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Paddy: When you were reading these things, and making these links in your head, were you also making kind of like the emotional connection within your own experience of like, oh my God, this is my passion, but also this is like deep within my DNA

Kevin: oh yeah, very much so.

I mean, the best way to describe it was like getting barreled, when you're surfing, there's sound around you when you're just surfing a, a, a wave that it hasn't barreled over you. Then as it barrels over you, you have the sound of the wave creating this.

A kind of background ambience, rumbling, and that's going on all around you. So there it's loud in a sense, but then it's also quiet you're, you're in this enclosed space and you're looking forward trying to get out. But then you also want to stay in it. Um, and so it's just this very kind of surreal, other worldly experience.

When I have that aha moment looking at these accounts of surfing, it was the same thing. I'm in a room. The history lab at, , the University of South Carolina.

so I'm in this space with all these other people, but as I'm reading it, it's almost like tunnel [00:01:00] vision. Like my world collapses and they're no longer there. And it's just me and the book. And I'm reading the book through my experiences as a surfer, as a black surfer. I mean, I think I was probably the first, or one of the first historians who surfs to actually read those accounts and then to read it through that perspective. Right? To understand, you know, that this, there's this perception that black people don't surf and yet. Here they are on the, on the pages of, history that were written, you know, hundreds of years ago.

Paddy: PADDYO VO:

I've talked before on this show about how the wee unmustached child version of myself was obsessed with surfing. And how, historically, the Chicago suburb I grew up in had a shocking lack of waves. But that didin't stop me from pretending arm pillows were surfboards and the living room carpet was a double overhead beach break. Sure, surfers are suntanned orbs of cool. And yeah, their artistic communing with nature is jaw-dropping. But what fascinated me, what I wanted to touch and feel, [00:02:00] was a life purely and obsessively dedicated to the pursuit of joy.

Since I was a kid, I've consumed countless stories about surfers. The former hippie who's surfed everyday since the 70s, the professional baseball player who stormchases in a VW bus, the perma-in the water boat that tracks open ocean swells, the longboard legend who is surfing better in her 40s than she did in her 20s. But what about the surfer who is continuing a thousand year tradition of African aquatic culture? That is the story of surfer and historian, Kevin Dawson.

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Kevin Dawson is a professor at the University of California Merced. He teaches the History of the Atlantic World, Early American History, African Diaspora, and African American History. He is also a lifelong surfer and is credited with discovering the first account of surfing in Africa from 1640, more than 100 years before [00:03:00] the famed Captain Cook account in Hawaii. I first learned about Kevin and his research while watching the surf documentary, Wade In The Water, which artfully uncovers and celebrates the legacy of Black surfing. It’s a moving examination of Black History, simultaneously painful and triumphant, detailing the exploitation of and violent attemtps to destroy Black aquatic skill and culture from the slave trade to  Jim Crow era racist laws, through the Civil RIghts Movement. Throughout it all, Black folks surfed.

Kevin’s research, and his experiences in the water as a surfer and a diver and lover of the ocean, don’t align with the cool guy, laissez faire surf lifestyle I saw in TV shows and movies as a kid. The centuries of racism and violence that mar the Black experience in this country are diametrically opposed to popular culture’s surf bum caricature. But for as long as there has been [00:04:00] Black suffering, there has been Black joy, and nowhere is that more obvious than in the Black surfing community. Just ask Kevin.

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first things first, burnt toast. What's your last humbling and or hilarious moment outside?

Kevin: . Every summer we get to go on a family vacation. Uh, well, It's a work trip for me, but I bring the family along. And so this past summer we went to Barbados and

we actually were just sitting at the beach and all these baby sea turtles started coming up and it was in the middle of the day.

And so they're not supposed to be coming up that time of the day. And so the kids and the staff at the hotel kind of like scooped up these baby sea turtles, took 'em to the ocean, and then yeah, my kids got to actually swim out to sea with some of those sea turtles.

Paddy: Oh my God.

This doesn't sound like humbling or hilarious at all. This sounds amazing. Lemme tell you about the time I went to Barbados and I turned into Aquaman and I

Kevin: Oh, it's funny. Okay. Okay. Okay. So that's, so that's the hilarious story that you say Aquaman. So every time we go, I pick up a quote unquote island [00:05:00] nickname. And so a few years back, actually, oh yeah. Oh yeah. A few years back we were in, Honolulu and, Jason Momoa runs by, I'm the only one sitting there.

I get up early in the morning, Jason Momoa runs by. Yeah. I go back to the room, I'm like, Hey,

Paddy: What?

Kevin: by. And my kids and my wife are like, no, he didn't. No, he didn't. And then they get online and they Google it and yeah, Jason Momoa was staying at the hotel filming something there.

So then. No, it gets better. It gets better. We go down to, to Waikiki Beach where the Duke Kahanamoku statue is, and we go surfing there. We walk down there and then we're ready to walk back. And I'm like, yeah, I don't really feel like walking back. Let's take a ta uh, taxi.

So we get in this cab and the cab driver is driving us back he's like, you're Jason Momoa? And I'm like, no, I'm not. And he swears I'm Jason Momoa. And I'm like, I don't look anything. I mean not, I don't think I look anything like him, but he in was so insistent that he actually took a selfie with me, uh, and claimed that Aquaman.

Paddy: Is hilarious. I go on vacation and I get like a staph infection. You go on vacation, [00:06:00] dude. You're like, I am communing with nature. I can talk to sea turtles. , And then I turn into a Jason Momoa doppelganger. This is this.

Kevin: yeah.

Paddy: Nice, this is incredible.

What are some of the other nicknames

Kevin: Uh, Mr. Handsome, Bob Marley.

Paddy: What Mr. Handsome? Bob Marley. These things should be on like your office door. What?

Kevin: I know, I

Another one was Black Mercury.

Paddy: Kevin, honestly, this sounds like you should go on vacation all the time

Kevin: yeah.

Paddy: This is the, this is the best. All right, let's get into it.

MUSIC IN THE CLEAR FOR A BEAT

You grew up in California.

You started swimming at the Y in Mommy and me swim classes when you were three months old. Do I have this correct. Okay.

Kevin: Yeah, yeah,

Paddy: When you were around 10 years old, you went to the beach with your dad. You watched him play hoops there and something seismic happened. You saw someone surfing for the first time getting barreled immediately thought, I have to do that.

I want you to please, oh, [00:07:00] please tell me about this moment.

Kevin: Yeah. So I mean, we went to the beach all the time as a kid, so being at the beach wasn't unusual. I had seen people surf before. So that wasn't unusual, but I mean, to set the scene a little bit more, I mean, this was the 1970s, so I'm wearing a tie dye speedo and I have a huge Afro. Because that's how my mom dressed me and I hated both of them. Um,

Paddy: Really? Oh,

Kevin: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I hated them. I mean, 'cause this was also like, you know, turtlenecks were in and so trying to fit a afro through a turtleneck was a painful process. But yeah, that's, that was me as a kid. And so we're at the beach, we're at Laguna Beach And I'm just sitting there playing in the sand and it was a hollow day, so Right. The, the waves are barreling over and there was just one or two guys surfing there. And this guy. dropped into a wave and he, he got barreled. And it was like the most incredible thing I'd ever seen.

'cause I hadn't seen anybody get barreled before. And so then I ran to my mom and I was like, trying to explain to her, how he was riding inside this [00:08:00] wave. I saw that and I just fell in love with surfing.

I'd always loved the ocean, loved water in general, and just being in the water. But then seeing that I, I knew I had to replicate that. And so pretty much from, that age on, that's what I've been chasing or one of the things I've been chasing., Just that feeling. And it's, I mean, it's changed over time, right? Like, so when I was younger, it was much more about me experiencing the ocean. And then as I got older, it's experiencing the ocean and water through my kids, like taking them out, , and getting them barreled.

Paddy: Well, so when you were 10 years old and you saw this surfer getting barreled and it lit something up inside of you. How soon after that did you get on a surfboard yourself?

Kevin: um, it was pretty soon. I mean, so once I saw him do that, it was kind of just getting anything that would float and trying to surf on it. Um, so boards,

Paddy: And it was, and it like the fold-able picnic table, like a, an old piece of driftwood or something like that. Really? Anything that

Kevin: anything, um, plywood once, um, tried surfing on [00:09:00] that. Uh, yeah. And, uh, not too well. Not too well. I mean, 'cause it would, you'd get up, you'd stand up and it would spin around.

Um, and so it, yeah, it wasn't, it, it didn't work, but it was, it was still like kind of fun. And it was, I mean, thinking back, 'cause it did help me kind of, you know, as I'm trying to learn that, like, I'm trying to figure out how to catch a wave and how to ride a wave. And so it does like, kind of thinking, I think all of our life lessons as a historian can help, uh, help me anyway.

Understand history and so, yeah. So, so trying to figure out what actually makes a surfboard, and what can be used as a surfboard, I think was helpful.

Paddy: So when did you get your own actual real life surfboard and not a piece of plywood?

Kevin: Yeah. So the, the first surfboard, . I bought from a kid down the street from me. Um, and it was this massive Randy Lewis, I still remember Randy Lewis Surfboard. Randy Lewis was a maker outta Huntington Beach. And so I bought a used surfboard. that was like way too big for me, but that's what I, I learned on.

Paddy: so I only have minimal experience with surfing, but I do [00:10:00] understand how a sport becomes a passion and then transforms into the rudder that directs a life. Like when I am drinking coffee, for instance, I am a skier. Drinking coffee. Skiing is the thing that I consider most, right? in how I spend my time.

It's where my family and I live. It's been directed because of skiing and even what our values are have been directed because of skiing. Can you tell me a bit about your personal relationship with water and how it steered your career path and your personal life?

Kevin: Yeah, so growing up, surfing and swimming, and then also free diving. which includes spearfishing, right? Like, so I, I just developed this, kind of understanding of water, , and human connections with water. like, I kind of self-taught myself all of those, not swimming, but the surfing and the free diving and spearfishing.

Um, and then I would just constantly be on the beach talking to people. A beach is a, I think really a meeting place for talking to people all over the world and then being in the water surfing, you know, you're waiting for waves. And as you're sitting there [00:11:00] waiting, I mean, most people don't realize you could be waiting 10 minutes, 15 minutes between sets and you're talking to the people around you, and connecting with them and the places they've been, their experiences.

And so it, it gave me this kind of broader understanding of the world. So I had that, but then also I understood from doing these things that there was this perception that black people. Don't surf and that they don't swim. , That those are, are white activities. And so when I was in my senior year of college and I had to write a thesis, a senior thesis, and it happened to be on the Civil War, and I ended up finding a number of accounts of enslaved people swimming, like swimming to freedom.

So their, a union ship would be off the coast, or would go up a river and people would swim out to it or they'd take canoes or other watercraft out to it. And this just kind of, it, it, it ran counter to the assumptions that I had heard for most of my life. and so I realized that there was a story there to be told, , nobody had told that story.

Um, I was familiar enough with history to know that that [00:12:00] story hadn't been told. And so, yeah, I started going from there. so I do Atlantic World, , which considers Europe, Africa, , and the Americas. And then as my minor fields I have African and Caribbean history. And so that basically means that I'm gonna be in a tropical place, unless I'm in Europe, , or someplace in North America doing research. And so I've tried to do research in the Caribbean, in Africa so that I can go to both their archives, but then also actually be out on the water.

experiencing the water as local people understood it. And that's also, I think, been really helpful. 'cause it's one thing to read sources and to get a sense of, how people were experiencing water 200, 300, 500 years ago. But it's another thing to actually, you know, to read an account of people in Barbados and then to actually go to that exact spot and, , swim and dive or surf in that exact spot.

Does

Paddy: it feel like you're living out, history in real time

Kevin: It does.

Paddy: Tell me about that. I mean, 'cause my, my. My assumption here, here is, right, like in college, you're doing this research for your [00:13:00] senior thesis. You are finding out, , facts that are contrary to this belief that, black people don't enjoy water.

Black people don't swim or surf. That's not, , something that is, , culturally relevant or empowering to them. This is a white activity and you're a stranger in a strange land. And then all of a sudden you find out hold on, wait a second. Like, there's actually not just like slaves swimming to freedom, but then you are finding out about this vibrant, aquatic culture on the west coast of Africa.

I mean, your mind blown? What did it feel like for you to first discover that, and then how did it feel while you were discovering it to be in the actual, , water, back home?

Kevin: I mean that's incredible insights. Yeah. So the going to Africa, the first time I went was like 1997. And I went to Ghana, primarily to Ghana, but a couple other countries. And so I land in Ghana and I go to Cape Coast, which is. A, a, a few, a hundred miles maybe from the airport.

And it's the first beach I went to in Ghana. , And there I saw Africans f [00:14:00] surf canoeing. So they're using traditional canoes. They had out outdoor motor outboard motors on them, but they were paddling out. And then they would, uh, paddle back in and they'd catch waves on these canoes. And that was the first time I had really seen anybody do that.

Like I had, I remember after seeing them do that, that I had seen that in en in the movie and endless summer. But

Paddy: Oh,

Kevin: I see all these, these men fishermen surfing waves in canoes and that just totally blew me away.

And the way that African Beach culture is, is so much, I think, more vibrant than kind of traditional American beach culture. Where like as Americans, we typically go to the beach with our towels. We kind of stake out our little spots and we all talk to each other, right in this kind of insular, you know, with our family, with our friends, but we're not interacting with a lot of the people around us.

But in Africa, you get the beach and it will be hundreds of people on the beach up, walking around, interacting with each other. People are selling food. . And so to see that, like [00:15:00] with this assumption that, you know, black people don't really go to the beach, they don't surf, they don't swim.

And to see the opposite, I mean, that was, totally mind blowing I was very much overwhelmed. It was like The sight, the smell of cooking food, the taste of the food, like all those things were just very much sensory overload for me.

Paddy: Was it during that trip that you also saw, your first, surfers on the west coast of Africa,

Kevin: Yes.

So the first ones I saw were actually these kids at Cape Coast and to go back to my first experiences with surfing very much like me, they were just surfing on pieces of wood. there was a kid there surfing on a piece of plywood, and he actually was doing a pretty good job on this piece of plywood.

there were other kids surfing on like planks, and then some of them had surfboards that were, carved down. And at that time I didn't realize that they were traditional surfboards. Um, but some of them were, were bodyboarding on boards that were about three feet long. And then some of them had traditional.

Probably like four to five foot long boards. And these kids were like 11 to 13. and then there was [00:16:00] actually one kid who had a homemade surfboard that was painted red. So yeah, I still remember all that stuff. Yeah,

Paddy: So how did it feel to look out into the water to see people, enjoying the same thing that you enjoy, but also enjoying it in the same way that you started surfing? The coincidence there is striking to me.

Kevin: yeah, it, it, it is, so when I was there in 97. I just thought the kids had some, had like seen some traveling surfers before me surf and they were replicating that They might've in that, that kind of immediate experience or they might've been engaging in kind of traditions that had been passed down through generations.

I couldn't say, but it got me, I mean, what it got me thinking about is like what inspired them to surf. And so you talk about like kind of what blows you away. So I'm thinking about Okay, what would've inspired them? And I'm thinking, you know, probably seeing a dolphin or, maybe a shark.

later that trip I was actually, uh, in Ivory Coast and I saw some hippopotamuses [00:17:00] surfing. Um, and so they were actually, they had gone out. Yeah, they had gone out in the water.

Paddy: Jesus Christ, how big are their surfboards?

Kevin: Yeah. Yeah. So they're just out there body surfing. Um, they were just, you know, clearly catching waves. I mean, they were running around in the

Paddy: What?

Kevin: and

Paddy: This is blowing my mind, Kevin. What?

Kevin: yeah, they're, they're out there body surfing, catching waves, and, um, so to see that I thought, okay, maybe that something like that inspired, like, it, it got me to just think more broadly of like the kinds of things that might have inspired human beings to first start surfing.

Um, right. Yeah. So,

Paddy: man, that Hippo could do it. I sure as hell could do it. I mean, this is great because I thought when I went, you know, I'm six five at Deuce 50. I thought when I went surfing, I was the largest, you know, tub of flesh out there. Now I don't feel so bad anymore. Thanks, Kevin.

Kevin: Yeah. [00:18:00] Yeah.

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Paddy: How far after that first 97 trip to Ghana did you discover the.

First accounts of surfing on the west coast of Africa, that date back a thousand years.

Kevin: The first time I saw an account of surfing was probably in, in a historical record, was probably like 2003. that was the first time I saw one, uh, for surfing in Africa. The first account I saw, actually the first two, I didn't really know what to make of.

So I had seen a number of accounts of African mothers teaching their infants to surf. Very much like my mom taught me to surf at the equivalent of, you know, mommy and me. Um, at the YMCA where the accounts very clearly say that mothers are taking their children eight to 10 months old and teaching them how to swim.

They're written by these German people who wouldn't have really understood surfing at all. And they're written, the first one is written in the 1640s, and he describes mothers going down to the beach and tying their kids onto boards and throwing them into the [00:19:00] ocean.

Talk about like kind of how you, you use your real world experience to read the past, but I knew if you tie somebody to a board and throw them in the water or a kid, they're probably gonna drown. They're gonna tip over and the board is gonna keep them from, from breathing and they're gonna drown.

And so that count, and then there was another account by a Frenchman, a similar account written 20 years later. These accounts are describing kids that are like six to eight years old. And so I'm thinking, okay, they already knew how to swim.

I mean, these other accounts are describing kids swimming at, you know, a a few months of age, so what's going on here? So I kind of just set those aside. Until I found more definitive accounts. The really conclusive accounts were written about a hundred years later, and they describe Africans surfing, the same way that, you know, the English would describe.

Hawaiian surfing So I'm looking at accounts written in the 17 hundreds and they're try describing African surfing and it's saying that they're, you know, they're, they wait for a, a wave and they turn around and they paddle for it, and they ride in as if they're a cloud on top of the wave, you know, kind of [00:20:00] using this, this kind of flowery language to describe something that they're not familiar with.

Right. And so this is a 1700 earlier, 17 hundreds, and then late 17 hundreds, like James Cook, um, he, as his sailors are going around the world, they'd begin to describe Hawaiians and Tahitians using that same sort of language. Um, and so, yeah, so that's when I realized, wait, these earlier guys that are writing in the 1640s, 1680s, they're trying to describe African surfing.

Paddy: And so when you were reading these things, when you were finding these and, and making these links in your head, were you also making kind of like the emotional connection within your own experience of like, oh my God, this is my passion, but also this is like deep within my DNA

Kevin: oh yeah, very much so. it,

Paddy: What did that feel like?

Kevin: I don't even know how to describe it. I mean, the best way to describe it was like getting barreled, I mean, where you can't really describe it. It's, it's a hard thing to describe some to somebody unless you felt it right.

Paddy: Oh that's so Interesting.. That's so cool.

Kevin: Yeah.

When you're surfing, you're focused, there's [00:21:00] sound around you when you're just surfing a, a, a wave that it hasn't barreled over you. Then as it barrels over you, you have the sound of the wave creating this.

A kind of background ambience, rumbling, and that's going on all around you. So there it's loud in a sense, but then it's also quiet you know, you're, you're in this enclosed space and you're looking forward trying to get out. Right? You wanna get out, you, the thing is when you get barreled, you want it to be an in and out, right?

That you, that you surf out of, but then you also want to stay in it. Um, and so it's just this very kind of surreal, other worldly experience. I mean, I think surfing is, is like flying in a lot of ways, in the way that you're able to skim around on, on a wave. Like you're doing things that kind of, they feel like you're defying gravity, and kind of normal ways of, of moving.

When I have that aha moment looking at these accounts of surfing, it was the same thing. I'm in a room. The history lab at, , the University of South Carolina.

And so I'm in this space with all these other people, [00:22:00] but as I'm reading it, it's almost like tunnel vision. Like my world collapses and they're no longer there. And it's just me and the book. And I'm reading the book through my experiences as a surfer, as a black surfer. I mean, I think I was probably the first, or one of the first historians who surfs to actually read those accounts and then to read it through that perspective. Right? To understand, you know, that this, there's this perception that black people don't surf and yet. Here they are on the, on the pages of, of history that were written, you know, hundreds of years ago.

PADDYO VO:

More from surfer and historian Kevin Dawson, after the break.

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Paddy: Your travel to research is essentially also like adventure travel, right? You're going there to seek out information, but also seek out experiences doing the thing that you love in a new place within a new culture has a very distinct way of opening things up in a person. When did you actually surf on the west coast of Africa?

Kevin: So I surfed on the west coast of Africa in 97.

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Paddy: How did that feel?

Kevin: It was really surreal. So at Cape Coast, it's a town that's built on the coast of Ghana. It predates the arrival of Europeans in the 1490s.

And there's actually what's known as slave castles, in Africa. And these are European built castles, so Africans would allow Europeans to build these castles, because they basically tied Europeans to the, those particular places, right? And ensured that they'd keep coming back there to trade.

So at first, Europeans are just trading for other goods. I mean, Ghana was known as the Gold Coast because there was so much gold. And so Africans were selling Europeans gold for European manufactured goods. Then you have the rise of the slave trade. And so there's this castle that has these massive dungeons .

There's a male dungeon and a female dungeon, and each could hold, you know, several hundred people. So where I was surfing in Africa. There was a right break at Cape Coast, and then there's a little bit of a peak break and then a left break. And so I'm surfing with this slave castle kind of right there, next to me.

So it was surreal. I mean, seeing that like [00:24:00] thinking about then kind of the pleasure, but then also the sorrow that that place would've experienced It. It was inspiring and also difficult.

Paddy: I, I cannot imagine. I mean, that what a, um, a debilitating contrast to be in the water doing this thing that is like, you know, this pure pursuit of joy.

Kevin: Mm-hmm.

Paddy: and, and to feeling this, this deeply historical connection to these waters, set against this, shrine of terror. When you're sitting in the lineup waiting for, you know, the next set to roll in, are you looking at this castle and thinking like, Jesus Christ, man, the ebb and flow of emotions must be kind of all over the place in this moment

Kevin: Yeah, it definitely was. And so surfing there. And then the other place I surfed was just up the coast from it. Which is St. George's Castle at Elmina I actually had, like, it was kind of a, I don't know, maybe it was a panic attack, but I, I got there one morning , it was foggy. And I couldn't actually see the waves from shore, but I could hear them. And so I could tell they were good.

They were big. And so I paddled out and it was a very actually chilling [00:25:00] experience. I mean, it was, it was cool. So there was like that cold, right when you're sitting up, no wetsuit on. As like the air is drying on you, it's, it's giving you these kind of chills physically, but then also emotionally knowing that there's this.

Slave castle right behind me that I can't see this kind of, this, this monster kind of looming behind me. And then as the fog starts to lift a little bit, I could actually, I mean, I could first see the, the silhouette of the castle, and it's a, it's a big structure, St. George's castle. And it was very, yeah, I mean, I had to actually just get out of the water because it was so, um, like I became so kind of overwhelmed with emotion there was the pleasure of surfing, but then just the castle in the background and the environment, the fog, it just made it kind of too overwhelming to surf there knowing, you know, that I'm taking pleasure in this place that had been such a, a place of misery, um, and sorrow, you know, that families and communities had been destroyed there.

When enslaved people died, you know, the ships, slave ships would've been anchored offshore. And so if people died before the ship [00:26:00] sailed, 'cause sometimes the ship would sit out there for a month or two and people would be in the hull of the ship, waiting for those slave traders to buy enough people to make it profitable, to sail across the Atlantic.

And so as people are dying, they're being thrown overboard. And

Paddy: Hmm.

Kevin: there's accounts of bodies then washing up in these surf zones, right? So kids are surfing. I'm surfing in the same place where, you know, kind of the refuse of the Atlantic slave trade would've been, you know, washing up on shore. And so knowing all of that, that history, uh, it just made it too overwhelming.

Paddy: man, Kevin, I, I don't think that I have the words to, to describe what you just told me how that makes me feel. man, that hits like a thousand pound hammer

MUSIC IN THE CLEAR FOR A BEAT

Kevin: Studying this topic as a surfer, as a black surfer and knowing that Africans were using surfing, right? So they're taking lessons they acquired as kids surfing, to understand how to [00:27:00] surf canoe then, right? Because there's virtually no ports natural harbors in West Africa.

And so. Typically the only way to go from land to sea was in these surf canoes. And so Africans used surfing to understand how to ride waves ashore in these surf canoes.

And so knowing that these pleasurable activities were used to basically link slave markets in Africa to slave ships lined off the coast, and that how, this pleasure also produced such misery for the people who endured the transatlantic slave trade.

And that's been a really hard thing to kind of wrap my head around. , Even now, you know, 20 some years later.

Paddy: Is there even a possibility of landing on a definitive emotion around it or, or a definitive point of view around it? Or does it constantly change?

Kevin: it's constantly changing. It's constantly changing. Yeah. There is no way to, to, I think, to understand it. It just keeps evolving, like how I think about it keeps evolving. When I was there the first time I was in my early twenties, and then, you know, [00:28:00] surfing now and, and thinking about it through the lens of a father changes it, you know?

Paddy: Oh my God. Yeah.

Kevin: Um, thinking about like, yeah, my kids could have endured something like this. Um, changes. Changes it. Yeah. So it's, it's, it's just, I think, constantly changing through my experiences. My own personal experiences are continually altering, you know, how I view it.

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Paddy: when you're having these experiences on the west coast of Africa what is it like with this knowledge to be surfing back at home in California? Did it change the way that you surf? Did it change the way that you feel about yourself within the greater surf community and culture?

Kevin: Yeah, very much so. I mean, so growing up I surfed primarily LA. County and Orange County so I surfed from basically Manhattan Beach all the way down e even into San Clemente, um, into into San Diego County. And as a young teenager, there were only five other black surfers that I knew of who were roughly the same age as me. And then I remember the first time seeing a black woman [00:29:00] surf.

I was like maybe 19. And she was a little bit older than me and I wanted to go up to her and talk to her, but then I thought I'd come off as like kind of creepy or hitting on her. And so it just felt like kind of. Two unicorns in the water at the same time and not knowing how to interact with each other.

And so we didn't I had those experiences and so coming back then to California and still not seeing very many black surfers, whereas when I was in Africa and then the Caribbean, virtually all the people I saw were black.

you know, In Senegal there were a few white surfers, Frenchmen, and then in the Caribbean there were a few white guys, but again, it was almost all black people. The demographics are, switched and then switching back again.

It was surreal and it made me think, more deeply about Black connections to water, , and how they'd been erased in the United States, through segregation, through denying black people access to, beaches and to pools and how that prevented black people from knowing how to swim and then therefore being kind of afraid to get into the water to even try and surf., I think what it helped me to see [00:30:00] was kind of that through line to understand, Black people have these historical connections to surfing that had been erased in the 20th century, as a result of, of segregation.

And so, yeah, again, using my perspective as a black surfer, it helped me understand kind of that historical process.

Paddy: Does that and your work at university, make you feel like you are keeping the flame of black aquatic culture alive? Do you feel like you are inspiring a renaissance?

Kevin: Very much so, you know, very much so,

Paddy: That's gotta feel amazing, Kevin.

Kevin: See. It, it is, it is. It's a change in black perception, but then also white perception. 'cause white people are like, wow, this is, I mean, this is a tragic history.

And so they're opening up what had been exclusive white spaces to black people. So beach clubs, in Santa Monica, like I've given talks in Santa Monica, San Diego, where I'm at, yacht clubs, where you have class and race all kind of conspiring historically to keep black people out of these spaces and they're opening their doors and they're saying, yeah, we need to have a culture shift.

And then seeing it all of the black surfers at places [00:31:00] that I had surfed in LA and Orange County. And seeing all these black people connecting with the beach, but then going and actually teaching surfing to young people, to kids, to teenagers, to people in their twenties, you know, seeing that thrill of standing up.

You know, afterwards when they've caught their wave and then they're just so excited.

Paddy: Yeah.

Kevin: you know, you know, like kind of hugging me and, and stuff like that. And, and just that thrill. it's unbelievable.

PAUSE PAUSE

Paddy: Within your scholarly work, within films like Wade in the Water, it is so obvious and upfront that there is this deep historic tragedy what is also striking to me is the joy of black aquatic culture. You know, to me, something is very interesting from the research, in your work, is that all over Oceana, Hawaii, the west coast of Africa. These communities had food systems, education and commerce systems, religion and spirituality, security so dialed that they had free time on their hands and they used [00:32:00] that free time to invent recreation.

It's mind blowing. They used it for surfing and for joy. So with this in mind, when you surf now, do you feel a connection to the past? Do you feel this deep connection to this historic pursuit of fun, of joy?

Kevin: Very much so. Yeah. now I very much recognize that, you know, I'm doing something that my free ancestors were probably doing in Africa and that enslaved ancestors in the Americas might have been been doing as well. So I very much am, am aware of that. And this kind of. Dichotomy and incongruence of like, pleasure and pain,

I mean, I study slavery, right? So I can't escape that kind of sorrow. So everything is, is, is framed around, um, kind of the abuse and the exploitation that people are being subject to, but then how they're trying to, how these enslaved Africans are trying to find pleasure are trying to recreate cultural traditions that give them individually a sense of meaning, value, and belonging, but then also create communities of, of meaning, [00:33:00] value and belonging for them.

And so what I mean by that is, like enslaved people, they would've been working for their enslavers from basically, I mean, as enslaved people would say, from sun up to sundown and so in the evening then, or on, you know, they'd have a half day off on Saturday, all day off on Sunday. They're recreating at beaches, along oceans and then also along rivers and lakes. And there's accounts of them going into the water as community members, as, as entire communities, not as just individuals, but going into the, into the water as communities and enjoying the water together, enjoying waves together.

Swimming, seemingly surfing together or body surfing together, engaging in recreation together, swim contest, having races and other sorts of contest, with each other to give you so that the, the winner can have bragging rights and then can take pleasure in their accomplishments, , even while being enslaved.

Paddy: When you go out in the water with that knowledge, do you feel like you're a part of that? Do you feel like you're continuing that?

Kevin: very much so. Yeah.

And one of the things I think [00:34:00] it, it does is it gives me hope, Enslavers were not at all interested in recreating African cultural traditions in the Americas unless those traditions, could be exploited.

And so to see that despite the exploitation that enslaved people were being subjected to despite the horrendous conditions, all this brutality going on, and yet people are trying actively recreating traditions, right? And being successful at them, being successful in recreating aquatic traditions that would give them pleasure in their life, pleasure in their children's lives, right?

To teach their children how to swim.

seemingly to teach them how to surf, um, so that they can take pleasure then, um, in, in the water and in their bodies, being suspended in water. It's incredible to me, incredible to me. And it, it, I think it gives me hope that, you know, despite all the tragedies we see going on in the world, despite the ways that we as, as humans are destroying the ocean, that we will wake up and realize that we need to [00:35:00] preserve the ocean for future generations so that they can enjoy the ocean in ways that, we did, as children, I think we forget as human beings kind of.

Our youthful lessons, right? The pleasures that we had as children, how we understood the world as children, as swimming. if we were fortunate enough to surf. so whether we're swimming at beaches or in pools, but taking those, youthful lessons and then applying them so future generations can enjoy the water as we did.

Paddy: To me, that's what your work is. And ultimately, like Kevin, I don't know if you've ever not been that 10-year-old kid on the beach. Look what I found. Look, I need to go tell someone. You immediately run over to your mom. Mom, did you see that? Did you see that?

Did you see that? And you're still doing that. You're finding, these incredible bits of, history, these tragic bits of history, they're all combining into this thing that excites you and you need to tell us about it. I mean, Kevin, you're, you're still this excited 10-year-old boy.

Kevin: Yeah, I You're absolutely

Paddy: do you feel that?

Kevin: I, I do, I do. I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, it is, and that's what I say. I mean, as a historian, [00:36:00] it's about finding these things and telling the stories and, and not centering myself. I mean, when I was a kid, yeah, it was very much about centering myself when I'm telling those stories.

But yeah, now it's about telling those stories, um, and trying to get people to understand the past through these, through these accounts.

Paddy: For you personally, do you think that your surfing, your research, your career is a vehicle for healing and ultimately a vehicle for, freedom.

Kevin: I do. I mean, I, I, I do, yes. But the problem is, is like, as long as I'm doing the history, for me personally, I don't know that it can be about healing. I mean, 'cause the writing, the history is really painful. It is really challenging. I would say it's healing, but like, it's more like a treatment rather than a cure.

Right. Um, 'cause I'm not, as long as I'm studying his, the history of slavery, I, I am being subjected to that, historical violence, By reading about it, by writing about it. I think surfing for me, swimming for me is more free diving. Those are more like kind of, [00:37:00] treatments rather than an actual cure.

Paddy: Does it feel like those things are, a bit of a respite from the. Heaviness of the research

Kevin: oh, yeah, very much so. in Barbados, this, past summer, my son and I did go surf, uh, and the waves were actually, uh, not very good at all. I mean, they were horrible. but. It was being able to get out in the water with him. We rented a board from this black Barbadian guy. I don't even know his name, but he goes by the name Pinky. , And so like, you know, having that connection, talking with this guy on the beach, you know, renting boards from him a few times and knowing like where we were surfing, it was actually off of the plantation.

There would've been, you know, 200 years ago, a, a a, a slave plantation. Right up to that beach where we had been, where we were surfing. and so knowing that, and yet knowing that we're able to have this pleasure and, this kind of disconnect and you, you get this kind of, for me anyway, this kind of, you know, as I'm facing seaward, I'm getting one connection, right?

One kind of [00:38:00] connection, ancestral connection and spiritual connection. And then as you turn back to land, whether it's in Ghana or a Caribbean island, there's another connection, with an enslaved community. , And then, you know, looking around and seeing my kids, uh, my son or daughter and other people in the water enjoying the water, having, you know, those kinds of pleasures.

for me, it's hard to wrap my head around, but it is very much a healing process.

PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE

Paddy: It is now time for the final ramble. One piece of gear you cannot live without.

Kevin: Wetsuit. I'm always cold. I always have a, have the, some kind of a wetsuit. Yeah. Even in the Caribbean I have like a, a vest.

Paddy: Best outdoor snack?

Kevin: The go-to snack would be berries. I always like berries.

Paddy: Are you like, you got a pocket full of strawberries in your board shorts, Kevin?

Kevin: Well, so not so much straw. I do like strawberries, but like I, I, I'm more, um, you know. Raspberries, blackberries, blueberries that you could just grab a handful, throw 'em in your mouth. they taste good. [00:39:00] They give you that rush of energy. They travel well. I mean, if you

Paddy: of people this question, Kevin, and nobody has said, berries, you sir, are one of one nice work. What is your hottest outdoor hot take?

Kevin: to always pee in your wetsuit. I'm always cold. I'm always cold, and so I always drink a lot before I paddle out. And yeah,

Paddy: It is not gross. If it keeps me warm people.

Kevin: e everybody does it. Everybody does it.

Paddy: Yeah. you're here. You're just here to normalize what people are doing. I'm a pee-er. You're a pee-er. Everybody's whizzing in their wetsuit.

Kevin: Exactly. Exactly. , It gets even gross, maybe grosser than that. But like, surfing in, Monterey, I mean we lived up there for my family and I, we lived up there for about 10 years and a lot of times we would, we would be out surfing and you could see whales, you know, a hundred yards offshore.

Sometimes they, they would even come, there was one sick whale that would come into the lineup and the water there is in the fifties. And like I said, I'm always cold [00:40:00] and I kid you not, there were times where I would say, man, can you just come closer to me and pee? 'cause I'm really cold.

Paddy: God, I wish this whale would just whiz on me. Oh, man. Kevin, I, this is, I mean, this has been an incredible conversation, but you are, I mean, you have just continued to blow my mind up until the end. Wow. Wow. My man.

MUSIC

PADDYO VO:

Kevin Dawson is a surfer, historian, and professor of history at UC Merced. You can find his work, including his award-winning book "Under Current of Power, Aquatic Culture and the African Diaspora" all over the interwebs. You can also watch him in the incredible documentary, Wade In The Water. Do yourself a favor and watch that film. You'll love it. PS-  I interviewd the director David Mesfin for an episode of the pod back in January, you should listen to it, David's story is remarkable. Kevin's [00:41:00] working on another book on Black surfing, which he says is a few years away from completion. There's also a plan to make a sequel to Wade In The Water. Keep a lookout for both.

And, remember dear sweet lovely listeners , we want to hear from ya. Email your pod reactions, guest nominations, mustache compliments, and all other pod related thangs to �����ԹϺ��� Podcast At �����ԹϺ��� Inc Dot Com.

The �����ԹϺ��� Podcast is hosted and produced by me, Paddy O'Connell. But you can call me PaddyO. The show is also produced by the storytelling wizard, Micah "you know you're in trouble when I'm looking on the bright side of things" Abrams. Music and Sound Design by Robbie Carver. And booking and research by Maren Larsen.

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