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Matt Katz: This is All Of It from WNYC. I'm Matt Katz filling in for Alison Stewart. A debut novel tells the story of the Revels, a Black family in Philadelphia hoping to save their struggling family business after the nation passes new legislation for reparations. It's titled Acts of Forgiveness. Named for the piece of legislation featured in the novel, the story takes place in a fictionalized America, one where the newly elected president, Elizabeth Johnson, a descendant of the 17th president, Andrew Johnson, strives to make an apology for the trafficking and enslavement of Africans on behalf of the United States government.

The bill would allow Black families to claim up to $175,000, but in order to qualify, the Revels must prove that they are in fact descendants of slaves. This payout would mean a lot to Willie Revel who gave up a career as a journalist to help her father's struggling construction company. Acts of Forgiveness, a novel is on shelves today, and author Maura Cheeks joins us to discuss. In 2019, Maura Cheeks published an article in The Atlantic headlined American Wealth is Broken, which would later inspire the idea for the book. Maura, welcome to All Of It.

Maura Cheeks: Thank you for having me.

Matt Katz: We're very glad you're here. I just mentioned the article, and I got to start there. You wrote this article for The Atlantic about your family's successes and challenges in an attempt to achieve the American dream. It was a way of using your experience but also brought in the larger experience of Black Americans. Was there a light bulb moment during the process of exploring your own family's history? How it echoed the African American experience to the decades that the novel came from? Was it literally in the process of writing and reporting that piece?

Maura Cheeks: I would say it came about a few months after I finished and I continued to have questions about why we haven't seriously pursued a federal reparations program looking at the systemic inequalities that persist over decades. Then I started to feel like fiction was a better way to explore those questions.

Matt Katz: Were you using your own-- I mean, in The Atlantic article, you talk about your own family's experience. Were there elements of that that you incorporated into the novel, like actual-- you maybe changing name here or there, but really incorporating your own family's true history into the novel?

Maura Cheeks: Yes, there are definitely pieces. I grew up in Philadelphia, and the book is set largely in Philadelphia. I would say some of my family, his family's history forms the initial structure of the Revel family, but it's highly fictionalized for sure.

Matt Katz: Reparations is obviously, that's a big theme in here. What other themes were you looking to explore in the book, and what other themes did you explore in the book?

Maura Cheeks: Yes. It touches on female ambition. We look at Willie Revel as the protagonist and what she has to give up in order for her family business to continue existing. It touches on what women in general are asked to forgive so that their families can persevere. Ancestral power, it talks a lot about the power of our ancestors and where we come from, and how those stories influence who we are today, even if we may not explicitly know who our ancestors are.

Matt Katz: We just had a segment on writing. An author came in talking about the different ways of writing and getting started to write. You did something interesting in the novel, you jump back and forth in time. Was that a way to get to those ancestral pieces? Was that your writing technique?

Maura Cheeks: A little bit. I wanted to have readers really connect with Willie Revel's childhood, so you got a little bit of what it was like growing up in Philadelphia for her and what the house means to the family.

Matt Katz: Did you do a good deal of research to understand what Philadelphia in middle 20th century and before might have been like?

Maura Cheeks: Yes, I did a lot of research for Philadelphia, and then a character goes to Mississippi in the book, so I did a lot of research there in terms of the documents that she was going to be digging into in the archives.

Matt Katz: Oh, cool. There was a journalistic element to the novel writing. In a piece you wrote in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, you said that when you were trying to sell this novel, it was pitched to publishers as "speculative fiction, but only slightly." How did new conversations about reparations that we've just heard really in the last few years, maybe beginning with Ta-Nehisi Coates' article about a decade ago, how did that fuel your writing and maybe even help you get this story published?

Maura Cheeks: I would say I started writing the book in 2019 when the conversation about reparations was different than it is today. In 2020, obviously, we had the brutal murder of George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. That made the topic of conversation about reparations come to the forefront in a different way. It urged me to continue writing the book. I wouldn't say it was the events of 2020 didn't make me start writing the book, but it really fueled my energy to finish it. I think those events contributed to the reception that the book is getting because reparations isn't as far-fetched. It obviously hasn't passed at the federal level, but I think the way that we talk about reparations has changed given those events.

Matt Katz: What's changed? Catch us up where we are in America now in terms of the beginnings of experiments and actually issuing reparations.

Maura Cheeks: There have been local policies that have changed. Evanston has passed a local reparations policy where--

Matt Katz: Evanston, Illinois.

Maura Cheeks: Evanston, Illinois, where residents can receive housing grants. Then there have been a bunch of local initiatives that have passed, including in Philadelphia, there was there's a reparations task force that was formed in order to study how reparations might be applied in that community. There's different pockets of local initiatives that had begun passing, which is great, and wasn't necessarily the case when I first started writing the book.

Matt Katz: At the federal level, it's hard to imagine Congress doing anything, let alone passing something of this degree, but there are-- I know Cory Booker, senator from New Jersey has brought this up. There are efforts also to at least explore this at the federal level.

Maura Cheeks: Yes, at the federal level, H.R. 40 would be the first step to get it passed at the federal level, which is just a commission to study the impact of slavery and put forth reparation proposals. That would be the first step at the federal level, is to actually pass H.R. 40.

Matt Katz: In the novel, we're introduced to different generations of the Revels, a Black family in Philadelphia. I was curious why you wanted to explore this concept of reparations through a single family. I guess other options might have been through a community or a geographic location with a lot of different families. What was your thought process there?

Maura Cheeks: I think the conversation about reparations often gets stuck in politics, and numbers, and statistics. I wanted to put some humanity back in the conversation and show what it would be like for one family if a federal reparations policy passed and to really explore the humanity of it because that essentially is what reparations is about.

Matt Katz: The main character, Willie Revel, the daughter of the business owner who becomes a journalist and a mother, how would you describe her?

Maura Cheeks: She's ambitious, loyal, a little bit bitter at times.

Matt Katz: Knowing your history in journalism and it started with the book, it was hard to-- I could separate the two but I did wonder if there was some of you in Willie. Is there some of you in Willie?

Maura Cheeks: I would say there are definitely pieces of me in Willie. I think what I wanted to explore with her giving up journalism is some of those sacrifices that people are forced to make between their passion and then making a living. I think for Willie, you really get the sense that she had to give up her passion in order for her family's business to continue existing because her family relies on that business for their livelihood.

Matt Katz: But when you have generational wealth, it's a lot easier for the success of generations to pursue their passions, which is obviously the whole concept behind reparations. In the prologue, we learn about Willie's grandfather, Marcus Revel, a veteran who attempted to get the VA to cosign on a mortgage for a home near his family and community but he was denied. This is very early on in the novel. Why open with his story? Is this representative of something that was extremely common?

Maura Cheeks: Yes. I touch on this in The Atlantic article, so the impact of the G.I. Bill and how it benefited certain families. I wanted to explore what happened to those families who were denied the benefits of the G.I. Bill. That's why I focused on him and that's where the book starts, is to really you see- -the effects of that, of him being denied the benefits of the G.I. Bill. In his case, he wanted a mortgage and he was not approved to get one.

Matt Katz: The consequences of that go on for how long? I mean, him not getting a mortgage.

Maura Cheeks: Well, in the book, it goes on for about three decades, I believe.

Matt Katz: Until, I guess before the reparations. Like that in other circumstances, in the real world, being denied a mortgage in 1950 can result in no homeownership for many generations to come, right?

Maura Cheeks: Right.

Matt Katz: What life lessons did Marcus Revel pass along to his son, who is Willie's father about family? Then how does then Max pass this on to Willie?

Maura Cheeks: I think with Max, you really get the sense that he wants to achieve success at all costs. He watched his father struggle and be defeated in some respects, and he wants to go on the opposite side of that. He wants his business to be successful no matter what. Because of that, he makes certain decisions about who he is willing to work with in order to be successful.

Matt Katz: How invested are the rest of his family in his drive for success in this, which comes in the form of the construction business? How does the rest of the family feel about this? Do they want to work with him? Do they want to be part of this family business and establish that kind of security, financial security?

Maura Cheeks: Well, it's tough because they like their lifestyle. On the one hand, they want to preserve that, but they also know that it comes at a cost, that they have no cushion to fall back on, and that they exist in that position because of the sacrifices that he's made and the choices that he continues to make.

Matt Katz: In your piece for The Atlantic, you called Black wealth delicate. What does the path look like for African Americans to obtain wealth in this country? How is Black wealth delicate for those who haven't considered the experience and considered how actions and things that happened decades, centuries ago are very relevant today?

Maura Cheeks: Well, I'm not a policy expert, so I will say that. I think because Black people were denied the opportunity to build wealth for so long, obviously, the cushion is smaller.

Matt Katz: Because they were denied wealth and not just-- Give us a little brief history lesson if you could, because it's not just slavery. It's for the century after slavery too.

Maura Cheeks: In the book, what I specifically touch on is the impacts of redlining for example. I think being denied-- I touch on in my Atlantic article being denied the opportunity to tap into social security benefits for instance, because they were denied to certain classes of workers most of whom were Black. Education is another example that I touch on in the book in a different way.

Matt Katz: So much of the book is about money. In the article in The Atlantic, you had written that Americans are generally uncomfortable talking about money. We use careers, homes, and clothing to stand as proxies for money. Have you always been comfortable talking about money and wealth and these sorts of economic issues?

Maura Cheeks: No, not at all.

Matt Katz: Is that why you wanted to put this into a fictionalized format, to talk about an issue that you think is important but have not always necessarily felt comfortable talking about?

Maura Cheeks: Yes. I grew up extremely privileged and I was just interested in exploring the way that my family handled money and talked about wealth in comparison to my white peers. That was the genesis of the Atlantic article and then digging a little bit further into what that looks like. Black people are in a monolith. The way that they or we deal with wealth is going to be different based on your upbringing and a lot of different factors. That was the genesis for me is just looking at how I grew up and my privilege, and then breaking that apart about how that differed from a lot of white classmates who had a larger cushion to fall back on and what those generational structures of wealth looked like.

Matt Katz: You had a unique vantage point. You’re Black American, but your father was in the NBA and you said you described it as a privileged upbringing. You were with wealthy white kids at school, but then those kids also many of them probably came from generations of wealth and they were more accustomed to it, whereas your father did not grow up with a good deal of money. It’s a unique perspective. The Forgiveness Act, this is the reparations bill that you imagine passing in a future Congress. What would it take in America today do you think, to get to that point where there is a president who signs a reparations bill into law?

Maura Cheeks: Well, I explore in the book-- The president in the book is related to Andrew Johnson because I wanted to imagine if somebody was in power who felt a deep personal responsibility for what has transpired and what they might do in order to make sure a federal reparations program actually passes if that were the case. I don't think that's realistically going to happen in our country in the near future.

Matt Katz: In the near future.

Maura Cheeks: I think for it to pass, again, I think H.R. 40 would have to pass first and then based on the recommendations that that commission puts forward, then we could actually talk about what happens and what a federal program would look like.

Matt Katz: In the book, wealthier Black people of a certain higher economic class are targeted by protesters who oppose the Forgiveness Act, who oppose reparations. Is that something you foresee as like a-- If this were to get closer to happening, is that something you foresee being a challenge, being an issue like, “Oh, well, there's Barack Obama, he's wealthy. Why would we give reparations to a family like that?”

Maura Cheeks: I don't know. I think the pushback that I see and that I hear when you bring up reparations is, well, would everyone get the same amount? Would wealthier Black Americans be entitled to the same amount as everyone else? I could definitely foresee the pushback, the extent to which it turns a little bit violent as it does in the book. I don't know. I would hope that's not the case, but I think that that is a common strain of feedback, which is that there seems to be-- there's hesitation against granting all Black Americans reparations and assuming that everyone would get the same amount regardless of the amount of wealth that they have.

Matt Katz: What does the Revel family have to do to prove that they are descendants of slaves and therefore eligible for reparations?

Maura Cheeks: In the book, Willie goes on a journey to Mississippi to actually look in the archives and try to piece together their family history. That was meant to mimic the difficulty that African Americans have in retracing our lineage. Part of that is drawn from my own inability to trace my family past the American South.

Matt Katz: You tried and were unable to figure out your descendants going back that far?

Maura Cheeks: Yes. In conversations with my grandmother and trying to piece together certain parts of our history, I continued to hit a wall. That inspired a little bit of Willie's journey when she is at the archives and digging in the documents. I did research into what types of documents would you have to look at if you have certain pieces of information, if you know that there was a marriage, but you don't know the date. Just given that so much of Black people's history has been erased and the records weren't kept, it's extremely difficult to actually in some cases piece that together.

Matt Katz: That could be a challenge if this were to come to pass. There just might not be a way for people to prove somehow that they were in the American South 200 years ago, that their family was. Wow. Before I let you go, I understand that you are opening a new bookstore in Brooklyn.

Maura Cheeks: I am. Yes.

Matt Katz: Tell us about that real quick.

Maura Cheeks: Yes. It's called Liz's Book Bar. It's in Carroll Gardens. It should be opened in June. We'll sell books, coffee, beer and wine.

Matt Katz: What inspired you to open a bookstore?

Maura Cheeks: I've always wanted to open a bookstore. I've always wanted to create a space where people can sit and connect with each other and talk about the books that they love. It's named after my grandmother, who really, she inspired me to love reading, and we were always going to bookstores when I was younger.

Matt Katz: That's Liz?

Maura Cheeks: Yes.

Matt Katz: Excellent. Very good. Well, congratulations on your new novel. Acts of Forgiveness by Maura Cheeks is out now and the bookstore is opening in--

Maura Cheeks: June.

Matt Katz: In June, very good. Thanks very much for coming on All Of It. I hope the experience of selling the book and talking about this fraught political issue is a meaningful one for you.

Maura Cheeks: Thank you so much for having me.

Matt Katz: Our pleasure. That's All Of It. Join us tomorrow. I'll be speaking with Chris Satch, also known as the Plant Doctor, about how to get your plants ready for spring and troubleshoot houseplant problems. Plus, we'll talk to the Oscar-nominated cinematographer of Maestro. Thanks for listening. Fresh Air is coming up next.

 

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