opening night, I sat

7:58

in the auditorium I did

8:00

a lot of people watching around the

8:03

applause and I watched a

8:05

whole audience sitting at the front of their seats.

8:08

I heard an opening night that was quiet,

8:10

sort of, I don't know, it felt

8:12

like the whole room was pushing as

8:14

one towards the story. I

8:17

felt totally relaxed because I've been with

8:19

this show now on and

8:22

off for 30 something years and it

8:24

was what I, everything I

8:26

wanted on that stage, there

8:28

it was. Jonathan, were you

8:30

listening carefully to the applause to see which way

8:32

it was going to go? It's

8:34

so funny you asked that because like

8:37

Maria, funnily enough the success you

8:39

could hear in the silence. You

8:42

could. It's absolutely right

8:44

Jonathan, it's in the silence. Yes.

8:47

In the breathing as one. Yes. When

8:50

they heard things that they collected those moments

8:53

a bit like a sleuth, they're going backwards.

8:55

They're like, you just

8:57

hear the whole audience. Is

8:59

this one? Yeah, there's some lines that

9:01

happen two hours and

9:03

40 minutes into an evening after

9:06

an audience, one line that

9:08

has been laid out, one

9:10

line that takes over the course of

9:12

maybe three seconds to say. And

9:15

now you've had a whole show, a whole intermission

9:18

and this, it reappears, several of these

9:20

lines reappear at the very end. And

9:23

when you feel those land, it's

9:26

like, whoa, these people are really

9:29

listening and picking up that

9:32

detail that starts with his

9:34

writing. It feels

9:37

incredible to be inside of those moments.

9:40

Are you talking about lines in the song, Our

9:42

Time? Yes, I'm

9:44

thinking about a specific dialogue

9:46

line. It's just after... Can't

9:50

talk about it without crying. It's

9:52

like so beautiful. The line

9:55

comes after the character of Mary. This

9:58

is in the first scene, which is... chronologically

10:00

the end of their story, but it's the

10:02

first scene that the audience is seeing. And

10:05

Mary, who's the

10:07

dearest friend of Frank, leaves. And

10:13

it's like his heart walks out the door. And

10:16

just after that happens, this young,

10:20

sort of like what would be the young version

10:22

of Charlie, this young writer says, how do I

10:24

get to be you? Devastating

10:27

line, that's a devastating line. And Frank

10:30

says to this young man, don't just

10:32

write what you know, pointing to his

10:34

head, write what you

10:36

know, touching his heart. And

10:39

some nights that line gets a bit of a laugh

10:41

because maybe it's a bit of a douchey thing to

10:43

say. And it's

10:45

called upon again at the

10:48

end of the show in the very

10:51

final scene, Charlie

10:53

says it to Frank and

10:56

it starts everything. It starts

10:59

their collaboration, it starts their love

11:01

story, it starts, it's

11:03

the beginning of everything. And it's just thrown

11:05

away. He says, you really

11:07

like what I wrote? He says, yeah, what's

11:09

it, he says you don't. You don't just write what you know, you

11:11

write what you know. Oh, and that's it. And

11:13

that's two hours, including an

11:15

interval later. And the

11:17

whole audience just go, oh, you

11:20

just feel the pain. There's

11:25

just many, many moments like that

11:27

that start collecting. Jonathan, how could

11:29

you tear up after

11:31

having done so many performances

11:33

of this? How is it

11:35

that it's still so emotional for you?

11:40

I think that they wrote

11:42

something really personal. Steven

11:44

Sondheim and George Firth feels

11:47

like just here, let me take my heart

11:49

out of my body and just place it

11:51

at your feet. Feels

11:53

like that is in the energy of the writing. And

11:57

then Maria came in and asked

11:59

us all. to do that. They

12:02

did it, they had the bravery to do it,

12:05

and so everything actually is a word that

12:07

comes up a lot in the music and in

12:09

the script, this word

12:11

everything. And in a kind

12:13

of cosmic sense, Maria

12:16

gave us the the gift of

12:20

inviting all of us to

12:23

give everything. And I mean,

12:25

we've, including off-Broadway, we've done this over 300

12:28

times, instead of it getting

12:30

rote or instead of it

12:32

getting stale,

12:34

it just goes deeper and

12:37

deeper and deeper. That's a quote.

12:40

Yeah, yeah, it is. There's another thing

12:42

though, what I find really interesting is

12:45

that we have one tool that

12:48

is our very, very best friend

12:50

as an actor, and that's staying

12:52

present. The greatest actors are present.

12:54

They're not doing yesterday's show or

12:56

a plan in their head. And because

12:58

we change and the audience change, you know,

13:00

we have different days, we're tired, we've had

13:02

our argument, we've fallen in love,

13:05

whatever it is, our life is running in

13:07

town alongside the play. That

13:10

if you are skilled enough and

13:13

open enough as a

13:15

performer, the person in

13:17

front of you will be changing

13:19

slightly every day. And when

13:21

an actor presents you with something different, you

13:24

can do two things. You can resent

13:27

it because it takes you away from what you

13:29

plan to do, or you go with

13:31

it and it makes you richer and deeper. We're

13:33

listening to Terry's conversation with actor

13:35

and director Maria Friedman and actor

13:37

Jonathan Graff. Friedman directed

13:40

the new revival of Stephen Sondheim's

13:42

musical, Marilee We Roll Along. Jonathan

13:44

Graff is one of the show's stars.

13:47

We'll hear more of their conversation after a short

13:49

break. I'm Dave Davies, and this

13:51

is Fresh Air Weekend. This

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stearnsandfoster.com. So

14:57

Jonathan, you're tearing up talking about some of

14:59

these songs and what they mean to you.

15:02

But you can't really do that on stage because

15:04

you have to be in the moment. Yes, he

15:06

can. And

15:08

how does that work? How do you

15:10

get your voice out? I know when

15:12

I cry, my voice just kind of

15:15

quivers and it's hard to speak. It's

15:18

interesting, right before we started rehearsals,

15:21

I was obsessively listening to the music,

15:23

became obsessed with the score, and

15:26

I was trying to know the music before the

15:28

first day of rehearsal because the music is not

15:30

changing because this is a revival of a famous

15:33

Sondheim show. And I would

15:35

get to learning our time and

15:37

I would just weep. And I was

15:39

like, okay, I guess once I'm in

15:41

rehearsal, I'll stop aggressively

15:44

weeping and we'll be able to sing the song.

15:46

And then our first day of staging this song

15:48

and the show, sat there with

15:50

Maria and Dan and Lindsay and we're just

15:52

all weeping. And we're just, we're

15:55

crying. I don't know, we're mourning the inner

15:57

child where the dreams that all of us.

16:00

And it wasn't really until we had

16:03

the audience there that I could actually

16:06

pull myself together because

16:09

understanding, okay, this is a story that

16:11

we're telling for an audience. And what

16:13

Maria, especially in the intimacy of the

16:16

off-Broadway experience at New York Theatre Workshop,

16:18

where we were for three months before

16:21

moving to Broadway and the audience is really in

16:23

your lap. And that,

16:25

for me, brings up a lot

16:27

of self-conscious feelings. And

16:29

Maria helped me by saying,

16:33

the ideas that you're articulating

16:36

are more important than you're feeling embarrassed

16:38

that the audience is so close to

16:40

you. Say what they

16:42

wrote. You have to send these

16:44

ideas into the audience and

16:46

out into the street outside. And so

16:49

connecting to the importance of

16:52

telling the story and communicating the

16:55

ideas was essential in

16:57

getting me over that

16:59

kind of crying that makes it

17:01

unable to speak. And

17:04

so I still feel quite emotional

17:06

when I'm singing it and tears

17:08

do come, but the necessity and

17:10

the need to articulate

17:12

the thoughts and the ideas. And the

17:15

same thing, I don't know about

17:17

you, I have cried probably almost

17:19

as much over joy and

17:22

beauty and possibility.

17:25

So I say use it. If it comes

17:27

because you're excited and you're sitting with your

17:30

best friend and it's possible, I

17:32

know I have welled up and teared up

17:34

with pure joy and hope many

17:36

times, a beautiful sunset, a moment where

17:38

I'm sharing ecstasy with friends.

17:42

I don't mean that in the chemical

17:44

sense, I mean. But

17:47

that will make me cry. So if that's

17:50

what Jonathan feels when he's feeling those things,

17:52

let it happen, why not? Maria,

17:54

how did you cast Jonathan in the role of Frank?

17:57

By meeting him, we talked

17:59

on a Zoom. him. And then I took

18:02

him to Steve Sondheim's house who

18:04

had already passed away because I

18:07

wanted Steve to be, I don't know, somehow

18:09

part of the decision. I

18:12

wanted Steve to meet Jonathan properly

18:14

and we sat and we talked in

18:17

his house for ages.

18:21

And then Jonathan drove me to my hotel

18:25

and I got out the car just going, well, that's

18:27

that then. It

18:29

did mean that we all had to wait an enormous amount

18:32

of time for him, but I would do that 10 times

18:35

over. Maria, you

18:37

played Mary, one of

18:39

the three leads in the show

18:41

in the mid-90s. And this is the time

18:45

when Sondheim was rewriting it as you

18:47

were rehearsing it. How

18:50

did he direct you as... Well, he wasn't

18:52

directing the show, but I'm sure he was

18:54

making suggestions to you. No,

18:56

he was directing the show. He was

18:58

directing it. Like literally or actually. I

19:00

mean, he's a great collaborator, so he

19:02

wouldn't step on the toes of the

19:05

staging, but the staging is

19:07

only part of directing. So

19:09

how did he direct you in that

19:12

character? And could you compare that

19:14

to how you directed Lindsay

19:17

Mendes, who plays Mary in The New

19:19

Revival? There's a kind of

19:22

reverence about Steve, which he hated.

19:25

So they had the

19:27

published score and

19:30

I was being made to sing like it

19:32

was Charlie, like down

19:34

here, because it was printed in

19:36

that score. So I was like,

19:38

Charlie, what? Anyway, he came into

19:41

the rehearsal room and he just looked at the

19:43

musical director and he said, what? Why

19:45

is she singing down there? And they said, well, it's in

19:47

the score. He said, I write for

19:49

people. I don't write an idea. So up

19:51

it went by a fifth and suddenly it

19:53

was guess what in my key. And I

19:55

had been saying to them, he won't mind,

19:57

but they were like, he's coming. coming

20:00

in, it's got to be in this thing. So that

20:02

was the first thing. I tore up the,

20:04

it's got to be in this key. So

20:07

when an actor arrives with me and it's

20:09

out of there, we change the key. We

20:11

make it fit them. Second thing is, it's

20:14

all about the detail. So if ever

20:16

you skimmed past a thought or an

20:18

idea or a subtext, you

20:20

would sit cross-legged looking into my

20:23

eyes, maybe two foot

20:25

away, and just going, nope, what are

20:28

you thinking? Nope. It's that,

20:30

what are you doing? What are you

20:32

thinking? And then he would fill you

20:34

or make you fill up

20:36

yourself with your ideas.

20:38

It's what we're talking about, the

20:40

pauses, the bits in between, the

20:42

connective tissue that allow you to

20:45

just be full with that

20:47

part. That was one thing. The other

20:49

thing is I played her

20:52

incredibly wild, the first

20:54

scene where she's drunk and I was

20:56

like screaming and throwing things and falling

20:58

on the floor and everything. It

21:01

was pretty, it was really fierce and

21:04

always different. So I would every single day

21:06

do something different so that the cast would

21:08

jump out of their skin. I'd go up

21:10

to somebody else and whatever. He said to

21:12

me, I'm really worried about

21:14

you. This comes too easily to you. And

21:20

over the years, I was so happy because I

21:22

thought, Oh my God, maybe this is like a

21:25

premonition. I'm going to be one of these

21:27

crazy angry banshees, alcoholic, whatever.

21:29

But because he said that, I

21:31

promise you, I kept an

21:33

eye on myself because it was like

21:36

in real life. Yeah. Because it was

21:38

easy for me to be that wild. I

21:40

didn't have a, that kind

21:42

of safety valve that I see a

21:44

lot of actors have. It was, it was

21:47

all, all out. You

21:49

letting out your bottled up anger. I think

21:51

that's what he said to me. He said,

21:54

there's some massive part of you that's angry,

21:56

Maria. And I'd always thought

21:58

of myself as playful and funny. in,

22:00

good to be around, but then

22:02

I kind of, I realise of course that is

22:04

the actor I am. I don't say yesterday is

22:06

done, I'm bringing it all with me. So

22:09

it's all available, it's all available, that

22:11

stuff. And I had a very complicated

22:13

childhood. So all those things that were

22:16

unprocessed find their

22:18

way into the corners of what I

22:20

do as a performer. So I hope

22:22

that something that I was given to

22:24

him is kind of to be mindful

22:26

that there's a separation between acting and

22:28

your real life. Make sure that

22:31

you're not bleeding the two into

22:33

one another, that they are, it's

22:35

a technical requirement that mustn't cost

22:37

you so much that it makes

22:39

you sick. Because it could do when

22:42

you're asked to do that much. Thank

22:44

you both so much and thank you for

22:46

this production. I just enjoyed it so much.

22:49

Congratulations. And good luck at the Tonys.

22:51

The show's nominated for seven of them,

22:53

including for each of you. So

22:56

I wish you the best. Thank you so

22:58

much. It's been a real pleasure. Maria

23:00

Friedman directed the current revival of

23:03

Sondheim's Merrily We Roll Along. Jonathan

23:05

Groff stars in the role of Frank. Merrily

23:08

is on a limited run through July 7th.

23:12

You might know our next guest,

23:14

Ali Velshi, from his work on

23:16

MSNBC, where he's chief correspondent and

23:18

a regular presence, hosting his

23:20

own weekend show called Velshi and filling

23:22

in frequently for the network's primetime anchors.

23:25

He also hosts the Velshi Band

23:27

Book Club on MSNBC and

23:30

a podcast of the same name. Velshi

23:33

has written a new memoir, and it's mostly

23:35

not about his career in journalism. It's

23:38

a remarkable family history, which begins in

23:40

a village in India in the 19th

23:42

century and winds over

23:44

the generations through South Africa, Kenya,

23:46

Canada, and eventually the United States.

23:49

His ancestors' travels were driven by

23:51

powerful currents of history and

23:54

its members encountered some notable figures on

23:56

the journey. Velshi's grandfather, for

23:58

example, could be found convicts,

36:00

because in South Africa you became a

36:02

convict just by virtue of being arrested

36:06

and not having the right pass to be

36:08

in the right place. So everybody became a

36:10

convict. They would arrest black people and the

36:12

penalty would be five

36:14

or ten pounds or you go

36:16

work on a farm. It was meant to be because

36:19

of free labor. Anyway, the family had been agitating for

36:21

a long time and into the late 50s

36:23

and 1960, 1961,

36:26

the government decided to clamp down and

36:28

make business harder for them on a

36:31

weekly and then daily basis to try and

36:33

drive them out of business. I mean, there

36:35

are fascinating details here. Like, you know, in

36:38

many of these decades, it was

36:40

illegal to sell a loaf of less

36:42

than two pounds, I believe. But

36:45

a lot of the black Africans could not afford

36:47

that. So they would cut it

36:49

in half in defiance of the law, right? Sell them

36:51

smaller pieces. Remarkable that that's an act of civil disobedience,

36:53

right? But apartheid had such Byzantine

36:55

nonsensical laws. Like, why did somebody write

36:57

a law that said bread has to

37:00

be sold in no less than two pound

37:02

loaves? I mean, just nonsensical. But some people just

37:04

couldn't afford that. So my grandfather

37:06

and my father would set out tables and they would

37:08

sell, you know, a half a

37:10

loaf if that's what you needed. They would

37:12

give bread away. They would go to court

37:15

every Monday morning to bail out workers who

37:17

had been arrested over the weekend. Because arresting

37:19

people in South Africa was literally a way

37:21

to find labor for the

37:23

white farms. So they were very, very

37:25

active. It was part of the Gandhian ethos and

37:27

it was part of their civil resistance to try

37:30

and fight apartheid. But from the

37:32

time that apartheid was implemented in 1947 until

37:34

my family left in 1961 and

37:37

much later, apartheid just got more draconian and

37:39

worse every year. So it didn't look like

37:41

they were moving the needle or improving anything

37:43

all that much. They were just getting into

37:46

a lot of trouble by the government. You

37:48

have to tell us about the yeast raids. So

37:51

yeast was a controlled substance in South Africa

37:54

because again, apartheid was a ridiculous thing. The

37:56

reason it was a controlled substance is because

37:58

under the law of apartheid, apartheid Under the

38:00

law, black people were not allowed

38:02

to consume alcohol. Now

38:05

everybody all through history who's wanted to consume alcohol has figured

38:07

out a way to do it. And

38:09

so people would make their own in

38:11

these informal and sell it in these

38:14

informal bars called Shabines. Well,

38:16

to make alcohol, you need a starter. To make

38:18

beer, you need a starter. And the starter is

38:20

yeast. Bakeries had yeast. So

38:23

police would raid my family's

38:25

bakery to measure the

38:28

records of how much bread was baked

38:30

versus how much yeast was left

38:32

in the fridge. And they'd literally,

38:34

if there was a mismatch, someone would be in

38:36

trouble. Armed police

38:38

would actually show up at the

38:40

bakery unannounced and conduct a yeast

38:43

audit. So those are the kinds

38:45

of things that they did. And ultimately, they did go after

38:48

my uncle, my father's brother for this, sort

38:50

of accusing him of being a yeast bootlegger. And

38:52

I don't know whether that's true or not. I

38:55

know that he probably believed that black

38:58

people, like any other people, should be able to

39:01

drink the beer they want to drink and that shouldn't be regulated

39:03

by the government. But

39:05

life essentially became intolerable as the

39:07

racial restrictions became more and more

39:10

draconian. And

39:13

after, what, 60 years or so in South Africa,

39:15

they decided it was going to be time to

39:18

move, to look for a new place. Kenya

39:21

looks like a good place. Why?

39:23

Yeah, the winds of change were blowing over

39:26

the rest of Africa, not

39:28

South Africa, because South Africa was not a

39:30

British or a French or a Belgian or

39:32

a Portuguese or Italian or a German colony.

39:35

It was its own thing. The Afrikaners ran the

39:37

place. The British had left. The

39:40

British colonies in Africa were all becoming

39:42

independent. And my father had two sisters

39:44

who had married people who lived in Kenya, so

39:46

they felt they had a beachhead there. And

39:49

they all wanted to leave in 1961. There

39:52

was some question about whether the government would let them

39:54

take the proceeds from their business. And

39:56

so it was a long negotiation because they accused

39:59

my family of being conscious. communists, and

40:01

in fact, my dad's brother was a communist.

40:05

And so they decided to leave. The government

40:07

decided they had to sell their business, not

40:10

for what it was worth, but in

40:12

the process of doing so, my dad started a

40:14

bread war. He lowered the

40:16

price of bread to the point that four of

40:18

his competitors were taken out of business and

40:21

they went bankrupt. And

40:23

ultimately, they destroyed the

40:25

bakery and my family left

40:27

to go live in Kenya, where they hoped they

40:29

would have a brighter future. Right. And

40:31

they did leave, but really

40:33

literally almost on the eve of

40:35

departure. Your grandfather, the one

40:37

who had lived with Gandhi as a youth, Rajabali,

40:42

who saw the bakery, which he had put

40:44

so much of himself into literally being torn

40:46

down. Yeah. And what became of him? The

40:49

heart of a bakery is its ovens, and

40:51

the ovens needed a bulldozer

40:53

to be destroyed. So a

40:56

week before, you know, very shortly before they left

40:58

for Kenya, my father and

41:01

my grandfather stood there and watched

41:03

the ovens being bulldozed. My

41:06

father said it's the only time he's ever seen his

41:08

father cry. My grandfather

41:10

was 58 years old at the time, and

41:12

he was dead a week later. Ostensibly

41:15

of a heart attack, my father thinks

41:17

it was heartbreak. And

41:20

he died at 58 thinking the

41:22

entire mission had failed. The mission

41:24

for civil justice, the mission for

41:27

rights and liberty and the fight against apartheid.

41:30

And measurably, it was worse the day he died

41:32

than the day he was born. Ultimately,

41:35

though, the book explains much came of

41:37

the work that he put into it

41:39

that he never realized. Things

41:43

look pretty scary in

41:45

Kenya and in East Africa as independence

41:48

movements were in some cases targeting Indian

41:50

merchants, like your parents. They had a

41:52

big real estate business as I recall

41:54

or a real estate business. They

41:57

look around and look to Canada.

44:00

who was in the ruler of Uganda, decided

44:03

to expel the Indian population there.

44:05

I mean, many thousands of people.

44:08

And that Canada stepped up and took 6,000. Explain what

44:10

your father

44:12

did. He was running this travel agency at

44:14

the time. What role he played in welcoming

44:16

those folks. So two things happened at the

44:19

same time. One is the thing that my

44:21

parents left Kenya worried about actually

44:23

ended up happening in Uganda, right? They expelled

44:25

all the — Uganda was a neighboring country

44:27

to Kenya. They expelled all the Asians. And

44:29

these Asians, just like Kenyans, had been British

44:32

subjects. So they thought

44:34

with their colonial passports, they could get into

44:36

the United Kingdom. Turns out that when you

44:38

are a non-white holder of a British

44:41

passport in a colony, your passport was

44:44

coded differently. So the UK was not

44:46

all that welcoming to you. Meanwhile, the

44:48

Ugandans had just taken their citizenship away.

44:50

So these people were literally stateless. And

44:53

so Canada decided this was the manifestation

44:55

of this idea that Trudeau had had.

44:58

OK, here's a bunch of people. They're available to

45:00

us to be workers, to come into our

45:02

country. Let's see if we can get them

45:04

in here. And my father joined the

45:07

effort to patriot these people

45:09

in Canada. So he would literally be

45:11

— back in those days, Montreal was

45:13

the big city in Canada. These people

45:15

would fly into Montreal. They'd get on

45:17

a train. My father would meet them

45:19

at the train station in Toronto. And

45:21

as a volunteer, but working with the

45:23

government, they would be

45:25

there with what you needed if you showed up as

45:27

a refugee. Plans for

45:29

housing, plans for food, language training if you

45:32

needed it, vocational training if you

45:34

needed it. It was a sense of

45:36

let's build this together. And it was

45:38

a remarkable success for Canada, which

45:40

now historically looks on the idea

45:43

of taking immigrants in —

45:45

refugees in, in particular — as

45:47

a very successful thing. It ended up working

45:49

very well. And by the way,

45:51

many of these people who were kicked out

45:53

of Uganda with nothing but the clothes on

45:55

their back ended up doing phenomenally well and

45:58

prospering in Canada. politics

48:00

the way they were, but I

48:02

grew into it. I fell into it. I was in

48:04

it all the time and it

48:06

started to influence me more than I actually

48:08

understood it was influencing me. Right. So you

48:10

found you had a knack for and interest

48:12

in storytelling. So, you know, you get into

48:14

broadcasting kind of at the bottom like everybody

48:16

else does. Find out you're good at it

48:19

and move from one job

48:21

to the next. You became the first

48:23

prime-time business anchor in Canada. Then

48:25

you get recruited by CNN, come to the States.

48:28

You spent, I guess, quite

48:31

a few years there. Yeah, it was 12 years. Yeah,

48:33

and then left for a job at Al

48:36

Jazeera America. Yeah. Where you got

48:38

in the trenches and learned the tradecraft of

48:40

serious reporting you'd been missing. What was it

48:42

that changed you there? Yeah, that was not

48:45

to belittle. I mean, I worked at CNN

48:47

at a great time and I learned so

48:49

much at CNN, but I was fundamentally a

48:51

business anchor. And at Al

48:53

Jazeera there was much more of an

48:55

emphasis on the reporting side of things.

48:58

It was also a lot more. It was not just

49:01

business the way I was doing it at CNN,

49:03

which was sort of markets, you

49:06

know, and that sort of activity. I

49:08

was doing much more sort of economics and global

49:11

stuff at Al Jazeera. But

49:13

it was really that operation, though didn't last

49:15

long in the United States, was really committed

49:18

to a very high level

49:20

of journalism. And I really, really appreciate

49:22

the growth that I got out of

49:25

it. And subsequently, when I joined MSNBC

49:27

thereafter, my boss at MSNBC

49:29

was the same person who

49:31

was my boss at CNN. And

49:34

she said to me at one point, she said, I'm not

49:36

sure you could have achieved

49:38

what you've achieved. You could have gotten

49:40

to the point that you reached as

49:42

a journalist without having taken that break,

49:44

without having left CNN for a few

49:46

years to sort of sharpen my skills.

49:49

So yeah, it sort of took me

49:51

to a new place, which

49:53

coincided with some very, very big

49:55

changes in American politics, because I

49:57

literally joined MSNBC after Al Jazeera.

50:00

closed a week before

50:02

the election of 2016. You

50:04

know, I think it's certainly an unhealthy thing

50:06

for a democracy to have so many of

50:08

these citizens who are in information silos where

50:10

they're getting all other information from

50:14

one, you know, very

50:16

committed political perspective. Yeah. Yeah,

50:18

I agree with you on that. Have you

50:20

got any solution for this? Triangulate. Triangulate your

50:23

information. I have friends who

50:25

I know hold particular political

50:27

views, conservatives or liberals, but

50:30

they go out of their way to listen to

50:32

other things because what you'll learn is, oh,

50:35

what would be interesting is if you heard a

50:37

particular story from different perspectives, right? I

50:39

couldn't agree more. Yeah. But what it'll

50:42

do is tell you, that's weird that this network

50:44

didn't cover that story at all. Is

50:46

that story actually true? Does it exist or is

50:48

this just opinion? I think, you know, in the

50:50

same way that a cell phone knows where you

50:52

are because it pings three towers, you

50:55

should ping three towers for your news. You

50:57

should have different sources. That's the answer.

51:00

Consume more information. And on the other side,

51:02

Dave, we do have to become more critical

51:05

consumers of information. I think we're losing that

51:07

skill and that worries me. But

51:09

that I think is for a younger generation. I

51:11

think we can teach our kids to be critical

51:13

consumers of information and hopefully they can discern the

51:16

difference between news and nonsense.

51:19

Well, Ali Velshi, thanks so much for speaking with us.

51:21

Dave, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time.

51:25

Ali Velshi is chief correspondent for

51:27

MSNBC. His new memoir

51:29

is Small Acts of Courage, A

51:31

Legacy of Endurance and the Fight for

51:33

Democracy. Fresh

51:41

Air Weekend is produced by Theresa Madden.

51:43

Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller.

51:46

Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

51:48

Our interviews and reviews are produced

51:51

and edited by Amy Salat, Phyllis

51:53

Myers, Roberta Shorrock and Marie Baldonado,

51:55

Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Taya Chaloner,

51:57

Susan Yakundi and Joel Woll. from.

52:00

Our digital media producer is Molly

52:03

C.V. Nesper. For Terry Gross and

52:05

Tanya Mosley, I'm Dave Davies. Support

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