PRODIGAL — THE PODCAST Episode 36: "Who Named You?"

Send us Fan Mail Where did your last name come from? For a lot of us, the answer we were handed is one sentence long: they took the master's name, or Smith means a blacksmith. It's about half true, and the missing half is the whole point. Don Jackson and Daysha Voss take the quick version apart using the National Archives, the Smithsonian's African American history museum, the WPA slave narratives, and the Freedmen's Bureau records. Enslaved people rarely had surnames in federal records, but a missing name in the archive is not a missing name in the family. Freed people took the former enslaver's name, a leader's name, a trade, a place, or a name of their own choosing. Some, like Booker T. Washington, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass, chose. Then they widen the lens. From Carlisle's renaming of Native children to Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali, from Mobutu's Zaire to today's fights over place names, park signs, the President's House slavery exhibit, and the Army's unreleased report on the Port Shuaiba drone strike that killed six soldiers: it's the same move. Control the name, control the record. We are not saying the weight is the same as slavery. We're saying the pattern is. Real language. No comfortable version. Plus: Newsbeat updates on Port Shuaiba, the Boulder climate argument at the Supreme Court, the rural voters poll, Brazil's runoff and Sony's AI-fake takedowns. Stay for the closing meditation with Daysha, "Before Anyone Named You." 🎧 Full written deep dive: prodigalbreakingnews.com 💬 Talk to the AI companion guide: prodigalai.app 🩷 This episode is brought to you by FemChoice — Don Jackson's own company, full disclosure. A private, standalone cycle tracker: no app, no phone, no account. Your Cycle. Your Device. Your Privacy. Shop FemChoice on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HGVTJH2B?maas=maas_adg_5E4C6F31CE7261E3C5F94C7201247B50_afap_abs&ref_=aa_maas&tag=maas prodigalbreakingnews.com/guide Here's your free field guide: Who Wrote Your Name Down? Welcome to Prodigal. Here's what you came for: Download the full field guide (10 pages): https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fFNY_vDMkP5BYCbbvexsR22mjyRHgIQY/view The 1-page cheat sheet for your phone: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WdLrOILFcwn8pOKggeBSwyW5OIe0aC7P/view Start with the elder interview on page 4. #NoticeThePattern #ProdigalThePodcast #WeAreSource #WhoNamedYou #BlackHistory #Genealogy Support the show https://prodigalbreakingnews.com/