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[0:04] Tonya Pinkins: This is Tonya Pinkins. It is May 29th. It is the eve of my 58th birthday. And I am here today with a colleague and friend. I did my first professional play, I think, uh on the road with her. We started it at Yale working with the great Lloyd Richards and August Wilson. Lloyd Richards. Lloyd Richards, sorry. Help me, thank you for correcting me, sister. Um, she changed my life in terms of introducing me to literature, but particularly introducing me to black literature, the Harlem Renaissance writers. Um, she is an extraordinary actress, uh, nominated for two Tony Awards for Comeback Little Shiva and The Piano Lesson on Broadway. Um, she's also known for Law and Order and Chicago Med, and she's a Golden Globe winner for Lackawanna Blues. Um, welcome, S. Epatha Merkerson.

[1:06] S Epatha Merkerson: Thank you, Tonya. I'm so happy that you asked me to do this on the eve of your birthday.

[1:13] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, yes. It's uh, I was seeing that you are a native of Michigan because you are the Wiz player, right? You play with...

[1:20] S Epatha Merkerson: You know what? I don't. I don't play cards.

[1:23] Tonya Pinkins: Oh.

[1:25] S Epatha Merkerson: And let me tell you why. Because as a kid, I was never good at it. And I come, I'm the last of five. And if you sat at the card table with any of my siblings, you better know how to play the game.

[1:39] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[1:40] S Epatha Merkerson: They didn't have patience with me. And it was a fifth. They already had four, so they didn't take time to teach you. And so literally, I it I was afraid to learn how to play. So I uh, the only card game that I play is I play two, Uno and Solitaire.

[2:00] Tonya Pinkins: Oh, okay.

[2:01] S Epatha Merkerson: Yes. We don't even play spades. We can't even put you at the kitty table.

[2:05] Tonya Pinkins: I'm gonna tell you it when I tell people that I'm from Detroit and I don't play bidwis, they ask me to give my Detroit card back.

[2:15] S Epatha Merkerson: It's true.

[2:15] Tonya Pinkins: That's for shame.

[2:17] S Epatha Merkerson: And I'm too old now to learn how to play.

[2:19] Tonya Pinkins: Oh no, you can always learn how to play.

[2:19] S Epatha Merkerson: I'm not gonna remember the cards. I can remember lines, but I can't remember what cards are played. That's why it's so pitiful. I can remember a whole script. But you asked me to sit down at a card table and I can't tell you what cards were played.

[2:41] Tonya Pinkins: I understand, I overstand, I overstand the memory, the memory. And I think it's just a muscle with the lines that lines are not even an issue. People go, how do you learn those lines? If the story makes sense to me, the words come. How is it for you?

[2:58] S Epatha Merkerson: And it's very similar, but I will say that as I've gotten older, uh, you know, what I used to learn in two days, it takes me sometimes four or five days to learn because I'm just getting older and my brain power is not the same. But you know, if the story makes sense, the lines will come easily. If it's written in a way that we speak, the lines will come easy. And that's just the truth of it. The things I have the most trouble with are things that when I'm trying to learn them, like, wait a minute, something's wrong, the syntax, something's going on here that I don't understand.

[3:37] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[3:38] S Epatha Merkerson: So we were gonna talk about quilting because that's what you've been doing during the pandemic, right?

[3:44] S Epatha Merkerson: Oh my goodness. A friend of mine is having a little girl, and they love dogs, and so that's my new quilt for them. Yeah, sewing because sewing is a way for me to calm down. It's it becomes my zen time. And uh, so I've you know decided at the very beginning of this that I would start sewing, and I first started making masks because I thought this was a great way to help my friends and family stay away from the PPE that's needed. Um, and then I really got into it, you know. Um, so I have made over uh 250 masks, and I started this uh quilt in the middle of everything. So yeah, I love quilting.

[4:44] Tonya Pinkins: And are you staying calm as Miss Minneapolis is burning and they're storming the state?

[4:50] S Epatha Merkerson: I was calm until Tuesday, Tonya. And then Tuesday was a really, really hard day for me. And you know, I won't don't be surprised if I tear up. But um Tuesday was hard.

[5:04] Tonya Pinkins: Me too.

[5:05] S Epatha Merkerson: Um, and and I could not get out of the funk I was in. You know, as I would get on Facebook and I'd see these photographs and this video of this woman in Central Park. Um, and then this pandemic and a friend on Facebook, you know, at parties with no masks and then this young man George Floyd um I could not get it together and and I've been good sort of place putting things in in place but but that just broke my heart it just it broke my heart and you know I think about you know times when I was a young girl and I remember one time my brother and I were coming from my sister's home and we were a little uh we were he was his foot was heavy so he was driving a little fast and uh the police stopped us but what they did was they didn't stop us for him speeding they they thought he looked like someone who had done something wrong and but what they did was they approached our car with their guns drawn and I just remember my brother freaking and saying to me please please don't say anything don't say anything don't say anything and I could just see I had never seen him that afraid and and so all of a sudden that came flooding back and I kept thinking about how close we could have been to something if he had been a smart ass.

[7:06] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[7:07] S Epatha Merkerson: And he wasn't. He didn't have to be anything. I mean, he didn't have to be anything. You know, you can be in your home. You could be in your home. You could be sitting in your chair. You could be on your way to the store. You could be on your way from the store. There is this thing that is happening. And that now we can see. I think somebody posted where Will Smith said, you know, racism hasn't gone away. It's just being filmed. He said it's racism isn't increasing. It's just being...

[7:44] Tonya Pinkins: Thank you.

[7:44] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah. Like Denzel Washington having to save a homeless man from the police yesterday.

[7:54] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[7:55] S Epatha Merkerson: I mean, we've been living with this as long as our ancestors were on this continent. And even as it is then being videotaped, which you know, Eric Garner was videotaped. Absolutely didn't make any difference.

[8:09] Tonya Pinkins: No.

[8:10] S Epatha Merkerson: And that the embedded. It's embedded into the grain, uh the absolute grain of this country, the racism, the the lack of accountability uh as well, um, the the lack of faith in our justice system because we're constantly having to deal with these incidents where young black and brown men are being murdered, and no one and women, we cannot forget the women because please forget me. And no one is accountable. That I just so Tuesday, Tuesday was rough for me. Tuesday was hard. And then yesterday, Wednesday, you know, I just started getting angry. And I couldn't sleep because I was angry. And then yesterday I just tried to listen to everything. And then you see the young people who are just done. Because they have no hope. They have no hope for jobs, they have no hope for education. They can't eat. They have nothing. Nothing. And freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.

[9:34] Tonya Pinkins: Exactly.

[9:35] S Epatha Merkerson: To coin a song. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So it it uh, you know, it it's pretty amazing what we're dealing with here in the midst of a pandemic and uh government that has absolutely uh no scruples, no morals, uh, are liars. Uh and you know, they're they're doing things at there's so much going on that we probably don't even see. I honestly feel like he's he is inciting the boogaloo, that's what they call it, the Dominionist, the white supremacists, the evangelist, they call it the boogaloo. It is uh the second civil war in those communities. They say that um he is he's not the uh I don't say his name. Um, um he's not the savior, but that there is going to be the world before him and the world after him.

So there are these small pockets of people who are rooting for this violence because they have been, you know, as Dylan Roof said before he shot the people in the church, he wanted to incite the race riot, which is going to bring on this second civil war, uh, which, you know, they feel wrong by Lincoln freeing the slaves. And Lincoln didn't want to free the slaves.

[11:02] Tonya Pinkins: Thank you.

[11:02] S Epatha Merkerson: You know, you know, well, even with Kennedy, there are things that are happened because they're timely in history. And freeing the slaves was Lincoln's, and you know, civil rights was was Kennedy's. You know what I'm saying? Uh they they were pushed to do those things because it was time, timely in history. Uh, and and you know, the the there, even with that young boy you just whose name you just called out, you know, he was arrested and taken to Burger King.

[11:37] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah, Wendy's or something to get some food.

[11:39] S Epatha Merkerson: Okay, and this young man yesterday, uh Tuesday, it's my understanding, and he's young because he's 20 years younger than me. Uh, this young man was they accused of a 20%. That's a counterfeit 20%. He may not have even known what's counterfeit because he didn't leave. He didn't run off. He was standing in that outside of the store afterwards. He was sitting in the car. And that a 20, and this young man sits in a prayer service with people. He kills them, and then they take him for a Burger King. And this young man for almost nine minutes is saying, I can't breathe. I, you know, uh, I don't, you know, I'm not uh I'm I'm don't think that I'm a violent person, uh, but the what was going on last night, I completely understand.

[12:41] Tonya Pinkins: Yes.

[12:41] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah, I didn't last night at all. And then with the person in charge tweeting uh when the looting starts, the shooting starts. When the looting stops, the shooting starts. Yeah. And to quote, you know, one despicable uh, you know, shoot from Florida. Um, you know, that's the man who was elected. And that's why it's so important that young people understand you you you know, it's not just the presidential election, it's those city and county elections that you have to be vigilant about because you know, those are the ones where the attorney generals are, you know, given are elected, your city council people, uh uh, you know, your state senators, those are the people that you know you want to check. Uh because the it's not just about a presidential election.

[13:45] Tonya Pinkins: And you know, where do you live?

[13:47] S Epatha Merkerson: Right. Now, people probably a lot of people don't know that you made a documentary.

[13:53] Tonya Pinkins: I did.

[13:56] S Epatha Merkerson: I own your documentary, The Contradictions of Fair Hope. You want to tell us a little bit about what that project is and why you named that project?

[14:05] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah, you know, it's uh it's about a a little known organization that happens with uh a lot of uh ethnicities. Uh they're called benevolent societies, and they're created as a means to help the community when it's needed. Food, uh, you know, burial. They were originally considered burial societies. And my uh uh producing partner, Raquel Metcalf is from Alabama, and his grandmother who lived to 104, uh, Bessie, Bessie Hunt belonged to the uh Fair Hope Benevolent Society.

[14:52] S Epatha Merkerson: And she had been a member since she was 17 years old and was still paying dues at 104.

[15:02] S Epatha Merkerson: And so when he came to me with this project, he said, you know, my grandmother belongs to this organization, we should think about filming it.

[15:12] S Epatha Merkerson: And I was like, what is it?

[15:14] S Epatha Merkerson: And he said, Well, it's the Fair Hope Benevolent Society, but now they call it the footwash.

[15:19] S Epatha Merkerson: And I was like, okay, well, here, when you go home, because I think it was gonna happen that because it happens every September, and it I said, take some pictures and bring them back.

[15:33] S Epatha Merkerson: So he comes back with these pictures, and you know Toussaint, Tucson, Tucson.

[15:41] S Epatha Merkerson: Uh Raquel is like six four.

[15:45] S Epatha Merkerson: Uh, you know, and he's standing arms akimbo in front of six butt naked women.

[15:53] S Epatha Merkerson: And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute.

[15:56] S Epatha Merkerson: I thought you said that your grandmother was a part of this organization.

[16:02] S Epatha Merkerson: And he said, that's the story.

[16:04] S Epatha Merkerson: That's how it's that's how it came to me.

[16:08] S Epatha Merkerson: So what the documentary does is it tells the story historically, how we got from the fair hope benevolent society that his grandmother belonged to, how it morphed into the footwash.

[16:24] S Epatha Merkerson: And it was a gradual thing.

[16:27] S Epatha Merkerson: So now, after, and it's still going on, after almost 130 years in existence, this thing happened gradually.

[16:37] S Epatha Merkerson: What was once a weekend of religious observance has turned into a week of pure debauchery, where people come from all over the country by word of mouth, there's no promotion, there is no advertisement.

[16:54] S Epatha Merkerson: But by Saturday night, that last week of September, you cannot walk on the grounds for the crowd that is there.

[17:08] S Epatha Merkerson: Now, what was powerful to me of that movie is the opening lines.

[17:12] S Epatha Merkerson: Who is the narrator?

[17:14] S Epatha Merkerson: Whoopi.

[17:15] S Epatha Merkerson: Whoopie goes narrator.

[17:16] S Epatha Merkerson: And she says on the uh the day after emancipation, four million black men and women were released into a capitalist economy with no capital.

[17:36] S Epatha Merkerson: Right.

[17:36] S Epatha Merkerson: Let's talk about that.

[17:39] S Epatha Merkerson: Because there was a point in time in history, the 1619 project talks about it, that black bodies were greater economy than the railroads, than anything in this nation.

[17:52] S Epatha Merkerson: And we were quote unquote freed with nothing.

[17:57] S Epatha Merkerson: And that is what the benevolent societies were because we didn't have food, clothes, house, burial, nothing.

[18:05] S Epatha Merkerson: And they used to be called nickel and dime societies, meaning every every time dues were collected, people would pull together their nickels and dimes.

[18:14] S Epatha Merkerson: And if the Brown family uh was having a hard time, then that money would go to the Brown family.

[18:22] S Epatha Merkerson: If the if the Williams lost someone in their family, then that money would be would help to bury that person.

[18:32] S Epatha Merkerson: And and literally it was a form of insurance.

[18:50] S Epatha Merkerson: And it all came out of the benevolent society.

[18:57] S Epatha Merkerson: And this was people who had been enslaved, who'd who maybe had a history of having come from somewhere and knowing how to be communities, figuring out how to be communities and to take care of and support one another in a in a very hostile environment.

[19:15] S Epatha Merkerson: Absolutely.

[19:16] S Epatha Merkerson: And then there's the other side of that, uh, Tanya, where you know, this now has morphed into something that uh they could never have imagined when it initially started.

[19:31] S Epatha Merkerson: Um and it, you know, it happened gradually, and and it also happened uh to people who were trying to find ways to feed their families.

[19:46] S Epatha Merkerson: Right.

[19:47] S Epatha Merkerson: Um and unfortunately it it's taken this negative turn, but it happened gradually because in those areas as well there was no work.

[20:01] S Epatha Merkerson: And so on that September, when this would roll around, it started with someone bringing sandwiches, and then the next three or four years, people were making sandwiches and selling sandwiches, and then there was liquor, and then there was gambling, and then there was prostitution, and then there were guns.

[20:28] S Epatha Merkerson: Right.

[20:29] S Epatha Merkerson: But in the history of this entire time, there's only been one murder.

[20:39] S Epatha Merkerson: And that happened.

[20:40] S Epatha Merkerson: Now there's been all other kinds of things, and that happened because a woman found her husband in a prostitution pit and she went home and she came back.

[20:52] S Epatha Merkerson: She killed him.

[20:54] S Epatha Merkerson: Um but it it is to me, it there is something about the documentary that you know sort of sh shows the same type of desperation that we're dealing with now.

[21:11] S Epatha Merkerson: These things can only happen when people are desperate.

[21:16] S Epatha Merkerson: When people want justice, when people want to feed their families, and people want to live in peace, and they want to be able to give to their children what they couldn't get for themselves.

[21:32] S Epatha Merkerson: All of this madness comes when people are desperate and angry.

[21:41] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah.

[21:42] S Epatha Merkerson: And we are desperate and angry.

[21:44] S Epatha Merkerson: And I feel like it's so important for people to know that, you know, I feel like so many people in the communities that I spend, you know, the theater, the television, the show business community, they assume that because you've had some success that somehow you get this immunity to being angry, that you somehow and you don't have to feel it anymore, or you don't care because you have have risen above it.

[22:12] S Epatha Merkerson: And you see more of it.

[22:16] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah.

[22:17] S Epatha Merkerson: You know, because now, you know, as my success happened, you know, I would when I first came here, I was doing mostly black theater, you know, because that's where I could get the work.

[22:38] S Epatha Merkerson: You know, and sometimes I'd be the only black person.

[22:42] S Epatha Merkerson: Uh, and so you see it more, you hear it.

[22:46] S Epatha Merkerson: Uh and uh, you know, yeah, it's not gonna stop you from being angry, it might make you even more angry.

[22:58] S Epatha Merkerson: You know, yeah.

[22:59] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah, I I definitely have not uh slept and not been able to get moving in the last couple of days.

[23:07] Tonya Pinkins: So has your quilting been uh giving you some comfort?

[23:11] S Epatha Merkerson: It it actually has because it's focused.

[23:14] S Epatha Merkerson: You know what I mean?

[23:15] S Epatha Merkerson: Uh you sit at a sewing machine and you're stitching, and that that's what you have to pay attention to.

[23:22] S Epatha Merkerson: So you're not stitching.

[23:25] S Epatha Merkerson: I'm I'm using a uh I've learned this new technique.

[23:25] S Epatha Merkerson: I've learned this new technique.

[23:32] S Epatha Merkerson: I'm like going crazy with this new technique because this whole this whole quilt is like applique.

[23:39] S Epatha Merkerson: So yeah, so I I went online one day just looking to see like some quilt patterns because you know I do it because I enjoy it.

[23:49] S Epatha Merkerson: I know quilters who are artists, you know.

[23:52] S Epatha Merkerson: People, this woman who I take in class from Judy Doney is this woman is an amazing artist.

[23:59] S Epatha Merkerson: It's it's not just about stitching, it's the whole concept of of art, it ends up in her quilts, like the geez bends quilts.

[24:08] S Epatha Merkerson: You know what I mean?

[24:09] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[24:11] S Epatha Merkerson: So literally, this this is like uh I go online and there's this place called Shiny Happy World, and they make it's a website, and they make quilts for children, and they're great little um uh they have cuddly cats and and playful puppies and this whole thing of paper dolls.

[24:34] S Epatha Merkerson: So I spent like three days cutting out paper dolls and making these dolls.

[24:41] S Epatha Merkerson: Let me show you this so cute.

[24:45] S Epatha Merkerson: And quilting has such an amazing history too.

[24:49] S Epatha Merkerson: Oh, those are so cute.

[24:52] S Epatha Merkerson: So it's uh, yeah, so it's uh the quilt will be of all little girls, black, white, uh, you know, uh Latina, the you know, it's gonna be a mixture lots of shades for this little girl who's gonna be born in the world, and quilts what the way that we used to do communication during the Underground Railroad, absolutely different and the pattern and which way you hung the pattern, let people know what the houses were safe houses.

[25:25] S Epatha Merkerson: I mean, we developed a whole method of communicating through the quilts.

[25:30] S Epatha Merkerson: Oh, yeah, and you know it's funny because when I first started quilting, uh uh Sam Jackson and Latanya were having their daughter Zoe.

[25:41] S Epatha Merkerson: Oh, you've been quilting a long time.

[25:44] S Epatha Merkerson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[25:45] S Epatha Merkerson: But I'm still a novice because I don't do it all the time.

[25:52] S Epatha Merkerson: No, she was in her 30s.

[25:53] S Epatha Merkerson: Okay, yeah, I'm like grown woman.

[25:56] S Epatha Merkerson: No, but wait, they still have the quilt.

[26:00] S Epatha Merkerson: I went to visit them, and they still have the quilt.

[26:05] S Epatha Merkerson: Of course.

[26:06] S Epatha Merkerson: Why wouldn't you have it?

[26:07] S Epatha Merkerson: And it's the worst piece of shit.

[26:09] S Epatha Merkerson: Can I say that?

[26:10] Tonya Pinkins: Yes, you can.

[26:13] S Epatha Merkerson: That I made, but I did it because I I was broke as a church mouse, and they were having a baby, and I wanted to give something to the baby, and I have been playing around with the sewing machine for a few years, and I said, you know what?

[26:32] S Epatha Merkerson: I'm gonna make her a quilt.

[26:34] S Epatha Merkerson: I think I made it with like clothes that I was gonna throw away.

[26:40] S Epatha Merkerson: Um then I had some fabrics, so there was corduroy and cotton on this quilt with the little ruffle all around it, and they still have the quilt, and Zoe is in her 30s.

[26:54] S Epatha Merkerson: But anyway, that's what got me started.

[26:57] S Epatha Merkerson: And so when I do that, it just really is a zen kind of moment.

[27:07] S Epatha Merkerson: And the great thing is that at the end of it, I have something to show.

[27:15] S Epatha Merkerson: And so there are friends of mine who, you know, have these quilts on Chris Snow and his wife just had a baby, and I made a quilt for them during the this shutdown and worked on this one.

[27:30] S Epatha Merkerson: Uh yeah, it took me like four years to make a quilt for Brian T and his wife Morelli.

[27:36] S Epatha Merkerson: I think their daughter, I think their daughter Maddie was four by the time I finished my quilt.

[27:42] S Epatha Merkerson: But you know, it's like that.

[27:44] S Epatha Merkerson: I do it when I can, and and it's also a great thing to take on a set because when you're reading, you're gonna be interrupted.

[27:53] S Epatha Merkerson: And the one thing that I hate is for somebody to interrupt me while I'm reading something.

[28:01] S Epatha Merkerson: And so I started taking the quilting to set because that allowed me to pick something up and put it down, but I also wasn't wasting time.

[28:10] S Epatha Merkerson: When the day was over, I had something to show for the time I had been sitting, because you know it's all about hurry up and wait.

[28:18] Tonya Pinkins: Right.

[28:19] S Epatha Merkerson: But then when you're ready and you're in the book, they want to call you to set.

[28:23] S Epatha Merkerson: Right.

[28:24] S Epatha Merkerson: Just when the moment, you know, it's like the end of one of these mini-series.

[28:27] S Epatha Merkerson: It's like an episode cliffhanger.

[28:28] S Epatha Merkerson: You got to stop.

[28:30] Tonya Pinkins: Yeah.

[28:30] S Epatha Merkerson: And it's funny because uh the last book I read, I think I was telling you about that city of girls, Elizabeth Gilbert.

[28:39] S Epatha Merkerson: And I decided I was gonna take it to work with me.

[28:44] S Epatha Merkerson: And and there it was, you know.

[28:46] S Epatha Merkerson: Every time I get to a good part, uh you paytha, we need you on set, and it's like, okay, see, this is why I don't read on set.

[28:54] S Epatha Merkerson: Good book, by the way.

[28:56] S Epatha Merkerson: If you haven't read it, it's fun for us because it's it's about this young girl who ends up in a theater company in New York, like in the 40s.

[29:05] S Epatha Merkerson: So it's fun.

[29:11] Tonya Pinkins: This is Tonya Pinkins, and you're listening to You Can't SAY THAT on the Broadway Podcast Network.

[29:16] Tonya Pinkins: That was part one of my conversation with S. Epatha Merkerson on life during COVID 19.

[29:25] Tonya Pinkins: Come back for part two.