(upbeat music) - Well, coming up on Inspire, it's Thanksgiving.

On today's show we feature history, community tradition and tips and tricks to inspire creativity for our Thanksgiving celebrations.

Stay right there.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Inspire is sponsored by Kansas Furniture Mart using furniture to inspire conversation.

And by the Blanche Bryden Foundation.

(upbeat music) - Hello and welcome to Inspire.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and to my wonderful co-hosts Danielle Norwood and Leslie Fleuranges.

And tonight we're going to look at the history of Thanksgiving and more importantly, the story behind the first Thanksgiving.

- Then we're going to visit with one of the founders of the speaker community Thanksgiving dinner which dates back to 1968.

And we'll also hear from Cheryl Clark of Dare to Dream Event Planning about how to make Thanksgiving decorations on a budget.

- But first, we're going to learn about the origins of America's Thanksgiving holiday.

Joining us from Washington DC is Dr. David Silverman, professor of history at George Washington University, an author of "This Land is Their Land: The Wampanoag Indians, the Plymouth Colony, And The Troubled History of Thanksgiving."

Professor Silverman, thank you so much for joining us on Inspire.

- Thank you for having me.

- So we've all heard a story about the first Thanksgiving or some version of it.

Would you tell us the true story of Thanksgiving according to what you've learned?

- Well, I think one of the main points is that the history of the event that we normally call the first Thanksgiving there's little resemblance to the story that we tell our children and ourselves.

For a number of reasons.

One is that the notion that friendly Indians and those native people are very rarely identified by their name, the Wampanoags, reached out to the English simply out of innate friendliness.

The fact of the matter was that they had a political strategy that they were pursuing.

Very few people realize there had been 100 years of contact between Europeans and indigenous people in Southern New England before the arrival of the Mayflower.

So these native people, the Wampanoags, knew Europeans as people who had incredible wealth in the form of trade goods but also were incredibly ruthless and dangerous.

What's more just a few years before the arrival of the Mayflower, one of those European exploring ships inadvertently introduced a terrible epidemic disease into Southern New England.

It decimated the Wampanoag population sweeping away far more than half of them.

Their Narragansett rivals to the west in turn began a campaign to subjugate the weakened Wampanoags.

So when the Mayflower arrives, the Wampanoags have a decision to make.

They knew these people were potentially dangerous but at the same time they needed allies against their Narragansett enemies, and they knew these English people might be able to help.

That's why they reached out to them.

Another way in which the history that we tell ourselves is false is that we make the Thanksgiving feast and there was one.

There was an actual feast that involved English colonists and the Wampanoags.

We make that into the totality of their alliance.

It was actually a very minor event in the scope of their relationship.

Neither side thought it was all that important.

The fact of the matter was the relationship between Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoags degenerated over the course of several years into one of the many major colonial Indian wars in which colonists ultimately proved victorious and destroyed native American power in the region.

The story that we tell ourselves is a myth.

And it's a myth that's designed to make colonialism seem bloodless.

In other words, to take Europeans and their descendants off the hook for the viciousness of an inherently violent process.

In all of these ways this myth is just that, a myth.

It is not good history and I would contend it's even worse civics because it doesn't allow us to think critically about our nation's past so we can chart a better future, and it alienates our indigenous countrymen and women, and no national holiday should do that to any part of our national society.

- So Dr. Silverman, how did it come to be that this myth has turned into a national holiday?

- The way the myth got attached to the holiday was in 1841, a minister named Alexander Young published one of the two primary source accounts of that feast between the Plymouth Colonists and the Wampanoags.

And it's only a paragraph but to that account the editor, Alexander Young, added a footnote.

And in that footnote he said, this was the first Thanksgiving, the harvest festival of New England.

Now trust me as a historian, there aren't a lot of famous footnotes out there but this is one of them.

Orators like Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams picked up on this idea and started propagating it throughout American society and eventually it stuck that the Thanksgiving holiday originated with this obscure event in 1621 that no one had talked about for 250 years.

Then in 1865, amid the civil war, Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving, which had been a Yankee holiday, a regional on New England holiday, to be a national holiday.

And in the wake of that declaration the myth began to take hold over the entire nation and did so for a number of reasons that I think we could summarize as the culture wars of the 19th century.

For one, this is an era in which the bloody, brutal, and I think we could should call them genocidal wars of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain west were coming to a close in which the United States had completed its subjugation of native America.

It wasn't a history that most Americans wanted to confront and now they had this myth which made the process of colonialism and national expansion seem bloodless in which native people voluntarily willed their country to Europeans and then what happens to them next?

The myth doesn't say.

They just seem to disappear as if by destiny.

This myth also made Protestant white New Englanders, the founders of the country at a time in which many white Protestants were deeply anxious about the immigrants of that age, predominantly Catholics from Ireland and Germany later to be followed by Jews and Orthodox Christians from Eastern Europe.

And so what this myth did is it made white Protestant New Englanders the founders of the nation and emphasized not their bloody conquest of native America, but their commitment to democracy, religious liberty and family integrity.

- And Dr. Silverman, as we wrap this up, you're not against celebrating at all, but what would you have us remember as we go into this celebration?

- Well I would say no reasonable person could be opposed to getting together with family and friends and offering thanks for what's good in our lives.

I certainly am not making that case.

You know, contrary to some of my critics I've not declared war on Thanksgiving.

I don't want to cancel Thanksgiving.

Nothing of the sort.

What I'm contending is that the act of getting together with family and friends and we're reflecting on what we have to be grateful for doesn't have to be attached to a false history.

We're all grownups here.

We can confront uncomfortable truths and we shouldn't propagate historical falsehoods on our children just in the name of making them feel patriotic.

The job of history is to capture a complex past in all of its complexity.

The job of history is not to promote patriotism.

- Right, thank you so much.

Dr. Silverman from George Washington University has been our guests this evening.

Thank you for joining us.

We're going to take just a brief break.

Hang with us there we'll be right back.

(upbeat music) - You'll be so glad you stayed right there because it's time to decorate and we have the wonderful Cheryl Clark with us here.

We're glad to have her back because I hope you've been watching Inspire long enough to know that she is with Dare To Dream and that's an event planning.

Cheryl, we can do so much with a wreath.

- Simple, easy.

- [Betty] Okay.

- You can do whatever you want with this wreath.

You can repurpose it.

You don't have to use it just for fall or Thanksgiving, although that's what we're doing today or autumn.

Any holiday you like you can use the wreath for.

- Okay so now you're usually you start with this now it's doesn't have to be perfectly round or is that?

- No, we like it perfectly imperfect.

- Okay.

- Any shape works but none of the wreath are ever a perfect circle.

So it helps add visual interest as well.

- Okay, now I've heard a lot of people use glue but you're suggesting maybe not.

- No, if you want to repurpose it you want to use floral wire because it's easy to secure and easy to take out.

- Okay.

- So what we've used here to layer this is a leaf stem.

Real simple and easy.

You take your floral cutters, you cut it, cut it down and place it wherever you want.

But like I said, we want to use it for visual.

We want visual interests so we're not going to lie in the entire wreath we're just going to do half of it.

- Okay, so a little blank space?

- A little blank space.

- Draws your eye.

- Draws your eye to it.

- Okay, all right so then when you put it through, let's show how you do that.

- So to secure your vine.

- Okay.

- You just stick it right through here.

- Okay.

Coming out the other end guys.

- Coming out the other hand.

You can take it and wrap it again for good measure.

But we won't do that today.

And then you just twist it together.

And once you've twisted it, you will go ahead and take your floral cutters, cut it down, and then you'll just slip it right back in the wreath.

- Okay, so now in addition to that wire I see that you have some things on pics.

How would you use those?

- Floral pics are easy to use and they're great.

Like this one is probably my favorite now because it has... - Yeah bling.

- I'm a bling girl and you notice there's bling over here in this flower as well.

So all you want to do is take it, stick it wherever you want it.

And if you don't like it, you just pick it up and move it again.

Very flexible.

Very easy.

- I love that.

And then I want to just make sure that everybody sees it again.

And she does make bows but she didn't make this particular bow.

- Nope.

- And Cheryl is available to decorate home or office.

And we're so glad to have you here on Inspire and enjoy this gorgeous wreath.

Isn't that amazing?

Love it.

Thank you, Cheryl.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) - We are back with Mrs. Pauline Johnson.

One of the founding partners of the Topeka Community Thanksgiving Dinner and her son, Myron Johnson, who is a past board member for the Community Dinner.

Welcome both of you to Inspire.

Thank you for joining us.

So Mrs. Johnson, can you tell us a little bit about how the Community Thanksgiving Dinner got started?

- Well, June six tornado, I don't know what year.

After that happened, there was a lot of people homeless and needed food, needed help and we just decided that we would do something good for somebody and then we just decided that the lady lived in my neighborhood, her name was Addy Spicher.

She worked at a church on the corner of 7th and Lime in East Topeka and senior citizens would go there to eat every day.

So after the tornado she just had a group.

And I just being nosy I went to see what was going on and stayed around and helped a little bit 'cause she just had the first Thanksgiving dinner that we would say the first, because she had it there, the church where she was with those people.

Then after that, you know, we just got together and thought maybe we keep giving something to people so we started begging.

And we begged and we got a lot of help and we started serving dinners to people just, well, there was a little small building on the corner of 15th and Monroe.

I went there and made sandwiches and handout sandwiches and cold drinks and, you know, just that kind of stuff and then we decided let's get together and do something different.

So it took us a while to get this started, but by the time the next Thanksgiving came, we had it all worked out.

So we just gave a big dinner and we went several places.

We gave two dinners at the National Guard on 25th & Topeka, Boulevard.

- [Leslie] Fabulous.

- And then from there we went to the Fairgrounds, we went to the basement of the auditorium and we just had dinners everywhere we could find a place who would let us come in.

- Beautiful.

What a legacy you are leaving.

This is amazing and I know it's at the Ag Hall and you guys I love it because a mother and son, and she has said such wonderful things about you Myron.

And of course here's your 96 year old mother that everyone loves.

And you have continued this tradition, explain that the changes you've seen over your life because you've grown up with this.

- This was a small group of people that got together over the years.

We were fortunate in 2005 to become incorporated and get a nonprofit status under Chuck Mason.

There has been lots of folks that come through.

Everyone of course remembers Grant Cushinberry.

There's been a Sharon Cavans that also started, as mama mentioned, Addy Spicher.

Helen Abbott was another one of the ladies that we knew growing up.

Leroy Garvin was also very prominent in helping us.

He was the green bean man for years.

We've never had another green bean person since.

But the dinner has evolved from what I'm told about the 12 people that they served in the beginning October 2,500 to 3,200 meals that we serve every year.

We have been fortunate to land through Shawnee County, the Expo Center, when it was then the expo center now the event center but they donate that space to us and we were allowed to bring in about a thousand to 1200 folks inside.

Cooked meals they give it to us for the week.

You can ask somebody in Topeka for something for the dinner, money, food, their time.

We have never had a shortage of any of those things and all the time we are celebrating the 54th dinner this year.

We did have to serve 53 out of the back of a trailer and serve some prepared meals.

Those all went, there was 3000 of those and those all went.

It was important to us as a Community Thanksgiving Dinner that people understood we were still involved and they can still be involved.

We could not have the number of volunteers that we normally get with somewhere between 400 to 600 every year that come down and just get in line and just want to help and want to help.

I don't want to go too far back, but there was times we had to send volunteers home and it does touch your heart.

And people that will come through and give up their Thursday mornings, you know, to serve someone else and they're just glad to do it.

And it was important that people understand these other folks were involved.

I mean, there's a spearhead here and a founder, but it took a lot of people.

We are now the Community Thanksgiving Dinner Foundation.

We have a board president, treasurer and the whole works.

This year we are going to deliver only, but will still be able to use volunteers.

We'll be doing it as safe as we possibly can.

We are going to actually collect food as well at the Ag Hall.

We're not going to do our fire stations like we usually do because we don't want the general public exposing the firemen so we're going to reduce that and we're going to do the best we can.

- Mrs. Johnson, would you tell us where you get your donations of food for the community dinner and just exactly how important are the volunteers to making the community dinner happen?

- When we started this dinner we don't have any money for ourselves.

We go to Topeka and beg and we have some wonderful people in Topeka.

And they give us whatever we need.

It's donated.

Everything is donated.

- And the volunteers that help you talk about how much they impact putting on this dinner .

- We have the best time with these people.

They're serving dinners, fixing dinners for the children, to bring kids in.

Everything is just wonderful.

They just love it.

And I know they call me sometimes and asking me, "Are you going to need a volunteer?

Are you going to need somebody?

Ah ah you better put me down cause you know I'm coming to help you out."

I said, "Come on, just wear your apron and just come on."

Everything.

We don't have anything to worry about.

All we have to do is open the door and go in.

- [Danielle] That's awesome.

- It beautiful.

Just beautiful.

- Well Mrs. Johnson, Myron, what a blessing you are to our community.

We're going to take another short break, but we'll be back with more of our Thanksgiving Special.

(upbeat music) I am here with Amanda Perry with Amanda's Bakery Creations and through the magic of TV.

Voila.

- Tara!

24 Chocolate cupcakes.

- Beautiful.

And I'm so glad that you and I are in agreement that we don't like whippy we like actual buttercream, - Actual buttercream.

- [Danielle] Frosting She's going to actually have me attempt, and I do use the word attempt... - She's going to do great guys.

So we're going to do the green first.

- [Danielle] Okay.

Can I put the cream in?

- Yes, you can.

- [Danielle] Okay.

- So how many drops?

- How dark you want your green?

- You tell me - About four or five drops.

- Okay.

Oops.

- That's just fine.

(Danielle laughing) So for the leaves, you're going to use a tip number 352.

This just gives you that nice sharp little leaf.

And some people put a little bit of green around their cupcake and then they go to the yellow and I have always found that sunflowers have leaves all the way around the sunflower.

So that's what I do.

- I'm so scared.

- You are just fine.

- And is it important to just keep a small amount?

- [Amanda] For beginners yes so that you have more control on your pressure and your bag position.

- Okay.

- So for the gold, you're going to use the exact same tip as you did with the green.

So we're going to do the same thing with yellow and we're going to make two rows of yellow rather than one row like the green.

- Okay.

That's so pretty.

- And sunflowers come in all kinds of colors.

So you can make it a little bit more orange if you want.

A little bit more yellow.

Now in our last color we're going to use brown.

You're going to use a tip number 21, just a big old star tip.

- [Danielle] Okay.

- Now for the brown, this one's going to be real easy.

- Just a plop in the middle?

- Just some plops in the middle.

- Oh, that's so pretty.

I feel happier with the star tip.

- There you go.

- Just thought I'd share that.

- Well, everybody remembers those cakes from the 80s, right?

- Yes - With the designer pans that everybody had to have every single different kind of them and...

I like that.

And then everybody was covered in stars, right?

Like cake was covered in stars and by the end you were just like, if I never see another star... (Danielle laughing) - That's not bad.

Yeah.

- That is your sunflower ma'am.

- Yeah.

Cheers.

- Cheers - Awesome - Give us a rundown of the different things that you do - So I make cinnamon rolls, muffins, cupcakes, cakes, pies, cookies, brownies.

If you can think it up, I can make it for you and sweet creek.

(upbeat music) - We're glad you stayed with us.

We have been given a six course Thanksgiving meal and we're, these are candy corns and we're going to take them in order, left to right to see if we can decide what they are.

So... - Y'all pray for us.

- Okay - [Leslie] Yeah really.

- So everybody take the first one that's kind of like white and gold and yellow.

- Okay.

- One, two, three.

- Go.

(upbeat music) - That tastes like turkey.

- Yeah - That's not the flavor I'm getting but go ahead.

(Leslie laughing) There's a turkey.

- It might be.

Yeah is it Turkey?

- [Female voice] Yeah it is.

- Okay good.

All right.

- Wait, wait, wait.

- Must be the turkey exactly what we are talking about.

- No, I don't need to cleanse.

I'm sure it's not getting any better.

- Oh shoot let me turn off my phone.

- Okay, the next one is brown with yellow on the top.

Ready?

- [All] One, two, three.

- What in Sam Hill is this?

- It is gross.

- This is not stuffing.

- No, it's not.

Oh my gosh that's just wrong.

- It might have a little bit of onion.

- I'm thinking sage.

That's just nasty.

- Okay, a solid green.

Solid green.

Ready?

Three, two, one.

- That's horrible.

- It has to be green beans if its green.

- That's the worst thing that... - Maybe they don't have... - That I've ever put in my mouth.

- Or the mashed potatoes or... - I think it's green beans.

- Yams.

Oh my God that's gross.

Okay, ready?

Here comes the pink.

Three, two, one.

- Hmm.

What is that?

- That's not bad.

- What is that?

- Cherry pie.

- [Danielle] No, it's not.

- Is that carrot?

- No, it's kind of like cotton candy - No, it's not cotton.

What is it?

- [Female voice] What's red and you normally have on a table?

- Cranberry.

Okay.

- That was pretty good.

I think that was - Okay, here we go with the kind of the light, beige and white.

- Y'all know I don't like candy Corn.

- Three, two, one.

- Soap.

(Danielle and Betty laughing) I think it's supposed to be pie though given in the order.

- What kind of pie?

- Oh, you must have had the cheat sheet.

How do you know that?

- Soapy pie.

I don't.

Soapy pie.

- Oh God.

- [Female voice] Apple pie.

- Oh, its an apple pie.

- Oh man, that you ruined it for me.

I love apple pie.

- That is not apple pie.

- That's okay and were finishing it off.

- Was my personal favorite cause I knew what this was.

Thank you.

- Three, two, one.

- It makes all of this better.

- It's coffee.

- It's coffee.

Nice job.

- [Leslie] That is caffeine.

- Because that was the dinner from hell.

Amen - Thank you so much for joining us.

- That was so bad.

Who's idea was this anyway?

- You know, we need to talk contract negotiations.

- I'm thinking.

- That's all I'm saying.

- We need a bonus for that.

- I'm saying, oh my goodness.

- So that's all we have time for today.

We hope you've learned something about our Thanksgiving Holiday.

And as a reminder, you can watch this program again at watch.ktwu.org.

- And if you're so inspired to learn more about our guests and find what's coming up on future shows, be sure to visit us at our website at ktwu.org/Inspire.

- Inspiring women, inspiring you, inspiring Thanksgiving traditions on KTWU.

Thank you for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Inspire is sponsored by Kansas Furniture Mart, using furniture to inspire conversation and by the Blanche Bryden Foundation.