Narrator: Coming up next, artists focus on the beautiful, painful, and nostalgic pieces of our shared story in "The United States of Us," a special episode of "State of the Arts."

[ Playing "America the Beautiful" ] Pianist and immigrant Min Kwon asked over 70 composers to reimagine one of our country's most iconic songs.

Kwon: I wanted to really show that even musicians of so many different styles and sounds and philosophy can all come together on the same common goal.

Narrator: The revolutionary acts and style of Angela Davis made her a global icon in the 1960s, and a force who continues to work for change today.

Davis: Artists often allow us to grasp what we cannot yet understand.

[ Music plays ] Narrator: In 1979, The Greensboro Massacre shocked the nation.

Emily Mann interviewed people on all sides of the conflict, using their actual words to craft a play that sheds light on the event and its impact on the community.

Mann: You can't make the world a better place unless you understand perhaps who you might call your enemy.

Narrator: And in photographs and an evocative installation, artist Phil Buehler explores the nostalgic end of an era.

Buehler: Malls killed main streets.

Now Amazon is killing the mall.

Hall: [ Singing ] In an abandoned luncheonette.

Narrator: "State of the Arts" going on location with the most creative people in New Jersey.

Announcer: The New Jersey State Council on the Arts, encouraging excellence and engagement in the arts since 1966, is proud to co-produce "State of the Arts" with Stockton University.

Additional support is provided by the Pheasant Hill Foundation, Philip E. Lian and Joan L. Mueller, in memory of Judith McCartin Scheide, and these friends of "State of the Arts."

[ Piano plays "America the Beautiful" ] Kwon: I've been always a fan of "America the Beautiful."

I love the simple, beautiful melody of it.

Narrator: Min Kwon, New Jersey-based arts advocate, a professor at Mason Gross School of the Arts, and a world-class pianist, commissioned more than 70 composers to create variations on "America the Beautiful."

Min began premiering the new works on July 4th, 2021, in a series of streaming performances, many of them recorded right here at Grace Church in Newark.

Kwon: As I started the project, of course, I started to doing research on the song itself.

You know, who wrote it?

Where was it written, you know?

And I was so pleasantly surprised that it was written probably right here, because the composer was working here as the choir director.

Narrator: In 1910, a popular poem by Wellesley College professor and social reformer Katharine Lee Bates was set to Samuel Ward's melody.

"America the Beautiful" was an instant hit.

Bon Jovi: [ Singing ] America.

Kwon: And there has been so many different versions of the song sung by so many different icons in American music.

Bon Jovi: [ Singing ] God shed his grace on thee.

Charles: [ Singing ] He, He crowned thy good.

He told me he would.

Save his brotherhood.

Narrator: Min Kwon contacted a wide range of composers to create variations on the familiar song.

She e-mailed and Zoomed with them during the locked down summer and fall of 2020, one of America's darkest times.

Adu-Gilmore: Your prompt meant I was thinking about "America the Beautiful" and the piece coming together as, you know, all these varied people in the United States.

So I decided to call it "United Underdog," to think about the people who maybe don't have visas, who are stuck across the border, who are working here in the pandemic without health insurance.

And, so, that's my dedication.

Is for the unhoused, incarcerated, the Black, brown, yellow, trans and gender nonconforming domestic workers, food gatherers, delivery, essential workers, and underdogs that make these United States.

Kwon: I knew that I was kind of catching them at their most vulnerable moments.

We were all confined in our little space.

So, composers, when I gave this call to please write something in "America/Beautiful," first reaction, of course, that I got from many of them is like, "What do you mean?

America is not beautiful.

It's the last thing I'm thinking about right now."

And, you know, with some, it took some persuasion, but I'm -- I'm pretty persuasive, I think.

[ Laughs ] And I said, "That's exactly why we have to do this project now."

I wanted to really show that even musicians of so many different styles and sounds and philosophy can all come together on the same common goal or purpose and create something that's very new and powerful and moving.

Masaoka: Everybody in the bus was basically Japanese-American, nisei, born in the United States, second generation, who had lived in the camps.

And we were all doing this reunion.

And they broke out into "America the Beautiful."

And I was just shocked.

They were starting to cry and they were all singing the song.

Narrator: Min Kwon, herself an immigrant from South Korea, calls it a literal "United Composers of America".

Kwon: I feel very American, having lived here over 30 years now, and it's really in my DNA.

I think the spirit of America, the strength, the tenacity, you know, diversity, everything that the country represents.

I am proud of my country.

Narrator: From different perspectives on "America the Beautiful," to Angela Davis and the making of a global icon.

[ Music plays ] [ Music plays ] Gustafson: The Angela Davis story starts in 1969.

She's an assistant professor at UCLA in the philosophy department.

She has already joined the Black Panther Party, and then she leaves the Black Panther Party.

She joins the Che-Lumumba Club, which was a Black Marxist organization associated with the Communist Party.

So she's a member of the Communist Party.

She was outed for that.

Beegan: That was why she originally came to prominence, because Governor Ronald Reagan thought he'd score some political points by kicking out a commie.

And, so, that's when she first became prominent in the public eye.

Narrator: Soon, she was making even bigger headlines.

In 1970, guns legally owned by Angela Davis were used by a high school student in a botched kidnapping attempt where four people died.

Angela was charged with three capital felonies, including conspiracy to murder.

She went underground, but was caught and stood trial in Marin County, California.

In 1972, an all-White jury found Angela Davis innocent on all charges.

Beegan: Really, the exhibition's, as much as it is about Davis, it's about the campaign to free her.

And this was an incredible example of grassroots activism on an international scale.

All of this work that's in the show, much of it is produced by now anonymous groups and people who thought, well, we can't let this young woman disappear into the prison system.

Davis: The campaign around the demand for my freedom was absolutely amazing.

At the time, I was charged with three capital crimes.

And even people who were -- who knew that I wasn't guilty... ...did not understand how it was ever going to be possible for me to extricate myself from that situation.

And, so, I see those images as symbolic of harnessing the power of masses of people and achieving what was considered to be impossible.

Narrator: Angela Davis: Seize the Time puts iconic headline images from 1969 to 1972 into historical context.

Photographs and artworks related to Angela Davis are embedded with materials from the collection of Lisbet Tellefsen, an archivist who describes herself as one in a long line of community keepers of the papers.

Tellefsen: My job and my obsessive passion is to gather this trove of historic material and try and make sure that it lives.

Narrator: The curators used Lisbet's archive to create a through line.

They added works by contemporary artists responding to Angela Davis and her activism on issues like prison reform.

Gustafson: The past reverberates in the present, the past lives in the present, and that's a theme that Angela Davis brings up in the interview that we have with her.

It's also a theme that I hope the exhibition kind of brings home.

Davis: Someone said the past is never past.

Artists often allow us to grasp what we cannot yet understand.

[ Music plays ] Narrator: From resistance to remembrance.

Next up, a play that explores the power of community.

[ People singing indistinctly ] Alekson: On screen, the play consists entirely of verbatim interview material, courtroom transcripts, public record, and personal testimony.

All of the play's characters are real people.

In blackness, the company sings "It's So Hard to Get Along," a song of infinite sorrow.

Rose, a Black woman in her 50s, leads.

Woman: [ Singing ] It's so hard to get along.

My Lord it's so... Alekson: Community play readings are a way to have the opportunity to say the words.

Woman: [ Singing ] It's so hard.

Alekson: Both the thoughtful and meaningful words, and the violent and disturbing words that are said in the course of this play.

To engage with those words helps us to better understand the event itself.

Narrator: The event itself is the Greensboro Massacre.

What happened was this -- on November 3rd, 1979, there was an anti-Klan protest march led by members of the Communist Workers' Party, part of a pro-union movement at a local mill.

The Klan, joined by members of the American Nazi Party, opened fire, and the police were nowhere to be found.

Five people died and many more were injured.

Lucky: In 88 seconds, the Klan shot 13 people.

They killed five of them.

No Klansmen were shot.

Joyce: All of the people who were killed were dear friends.

Sandi Lee Neely Smith was a best friend and remains that in her spirit.

One of the hardest things I've ever had to do in my life was to call her mom, to say that Sandi is dead.

Narrator: Playwright Emily Mann talked to people on all sides of the event and used their actual words in "Greensboro: A Requiem."

Mann: I just wanted to say it's one of the greatest honors of my life to have been entrusted with this story, and I want to thank all the survivors and the community for their belief in me over all of these years of work, and I hope that giving back to the community in this way will be an act of healing.

Thank you.

Narrator: Emily is even a character in the play, called The Interviewer.

Woman: But how did he end up working for the Greensboro Police?

Narrator: Here, the interviewer is talking to one of the organizers of the march, Nelson Johnson, who's describing how one of the key instigators, Eddie Dawson, worked with both the Klan and the Greensboro Police.

Lucky: They went to Dawson.

Woman: I see.

Lucky: So you have to understand, he recruited, organized, and led the Klan fully armed to Morningside Homes while he was working for the Greensboro Police.

Woman: Wait.

Akan: This play was really an eye opener for me and really shook me to my core as if the police and the Klan really worked together to this depth.

I mean, we've always heard about that in the Black community that you really can't trust a cop.

But the depth of it presented in a theatrical form really took me to another place.

Lucky: I was interrogated by the FBI and the Greensboro police.

Narrator: Nelson Johnson, played here by Miller Lucky Jr, is central to the play.

Nelson now fights for his community as a pastor and as the executive director of the Beloved Community Center of Greensboro.

Lucky: They threatened to rip my bandages off.

The FBI agent whispered in my ear, "Your life ain't worth a nickel, N-word."

Nelson: It's just a blessing to hear somebody present, as best they can, a reasonably truthful narrative.

Woman #2: You can't fight these city officials, these politicians.

There ain't nothing you can do because... Narrator: Some would like to just forget The Greensboro Massacre.

Even in Greensboro, younger people may never have learned about the event.

Woman: Didn't you speak at a Klan rally in Lincolnton and encourage them to seek revenge in Greensboro?

Kernodle: Now, I know where you're going.

It really casts an unflinching light on the very perverted humanity of the folks who are on the other side, the Klansmen, the Nazis.

I say perverted humanity because their actions are evil and harmful, and yet they're still humans.

It captures that essential humanity that we have to figure our way, muddle our way through.

And this play is a way of helping an audience do that.

Blah, blah.

Trouble with the Ku Klux Klan was coming up.

Mann: It's not edifying at all if you just name someone a bad guy.

How did he become a bad guy?

Why is he a bad guy?

How can he continue doing that?

I mean, you cannot effect change -- and deep inside me, I'm an activist, and I'm always looking at how you can make the world a better place.

You can't make the world a better place unless you understand, perhaps, who you might call your enemy.

Alvarez: Emily Mann went and took the initiative to sort of make all of these interviews and investigations, and also to actually talk to the perpetrators of the Greensboro Massacre and try to understand, what was the origination of this act?

It means a lot to those of us that have lived with it always to see it being remembered and to see it being acknowledged.

Lucky: And sisters in a new community on the other side, on the other side.

[ People singing indistinctly ] [ Applause ] Narrator: Last on the show, a journey to a more recent past, as Phil Buehler documents the fading of America's mall culture.

Buehler: This current show is about a dead mall.

[ Music plays ] 40 years, 45 years, I've been photographing abandoned places, trying to figure out what they mean... ...what happened when it was alive.

New York City doesn't have any ruins anymore.

They all got developed.

But New Jersey always has them.

Man: [ Singing ] Drummers, bombers, and Indians in the summer with a teenage diplomat.

In the dumps... Buehler: For this show, I focus on Wayne Hills Mall, which is in, you know, northwest New Jersey.

It was a small mall, T-shaped mall.

It started closing in 2007 when different stores started going bankrupt.

In 2014, it closed permanently.

And then, they started demolition earlier this year.

You know, malls killed main streets.

Now Amazon is killing the mall.

I grew up in New Milford in Bergen County, within five miles of four different malls.

And you know, as a kid in high school, you couldn't wait until you get your driver's license.

This mall happened to be built in 1973, which is when I started my senior year in high school.

I just got my driver's license.

And where were you going to go?

You're going to go to the mall.

And that's where you, you know, you'd hope to meet girls and you'd go to Sam Goody.

And you'd go to Waldenbooks and look at books and magazines, and it's kind of where you hung out.

It's funny, that era, because they really skyrocketed in the '70s and '80s, just took off, and they'd become part of pop culture.

So you had like "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

The Go-Go's: [ Singing ] Watching all their feet.

They don't know where they want to go.

But they're walking in time.

They got the beat.

They got the beat.

They got the beat.

Buehler: "Day of the Dead" was a zombie movie in a mall.

Woman: What are they doing?

Why do they come here?

Man: It's a kind of instinct, memory, what they used to do.

This was an important place in their lives.

Buehler: The "Stranger Things" last season took place in a mall.

Boy: Romantic time with my girlfriend.

Buehler: They reproduced the mall perfectly.

That era of -- I don't know, It seems innocent now.

And here's one of the ghost signs on top where it's like you can barely see.

Payless ShoeSource.

They're bankrupt.

Photo Center 2000.

I love this.

This closed early because they were still selling film.

Aycock: Well, I think the Sam Goody one is one that appeals to a lot of people.

And, you know, there wasn't a Sam Goody in the mall where I grew up, but there was a store just like it.

In all the malls throughout the country, they might not be exactly the same store, but there's a store that has black light posters, and there's a store that has greeting cards and a store that has luggage, and they're all kind of the same, so looking at these photos, it's really easy to identify them with the particular mall that was around in our youths.

Buehler: Every mall's got, like, some stellar architectural feature.

When you walk through the mall, it's not the, you know, you walk into this big open space and then this is the ceiling.

So, to take this photograph, I laid on my back on the ice and in the water, just shot a super high-resolution photo with, like, a few hundred images, just in a, you know, just... [ Imitates camera shutter ] And then, the computer will stitch it all together.

And it's a super-fine resolution.

There's actual windows around, surrounded by fake green plants, plastic plants that are still alive in the mall because it's all plastic.

And a lot of the ceiling tiles are falling, but they're ceiling tiles mimicking a sky.

I wanted to anchor this, give people a place to anchor the experience of a mall because we all have different experiences.

And I thought music, 1973, would be the perfect thing because music brings back so many memories.

It's kind of like a lot of emotional content in just hearing the song.

I basically put together like the top 100 albums of 1973 on vinyl.

So they're here in the gallery.

And then, you know, you're welcome to take one out and put it on this record player, this old vintage record player that was my wife's record player, this Orange Peel record player from 1972.

[ "Abandoned Luncheonette" plays ] Hall: [ Singing ] I sat in an abandoned luncheonette.

Buehler: Dig deep into archives and newspaper archives.

What happened there?

I'll talk to people that used to be there.

I feel like I'm one step ahead of the wrecking ball.

There's something in one of these places, it outlived its usefulness in some way, and then it's going to be gone.

And then, when it's gone, nobody will remember anything.

And that's the way I approach my work.

Whatever, wherever I go, I try to find something, you know, some value, something honorable, something important that was there happening that's going to be erased.

I almost use the photographs to seduce people into a story that's more important than the image itself.

Hall: [ Singing ] Busy in the back, his hands covered with gravy.

Narrator: America's story is made up of many voices, and we hope that today's artists have shown a fuller picture of these United States of Us.

Thanks for joining us for this special episode of "State of the Arts."

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[ Piano playing "America the Beautiful" ] [ Music continues ] [ Music continues ] [ Music continues ]