Every February, we celebrate the culture and contributions of Black people in America by attending parties and parades, shopping from Black-owned brands, and learning about Black stories through books movies, and documentaries. Since the 1600s, Black Americans have inspired several generations after undergoing tumultuous journeys and wrongfully facing injustice and racism. It's important to educate ourselves and understand the complex history of Black Americans year-round, but especially during Black History Month, when we honor their legacy as a nation.

Elise, 25, and AnDre, 28, met in 2011 when they were in high school together in San Antonio, Texas, where they still live today. Elise and AnDre have been together ever since. Their relationship was long-distance for years because AnDre went to college before Elise. They stayed together as Elise became an account executive at Texas Weddings and AnDre became a security officer. Because she works in the industry, it was important to Elise that her and AnDre's wedding felt like them instead of like every other wedding she'd ever been to or worked on.

Finding that the evidence for jumping the broom’s “origins” pointed to western Europe, I wanted to better understand how groups adopted and adapted rituals for their own communal needs, and what this suggested about its popularity in African American history. If the broomstick wedding was “forced” into enslaved communities, as some have claimed, how then is it remolded into something that many embraced over time? If it was accepted willingly in some circumstances, what does this suggest about agency and the evolution of Black culture in the antebellum era?

This week, Ira spoke with Tyler D. Parry, author of Jumping The Broom, The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual (published by UNC Press). In this academic episode of Ira’s Everything Bagel, Tyler talks about the historical narratives vs memories of Jumping The Broom; viewing the tradition through the paradigm of resistance; the efforts of black writers to revisit the ritual; the unifying feature of jumping the broom; the importance of the community endorsing the marriage after the couple jumped the broom; the humanity of the ceremony itself; the revival of interest in the subject in the 60’s and 70’s; the booming heritage weddings industry in the 90 that featured it; the different groups around the world who utilized the ceremony; and the surprising results about the single origin point of the ritual.