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Ep 236 — Ordinary Heroes with Lee Hawkins

Journalist and author Lee Hawkins joins host Bernie Furshpan for a candid, no-fluff conversation about intergenerational trauma, resilience, and the power of telling the truth—even when it stings. Hawkins traces his family’s 400-year arc from slavery and Jim Crow to the “integration generation,” connects it with Holocaust memory, and shows how curiosity (not judgment) can heal what history tried to break.

You’ll hear how Hawkins’ reporting—from his Pulitzer-finalist work on the Tulsa Race Massacre to his book I Am Nobody’s Slave: How Uncovering My Family’s History Set Me Free—opened a vault of documents, DNA, and hard-won wisdom. He and Bernie draw sharp parallels between Nazi persecution and American segregation, and argue for teaching Holocaust, slavery, and Jim Crow so young people can build empathy and backbone, not just opinions.

In this episode:

• The “integration generation” and what it changed—and didn’t
• How family archives and DNA can rewire a personal narrative
• Parallels between Jim Crow and the Holocaust’s machinery of hate
• Why remembrance is a survival skill, not a history lesson
• Turning inherited pain into purpose, art, and community action
• A preview of Hawkins’ next book, Murder at Mile 39

Listen if: you want a clear-eyed, forward-looking take on overcoming trauma—and a practical blueprint for teaching it with compassion and spine.

Call to action: Share this episode with an educator, a student, or anyone who thinks “it was a long time ago.” It wasn’t—and what we do next is on us.

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