A Monster By Any Other Name

Stories of Hope and Resilience from the Plantation Era. By Julian Aldridge, Founder, Enact Agency

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin

For our one year wedding anniversary, Karen and I decided to spend a long weekend in New Orleans. Karen was busy working with her small team in a corner of her mother’s offices, planting the seeds that would grow to become the dominant force that is now Rebel Athletic, and I was focused on my new Challenger agency, Enact. These were exciting, budget-conscious, frenetic times, and Nola seemed the ideal place to unwind for a few days with comfort food, great music, and each other.

Day one saw us do a bike ride around the city, which was interesting, partly because Karen was trying to write emails and texts on her Blackberry (remember those?) as she cycled. Not a recipe for success.

Day two saw us visit two plantations. Which was where the fun started. Our first, Oak Alley Plantation was still run by the owners from the days when people owned not just property, but also people. Our guide, a stocky blonde dude in his 40s, was serious, informative, and deeply indignant. (We nick-named him Bruiser,  because that’s what he looked like). Indignant that, way back when, his hard working ancestors had had their legally purchased slaves taken away from them, forcing them into rack and ruin. Or something like that.

According to Bruiser’s telling, their slaves (presumably unlike other plantation’s workers) were well cared for, well fed, and happier being treated like farm animals (my interpretation) than when they had to go and fend for themselves.

Two Plantations. Two Worlds Joined Only By Their Past

Needless to say, Karen and I were dumbfounded. So aghast we hardly spoke until we reboarded the bus for plantation number two, Plantation Laura, which couldn’t have turned out to be any more different than if we had just journeyed to Mars.

This one was all female, and all black owned and run, with the vast majority of the staff being distant relatives of the slaves who had worked there. Their stories were the polar opposite of Bruisers. Poignant, heartfelt, and, occasionally full of hope. There’s wasn’t an angry rant, although it could have been. It was a personal telling of tragic times – and the evolution of the southern African American communities since then.

It was a tale of repression, murder, desperation, optimism, and entrepreneurship. It’s a story at the core of America.

One of those stories is that of Nearest Green, born around 1820 near Lynchburg, Tennessee, on a farm just outside town. As the child of slaves, he would have grown up working on the farm, until he, along with his fellow workers, eventually gained their freedom. Although he grew up a slave, his job on the Cole farm was to help the farm owner, a one Reverend Dan Call, with his side hustle. As any good man of the cloth did, the Reverend distilled whiskey, and Nearest Green was his head distiller.

Expertise though is valueless unless it gets passed onto future generations. Which is what Nearest did to a young white farm hand called Jasper. After emancipation, Nearest Green was a free man, and Jasper was making waves selling the rare whiskey far and wide. He was so successful that, in 1985, he purchased the Call distillery and renamed it after himself: Jack Daniel.

Crucially though, he hired his mentor and friend, Nearest Green, who became the distillery’s first master distiller, and the rest, as they say, is history. More of which you can view at the vimeo link here.

Now, the story might have ended there, except for a lady called Fawn Weaver, an incredible female author, investor and entrepreneur who has created probably the world’s most successful spirit company in less than a decade.

However, just like Nearest Green, Fawn (born Wilson) Weaver’s early life was anything but easy. Leaving home at 15, she couch surfed and bounced between homeless shelters before forming her own PR firm, aged 19.

Already a successful author, her career trajectory changed beyond all recognition in 2016 when she, and a few other authors and academics, began researching the history of Jack Daniel’s, and, in particular, Nearest Green. A turning point for her, a turning point for Green’s legacy.

One year later she launched the Nearest Green Distillery and the Uncle Nearest (as he was known locally) Premium Whiskey brand. And, guess what? Her master blender is another woman of color, Victoria Eady Butler.

Today the brand is valued at $1.1 billion. Not bad in just seven years.

Nearest Green was a Challenger who used the tools within his vicinity to innovate whiskey distilling, including charcoal, maple, and the local water.

Fawn Weaver is a Challenger who unearthed an incredible story, and saw an opportunity to honor a mostly forgotten legacy, and to create something of lasting value.

Challengers Unearth Diamonds Everyone Else Overlooks

This is what Challengers do. They look at a glass half full – and say: ‘how do I make it overflow’? They ignore the clouds all around them – and instead find that silver lining. They look at life differently, and in so doing unearth real diamonds.

I heard Fawn Weaver speak a few weeks ago, and this line (not verbatim) struck me as being the epitome of the Challenger attitude.

“I view being different to virtually every other person in the room as an asset, as an advantage. They remember me, and, like it or not, they remember what I have to say”

As a black woman it’s harder to be taken seriously than a white male. Fact. But she uses that seeming disadvantage and makes it her superpower.

As of 2024, her Whiskey company is the only black owned, female run spirit company in the world. On the one hand sad, but on the other a testament to her vision and perseverance.

In their ignominious heyday, plantations ‘employed’ (although that’s clearly the wrong word, perhaps exploited is better) about 4 million human beings, across nearly 400,000 locations. In most Southern states between one in three and one in four families owned slaves. It was this indentured labor that drove the American economy of the time, mainly through the exportation of rice, tobacco, and cotton.

In what has now become a Federal holiday, the date of June 19th, 1865, is memorialized as the day when Union troops finally, a year after the 13th amendment had been ratified, forced the last holdout, Texas,  to free its 25,000 or so remaining slaves.

America’s plantations, on the back of slave labor, thrived for over 100 years. However, the history of exploited labor didn’t end in 1865. Driven by an uptick in demand for cotton, the plantations continued to employ, this time for money, albeit pitiful amounts, millions of African American laborers.

Challengers Fight Monsters On Behalf Of Their Communities

One of the greatest things about travel is how it forces you to reassess what you thought you knew. How it juxtaposes the good, the bad, and the bizarre in ways that demand examination.

On the bus ride back to our hotel in the city we alternated between talking about our abhorrence for Bruiser and his ilk, and the entire era, and our admiration for the owners and managers of Plantation Laura. We talked about injustice, exploitation, and the few who challenge the many. The few who, in so doing, change the world. We discussed just what it takes to succeed against all odds. We opined on the monsters of the slavery era, and the monsters Rebel Athletic, just over a year old, was battling on behalf of the cheerleading community.

Over that next 30 minutes, we sketched out the very first Lighthouse Identity for Rebel Athletic on a scrap of paper.

Our monster was the ‘unlevel playing field’, that forced gyms, coaches, athletes, and parents to put up with second best because the dominant player in the sector existed only to serve themselves.

We contrasted all the wrongs that the 800lb gorilla in the category foisted on the sport – and how we had to do the exact opposite. We talked about creating a Challenger culture based on inclusivity, fearlessness, and championing the underdog. We came up with an initial concept of ‘freedom to compete’, and a belief that ‘everyone deserves to compete on a level playing field’.

How much did our tour of two dramatically different plantations influence our thinking? Impossible to say, but those tenets, developed nearly 12 years ago, still drive Rebel today, putting us, I think it’s safe to say, firmly on the side of plantation number two, and adamantly against Bruiser and Co.

No one should be a slave to the system. Period.

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Julian founded his agency, Enact, to help brands of all sizes discover, define, articulate, and amplify their Challenger Story. Illuminate is published weekly, and his new book Illuminate: A Challenger’s Handbook, Volume 2 is now available on Amazon. He can be reached at Julian@EnactAgency.com