SPEAKER_01: 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to this special series brought to you by Carry On Friends in partnership with Where It's At Magazine. And my guest today is Mr. Herman Hall, the founder and publisher of Everybody's Magazine, the longest-running Caribbean-American publication. And in addition to being a publisher, Herman is a politician. He is a staller in our community. And I'm excited to talk to him personally. Herman has planted the seeds to what has launched Carry On Friends. And I'm excited for you to get to learn to know more about him and where Caribbean media is coming from and his thoughts about where we're going. So, Herman, welcome.

SPEAKER_00: 0:42

Well, thank you for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01: 0:44

Thank you for being here. So, um, a little bit of backstory. I first met you when I was a young woman in 2006.

SPEAKER_00: 0:53

You're a studio.

SPEAKER_01: 0:54

Yes, thank you. And I wanted to buy tickets for the Oliver play, one of many Oliver plays. But before we get into how you are even doing the promotion for Oliver plays, let's go back to what was the reason why you started everybody's back in 1977, right?

SPEAKER_00: 1:16

Yeah, 1977, that's right. Yeah, so talk to me about that. Well, essentially, I was a member of the Western American Day Carnival Association. And that is the people who put out the Carnival on Labor Day. And way back in the early 70s, the Carnival was not well known. We were not even yet on Eastern Parkway in terms of the parade. We had to have the events in the park, in Prospect Park. And then I was the youngest, the organizers of the carnival then were guys working in the subway, New York City Transit Authority. Others had basically manier jobs. A couple of their wives were nacci-days and so forth. And I just happened to be young and then in my mid-twenties, going to Brooklyn College, and I joined them. And then I became everything. I was the public relations person. So I was doing, we had an annual carnival journal, we called it in those days. And I think they still have it every Labor Day Carnival Journal. I think so. So I got involved in that. And then in 1976, for the 200th anniversary of the United States, what we call the bicentennial, the federal government had reached out to the West Indian American Day Carnival Association for us to promote anything Caribbean during the 200 years, the Caribbean relationship or the West Indian relationship with the United States for 200 years. So I produced the Caribbean-American Carnival Journal to coincide with the Bicentennial. But at the same time, I also put on my own booklet because I always love history. And as a matter of fact, when I graduated from Brooklyn College, it was my intention to go to Columbia University to do my graduate work in journalism. So it kind of been with me. So having done the Caribbean, the West Indian Carnival Journal, the Bicentennial Journal, and then my own little booklet, I thought that there was a market. So I decided to do it. Moreover, at that particular time in the 70s, late 60s, early 70s, 80s, the census, consensus then was that the premier magazines, Ebony and Jet, they were not covering Caribbean-American activities or even Caribbean activities once in a blue moon. So that was the criticism. So I decided to create everybody's magazine to encompass the entire English-speaking Caribbean.

SPEAKER_01: 4:07

Wonderful. This is why I wanted to have this conversation because I've known some of these stories, these tidbits, because you've shared them with me over the years. So I'm really glad that we're letting viewers in on some of this history. Now, one of the things you've always said to me was, you know, no one remembers Brooklyn before Brooklyn became Caribbean. You used to tell me Eastern Parkway used to be Lily White. So talk to me a little bit for, because most kids now, most of us now know Brooklyn for being this hub of Caribbean culture. What was Brooklyn back then? What was Brooklyn in the way you were you're telling me it wasn't as we know it now?

SPEAKER_00: 4:48

Well, well, in terms of the carnival, uh, we will leave that for uh maybe in another minute. But when I arrived in this country in 1967, the the migration from Harlem to Brooklyn among Westinians had already started. So I think the migration from Harlem to Brooklyn, Westinian style already started maybe in the early 50s. But prior to that, when it was not plains in the 20s and 30s, immigrants from Jamaica, Barbados, Grenada, those places, Harlem was where you went. This is why, this is where Marcus Garvey, you know, this is where Malcolm X mother, everyone leave, Claude McKee. But then the exodus of Brooklyn began sometime in the 50s. So when I arrived here in 67, all we are was still whites. And Carlos Lizama, this is all we like to use the word, Lily Whites. I took it from Carlos Lizama, who is the one who introduced Carnival, not to Brooklyn, but to Eastern Parkway. The carnival really came from Harlem, and it was a man named Rufus Gring who actually went to prison for staging a carnival with her to Pomet. But it was Carlos Lizama who really developed it. So when Carlos decided to go to the Brooklyn Museum to get Eastern Parkway as a parade ground, as the community, it was all white, you know, and so forth, were totally opposed to it. As a matter of fact, the lady who was in charge of the Brooklyn Museum, when she decided to give us the Brooklyn Museum grounds to stage what is in all those shows at the back of the museum every Labor Day weekend, she was fired. She lost the job. Well, of course, she passed many, many years ago. So, but however, going back now, in the 30s and 40s, there was a sprinkling of Caribbean people actually living in Brooklyn. He's not everyone who arrived on the boat went to Harlem. So one of the pioneers in Calypso, Gerald Clarke, for example, this is the man who was the premier. He had the Calypso ban in the 40s and 50s. If you were to look at any Calypso in the 40s and 50s, you will see it marked Gerald Clark. Then he lived in Bedstay. Then Thompson, whose grandson will be New York City, not public advocate, but he would be the controller. And he ran right for mayor. His parents, as a matter of fact, Bill still owns the property of his grandparents in Bertstay. So coming back, you can say in the 40s and 50s, you did have a certain amount of Caribbean people beginning to actually settle. But these were Caribbean people who had a certain amount of um, maybe they could have been slightly middle class. Gerald Twak was a fake musician. There was um Baker from um Nevis, Montstrapped, and he was the first black in the New York State um in the Senate, in the New York State Senate, and he too was from one of the smaller islands. But I think the rush to Brooklyn en masse, it really began maybe in the 60s.

SPEAKER_01: 8:23

Wow. So in talking to you, we've learned some carnival history, and we probably have to do that another time. That people went to jail to actually Wellgoring, only and and someone lost a job. Someone went to jail and someone lost a job for putting on like the early iteration.

SPEAKER_00: 8:41

The white video at the Brooklyn Museum grounds, yes. Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 8:44

Now let's go back to the magazine. So while uh while I was volunteering, working with you on the magazine those four years until I got married, um, there were so many iconic photographs that the magazine had throughout the years. And you've told me stories of Avery Fisher Hall when the magazine had its annual gala. So when we think of everybody's magazine, what is the magazine cover or what's the issue that people most recognize, talk about, or remember?

SPEAKER_00: 9:18

Well, I think it would have to be Bob Marley. Yeah, there's no question about it. Um, our first major issue, even though the magazine started in '77, we had Bob on the cover in 78. And in those days we were printing 4,000. And I remember um we had there was a company, Latin American News Agency. They were the distributors of the Gleener, the Jamaica Gleaner, and they took me on also to distribute the magazine. And within two weeks, the 4,000 were sold. And then we had to print another 4,000. And that was when Bob performed at Madison Square Garden. That was his first performance. His first, and then he was sitting at the Firewood performance there. So it was um, I always have to say Bob Marley, but then we started in the sem in the late 77. But the Caribbean, early 80s, beginning in 79, was on fire. You had the first coup d'etat in the English-speaking Caribbean when Maurice Bishop overthrew a game. So that was no longer a grenader story, it was a worldwide Caribbean event. So anything with Maurice Bishop on the cover would have been selling, iconic cover. Then you had at the same time, you had Michael Manley. Yes. Okay, who the America did not care about, but was really working for the working class in Jamaica. So anything on Michael Manley, Maurice Bishop, you know, Bob Molly, those covers, nobody was asking, well, this is a Barbados magazine or Grenadian magazine. Everybody from every island were purchasing those um issues because of the covers.

SPEAKER_01: 11:14

And your edition last year to coincide with the Grenadas um anniversary, you shared the story of getting those exclusive interviews with um Gary when he was in the hotel and um some of your conversations with Maurice Bishop. So I'll make sure that I'll put the link to that so people can get that issue and read some of that um interview and conversations, which I found very enlightening. So moving a little bit ahead, you now are promoting the Oliver Samuels plays, which now has a different type of audience. Talk to me about how you transitioned into that space.

SPEAKER_00: 11:50

Yeah, well, we never transitioned. The boat, the board were running concurrently. Yeah. Well, again, getting funding for any magazine used to be very difficult. If you read the autobiography of Johnson, who founded Every, he would tell you all of those stories. So getting funding for uh especially a Caribbean publication would have been very, very difficult. So I and then I thought by having appealing to a younger audience uh and somebody who will embrace the Caribbean would bring readers and subscribers and supporters and advertisers to the magazine. So we had Calypsonians, um, people came to see. But then Nolan Patterson's parents um who worked for the magazine, even his status going basically you can even say kindergarten, you know, until he graduated with his master's degree. So his parents who told him about this, Oliver Samuel. And when I reached out to Oliver, um we started in 1990. And at that particular time, I would have been one of the first promoters who treated Oliver in an honest manner. You mean because in those days, if you have a show and you're a promoter, you have a show and you didn't make money, people didn't come to the show, the poor always wouldn't get paid. But Oliver, so I treated Oliver different. And then we started, and then people up to today associate me with Oliver. So we started in 1990. We did Brooklyn College. Then when I told Oliver I was going to take him to the Bronx, he was crying blood. Because he said, listen, I went to Lehman College, where I think it was Kingston Boys, one of those Jamaican organizers, they all failed. And I said, No, and believe you me, we will succeed. So then we went to the Bronx, Queens, York College, then Boston, Bridgeport, Hartford, Maryland, Washington, and so forth. But in the meantime, we also were doing um big concerts, um, especially in Calypso. Right. I don't know if you were with the magazine when we did the world Calypso Monarch.

SPEAKER_01: 14:19

No, I wasn't, but I was with the the magazine when you did the Shadow show in Brooklyn College.

SPEAKER_00: 14:25

Right. Well, I well, you've demanded we should we uh managed Shadow.

SPEAKER_01: 14:28

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 14:29

Yeah, I was Shadow's manager from 1975 or 76 until he passed. Yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 14:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 14:37

Love this history. I am so excited. The world Calypso Monop was massive. Uh actually, the people who did the videoing, they videoed Bob Marley's last concert. So it was a big um company. They used to shoot for Channel 13. It was massive. The first prize was 20,000 US dollars. Oh, that's I mean, in those days we had big we had big sponsors. Those days are Finnish. But um we had a Calypsoan from Germany, white Californians. We had a Californian from Jamaica, um, who had um he had um he had some very humorous tunes, um, one of Jamaica's top Californians at that time. Um, and then we had we had representatives from all the islands, Virgin Islands, um, Antigua, and so forth. And Trogdos, um, the Californian who went on to earn his PhD, not an honorary PhD, but uh a legitimate PhD, he he won God the$20,000. And it was on pay-per-view.

SPEAKER_01: 15:41

Wonderful. So where are we today with everybody's magazine and all the different ventures? I'm I know from working with you that the media has media has shrunk, not just for black media, but especially Caribbean media. So where are we today with everybody's and everything that you're working with?

SPEAKER_00: 16:00

Well, where we are today is really facing reality. Um, number one, the technology has changed. Print will never die, but print will never be the same. It's like saying um jazz, when rock and roll came about, um, people were saying when the television came, people will say the movie industry will die, or when rock and roll or those sort of music came along, people say jazz will die, but jazz is still here. Those things will never die. Same thing with print, but print will never be what it is. So facing that reality and giving my age right now, I mean, um, it's it's in the sense that I'm gradually phasing out, but even though I'm phasing out, we have a lot of work there. Um, Yale University, for example, is interested in the magazine's um portfolios, photos, articles, manuscripts, but they all have to be cataloged first. So I think in that respect, but I have basically not doing shows anymore. Because shows is for a younger generation. Shows when you're a promoter, producer, it's very, very nerve-breaking. You're wondering, you are the person who is spending the money, will you get back the money? Who is going to say you didn't pay them? It's very nerve-wracking. So it's for a younger generation. But I have done two books and I'm writing two books presently. So this is how I hope to end it. One of the books um should have been out since last year. It is from Alexander Hamilton to Kamala Harris. And the book was should have been out. Had you had Kamala Harris won the election, I would have sped it up. But that book from Alexander Hamilton to Kamala Harris is going to be transcultural, transnational. Anyone will be able to read it. I hope President Trump will want to read it because it will be telling you about the contributions of Caribbean nationals going back to the 18th century. You see, most people still don't realize, well, thank goodness of Hamilton the play. And now President Trump is um with his um the law where he has enforced the 80th, the 1798 law about um extraditing nationals and so forth. That was created by Hamilton to a certain extent. So the book gives you Claude McKay, the great Jamaican poet. Um we have people like one of the founders of Carver Savings Bank was Jamaican. Then you have Malcolm X's mom, she came from Grenada. The first black to captain, the first black captain in the United States Merchant Marine was from St. Vincent. The first black person to hold a high selected office in New York City was from St. Lucia. He was the first black person to become borough president. And um and so forth. So there's a lot people didn't know. Um the other day I was looking at um one of the channels and they were talking about George Constant Baker Motley. And when you speak to people today, they ask, who is the they see her as 100% African American? There's no wrong, there's nothing wrong with that. But she was born, yes, in Connecticut. Her parents were from Nevis. George Marty Constant Bacon Martley was, she has about a million force. The first black woman appeared in New York City to become borough president of any borough. The first black woman to become a Senior judge. She was Martin Luther King's lawyer. Okay. So these are the sort of stories that we either don't know or we take for granted. And even when I when we wrote things in Everybody's Magazine about Alexander Hamilton, I used to be getting phone calls saying we are spreading misinformation. Right. Because nobody could perceive that one of the founding fathers of the United States came from the islands. And Shirley Chisholm. And some of those people I knew personally, like Josh Consent, Dacamati, we never met, but she used to send me little notes because she was an avid reader of everybody's magazine. Same thing for Colin Powell, General Colin Powell. He was a paid subscriber of the magazine. So he's going to be in the book. We did an interview with General Colin Powell long before he was a general. When he was Lieutenant Connell, nobody knew he was then in the Reagan White House. He was the first black person to be the national security advisor to the president. That was between 1987 until Reagan left office. And then when he was the national security advisor, he gave everybody's magazine an interview. So I'm screening that interview now to put into the book. And here was a man who tells you bluntly he's Jamaican-American. Here is a man who tells you that he grew up with Calypso because his parent. Well, in those days, Calypso at that time was actually the national music at the time of Jamaica. But here was a man who grew up with Cory goats and so forth. So all of those stuff will be in the in the in the book.

SPEAKER_01: 21:56

Wonderful. I mean, I don't think I have enough time to have more conversations with you, Herman. I mean, just really good stuff. We're going to continue this conversation, bringing in Mr. Clive Williams, because both of you are just, you know, men that I admire and just stalwarts in the community. I want to ask you some questions about when we were working together and that experience working with Nolan and myself, who were very frustrated with your approach to media. But now that I'm on this side, I'm like, Herman was right. You had all the knowledge about how the media was changing and young people versus what the old people want. And I feel like I'm in that space. So I want to hold that conversation with Mr. Williams. But everyone, this is Mr. Herman Hall of Everybody's Magazine. We haven't even begun to touch the surface of his experience, his career. He dabbled in politics. We still didn't get to that. But this is not supposed to be exhaustive. This is supposed to be a starting point for you to go and learn more. He has more books. We'll share some of the covers of the magazine. But don't go away. We'll be right back with Herman Hall and Mr. Clive Williams, publisher of Where It's At magazine.