the Enchantment Chronicles

We follow the century-spanning paper trail of George W. Malone, an African American lawyer and entrepreneur who gets denied a Mississippi law license in 1909 despite a brilliant handwritten exam. We track how he fights back, builds wealth and community, homesteads in Blackdom, becomes a New Mexico Supreme Court first, and keeps rebuilding through heartbreak into a lasting legacy.  
• The 1909 Mississippi bar exam denial as provable gatekeeping under Jim Crow  
• A 17-year-old buying land through promissory notes and what landownership means after Reconstruction  
• Walden University’s role in Black education and why Malone chooses law as a tool  
• Building Black economic infrastructure through property, credit leverage, and fraternal networks  
• Grading the handwritten exam for appellate procedure, equity doctrines, and self-defense philosophy  
• Forcing admission to the bar in 1910 and recognizing the ceiling of justice in Mississippi  
• The move to Blackdom, New Mexico and the Exodus movement behind it  
• Becoming the first African American male admitted before the New Mexico Supreme Court  
• Using Homestead Act bureaucracy to secure land patents by proving grazing beats cultivation  
• Blackdom’s collapse through drought and failing wells plus the personal losses that follow  
• Reinventing in Albuquerque and Kansas City, shifting from attorney to teacher during the Great Depression  
• Running a boarding house as community shelter during segregation and the Great Migration  
• The open question of whether his Kansas City years intersect early desegregation efforts  
• The George W. Malone scholarship and how his name still opens doors  
Keep exploring, keep questioning, and we'll see you next time.  

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

The Last Stand at Taos

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

The Taos Revolt established New Mexico as a place distinct from from the political and ethnic constructs that shaped it. Like our varied geography, the people of New Mexico made distinctions within and among their groups as to whether and how to resist absorption by the United States.

This episode should be considered part of our "Hard History" series, notes are included in the link below.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1me1Dbv2KTWEkGRYMCoEIHr5dZt3iQcQqrFU3Ww_ILk8/edit?usp=sharing

Episode notes and Sources

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

https://cup.columbia.edu/book/to-the-end-of-the-earth/9780231129374

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

Christmas Eve on the Enchantment Chronicles. The Men of Enchantment discuss the hotly debated Christmas Even tradition of the "Farolitos v. Luminarias". What do you call them?

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

Step into the shoes of Pancho Villa, the enigmatic figure whose raid on Columbus, New Mexico, became a legendary act of defiance. Join us, Johnny and Drew, as we uncover Villa's journey from an outlaw to a revolutionary leader, challenging the United States in a brazen border conflict. Through the smoldering ruins of Columbus, we piece together the fateful events of March 9, 1916, scrutinizing Villa's motives and the turbulent sociopolitical landscape that fueled his crusade. We promise an expedition through history that's as enlightening as it is thrilling, revealing the intricate dance of revolution and retaliation that shaped the future of U.S.-Mexico relations.

Witness the dawn of modern military maneuvers as we recount the aftermath of Villa's audacious attack and the subsequent Punitive Expedition led by General "Blackjack" Pershing, marking the first instance of airplanes in U.S. military history. The legacy of Villa, the Centaur of the North, remains as captivating as the mirrored saloon that stood unscathed amidst destruction. Together, we'll explore the might and mythology, the strategic blunders and the legendary escapes, all converging to paint a vivid portrait of a time when revolutionaries and generals pushed the boundaries of warfare and diplomacy. The Men of Enchantment, your time-traveling guides, bringing the past to life with facts, anecdotes, and a healthy dose of reflection on the shadows cast by yesterday's conflicts onto today's geopolitical stage.

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

When we think of outlaws and bounty hunters of New Mexico, we probably don't picture a London-trained artist who authored the Boy Scout Handbook, or a pack of wolves who evade all pursuit, including that of a Texas Ranger, in Northern New Mexico. But that's just the beginning of a tragic story that began to change the narrative of wolves in America, a story that is still unfolding today in the wilds of the Gila and Western Colorado. 

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

Discover the enthralling saga of how a young Kansas farm boy with a telescope rewrote astronomy books and what an 11-year-old English girl had to do with it. Our journey through the stars celebrates the momentous day when Clyde Tombaugh spotted the elusive ninth planet from the Lowell Observatory—a discovery that danced on the edge of myth and science.

We'll traverse the events leading up to the grand announcement of Pluto on Percival Lowell's would-be 75th birthday, a date shared with another groundbreaking astronomical find. Learn about the rich legacy of New Mexico's connection to this celestial story, how it immortalized Tombaugh's feat, and why Pluto's contentious planet status doesn't diminish the wonderment of its discovery. Tune in for a cosmic tale that's as boundless as space itself.

• https://lowell.edu/discover/history-of-pluto/
• https://earthsky.org/space/clyde-tombaugh-discovered-pluto-on-february-18-1930/
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Tombaugh
• https://www.nmlegis.gov/sessions/07%20regular/memorials/house/HJM054.html
• https://nerdist.com/article/pluto-is-still-a-planet-by-law-whenever-it-passes-over-new-mexico/

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com

Step into New Mexico's treacherous Jornada del Muerto with our latest installment of "The Enchantment Chronicles." Unravel the motives propelling Spanish settlers to navigate this formidable desert, eschewing the Rio Grande's waters and Apache skirmishes in a bid to reach Santa Fe. We also recount the harrowing saga of Bernardo Gruber, the German whose tragic encounter with the Spanish Inquisition led to his desperate final flight into the unforgiving Jornada. We explore how Captain Jack Martin's post-Civil War discovery kept sustained a small community on the Jornada ponder the complex legacy of land magnate Ted Turner, and briefly discuss (once again) the atomic echoes of the Trinity site. The narrative comes full circle at the Salinas Pueblo missions, where the persistence of indigenous cultures amidst European influence unveils a history rich with the interplay of conquest, trade, and survival. Join us as we piece together the intricate mosaic that is New Mexico's storied past.

Links and Resources:

https://bacafamily.org/jornada-del-muerto/

https://www.prestonchild.com/books/mountdragon/JORNADA-DEL-MUERTO-Retracing-the-Dead-Man-s-Journey;art44,40

https://genealogytrails.com/newmex/sierra/history_aleman.html

https://socorro-history.org/HISTORY/PH_History/200905_armendaris.pdf

https://www.nps.gov/elca/planyourvisit/jornada-del-muerto.htm

https://geoinfo.nmt.edu/resources/water/projects/bwa/JornadaDelMuerto/

Send us Fan Mail

Support the show

Check out the Enchantment Chronicles on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Music, or anywhere podcasts are found. 

Follow the Enchantment Chronicles on your favorite social media!

Instagram: @EnchantmentChronicles
Twitter/X: @NewMexPodcast

https://www.enchantmentchronicles.com