As we close #BlackHistoryMonth here in February, I wanted to introduce you to an amazing Grammy Award-Winning artist and flimmaker Mauli Bonner. We’ll discuss his award-winning film, “His Name is Green Flake” about the first black Mormon slave who entered the Utah Territory before even Brigham Young! Mauli is a Grammy Award-winning artist and we’ll find out some of the big names he’s been working with, including Katie Perry, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, and Ariana Grande to name a few. Check out our conversation…
Don’t miss our other conversations with Mauli: https://gospeltangents.com/people/mauli-bonner
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Grammy Award Winner Mauli Bonner
Interview
GT 00:27 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have my first Grammy Award winning artists on the show. Could you go ahead and tell us who you are, and how did you get that Grammy?
Mauli 00:39 Yes, Mouli Bonner, and the Grammy came from writing on Gladys Knight’s gospel album, One Voice gospel album.
GT 00:47 Oh?!
Mauli 00:47 Yeah. Gladys, in Vegas, was in my family’s same ward growing up.
GT 00:53 Oh really? Did you grew up in Vegas?
Mauli 00:55 I did. I grew up in Vegas. Yeah.
GT 00:56 So, Runnin’ Rebels, is that your team?
Mauli 00:58 Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Running rebels, that’s right.
GT 01:01 Is this the Larry Johnson years?
Mauli 01:03 Yes, it is, the good years.
GT 01:07 They were very good years.
Mauli 01:08 Yes. So yeah, I mean, so we did music later on, though, because she ended up being my manager, which is also interesting.
GT 01:17 Gladys Knight was your manager.
Mauli 01:18 Yes, yes, I know. I was in a man group. People say boy band, I don’t do boy bands. I was in a man group. I was in a man group, and she was our manager. And that’s how I ended up getting involved with her with songwriting. And so, I wrote on her gospel album.
GT 01:34 I’m going to have to talk to you. I would love to get Gladys Knight on here. She’s incredible.
Mauli 01:39 She’s incredible. She’s a legend, a living legend.
GT 01:41 Oh, of course. Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, very good. And it’s not just Gladys Knight. You’ve worked with Katy Perry, Ariana Grande.
Mauli 01:50 Yeah. I mean, LA was where I went after Vegas. And, you know, my mom grew up teaching voice and everything. And I learned the voice just because I grew up in the home, and she made sure all the kids learned it. So, when I moved to LA to do music for myself, artists would come up to me like, ‘Hey, can you help me with this, help me with that?’ And I was like, yeah, sure, just an unknown artist. Then then it became known artists, and then it became reality TV shows, so I just became the guy to develop artists. And so yeah, Katy Perry, Kesha. Then songwriting, as well with like, Gladys Knight’s and Stevie Wonder, stuff like that.
GT 02:31 So you’ve hung out with Stevie Wonder?
Mauli 02:34 Yeah, yeah. We were working on his gospel album. It’s great.
GT 02:38 Wow, that’s awesome. It’s funny, we met last year. I’m trying to remember what that was. It was at BYU.
Mauli 02:47 Education Week.
GT 02:48 Oh, it was Education Week.
Mauli 02:50 Yeah.
GT 02:50 I think you’re right. Yeah, that’s what it was. And I just assumed, because I’ve seen the Bonner Unity Choir, which you’re a part of, as well.
Mauli 03:01 Well, it’s my mom’s choir.
GT 03:03 Because, to me, they’re so ubiquitous, I just assumed that you lived in Utah. So, I texted you a couple weeks ago. And I’m like, hey, we need to get together. We’re going to talk about your movie, which we’ll talk about in a minute. And then you texted me, you’re like, well, I’m flying in at this time. I’m like, you don’t live here?
Mauli 03:27 Flying in? People think I live here, because honestly, I feel like I’m here just as much as I’m in LA. Because I’m here, like, every other week. Every other week, I’m here. And I just kind of book up my day. And so I’m just happy that my day is for you. So this is great.
GT 03:42 Well, we appreciate you being here.
Making Green Flake: The Movie
GT 03:49 So, not only you’re a Grammy Award winning artist, but you’re an award-winning filmmaker. Tell us about your film.
Mauli 03:55 I mean, I’m taking that in because I still, to this day, feel like–people are like, so you’re a filmmaker? I’m like, no, I just made a film. Even though the film did so well, it did so well. Gosh, I don’t know how far back you want me to start with the story. Because it just began with me learning about the history. I learned about early black pioneers. I had heard of a few but I didn’t really know. I had heard of Elijah Abel. I didn’t know who he was. But the name sounded familiar. This is just five years ago. I knew of Jane Manning James, I knew a little bit more about her, but that was basically it. But as I learned more and more at the Be One celebration in 2018 [that] the Church put on the celebrating the 40th anniversary of the priesthood…
GT 04:42 One of my listeners gave me a ticket, so I went to that.
Mauli 04:45 No way, you were there. Wasn’t that incredible? All pf our family coming out on that–I mean…
GT 04:49 It was incredible.
Mauli 04:51 Yeah, it was a really special event.
GT 04:53 And your mom’s choir was there.
Mauli 04:56 And Gladys conducted a choir. Yeah, it was awesome. Anyway, it was at that event that I was learning, like everybody else. I’m like, what? Who is this Green Flake? I was like, enslaved and a member of the Church? Enslaved by another member of the Church? Like it was just blowing my mind.
GT 05:17 Yeah.
Mauli 05:18 And so, honestly, I felt embarrassed. It wasn’t like, oh, great information. I felt like I should know this. Why don’t I know this, especially me being black in the Church? My whole life, I’ve grown up in the Church. And I don’t know these things. And I’ve had people ask me questions, and I don’t quite know how to answer them. And so, it just switched something in me. And I just dove in and reading turned into writing. A month later, I had a couple hundred pages, and 10 songs. I was like, I think this is a movie. That was the beginning of it.
GT 05:56 Well, very good. So, the name of the movie is…
Mauli 05:57 Yeah, His Name is Green Flake. We wanted to make sure that people knew, or I wanted to, me and Arthur Van Wagenen, actually, wanted to make sure that people knew that Green Flake was a person and that we don’t forget his name. Because when you hear Green Flake, you think, what’s a green flake? It’s not a typical name. And so His Name is Green Flake is the name of the film. We ended up shooting the film three months after I wrote the script. It was an incredible experience, because it was just miracle after miracle, just to even get it done that quickly. Yeah. Wow. Congratulations. Happy anniversary.
GT 06:36 Well, I don’t know why, but race and priesthood issues are one of my favorite topics. It’s February. It’s Black History Month. I’ve known about Green Flake for at least a decade. And so, I’m always looking for stories that people don’t know. Margaret Young, she was my first interview ever. And we talked about Jane Manning James. My second interview was with Mark Staker. We talked about Black Pete. It was February. This is actually the ninth anniversary of my podcast.
Mauli 07:18 Oh, wow. Congratulations! Happy anniversary!
GT 07:20 Thank you. I’m always looking for these stories you don’t hear about. And Green Flake, we have not covered at all on Gospel Tangents.
Mauli 07:30 Oh, wow.
GT 07:31 Maybe a little bit in passing. this is going to be great to have a film dedicated, to Green Flake. So, for people who don’t know, maybe haven’t heard the name, tell us about Green Flake. How did he grow up and all that sort of thing.
Mauli 07:47 So, Green Flake was inherited by James Madison Flake.
GT 07:54 He was inherited. That’s such a weird word.
Mauli 07:56 I know. It’s crazy for that to be so normal back then. So, he was inherited by James Madison Flake, his father gave him (Green Flake) to him (James Flake) around 11 years old. And so he (Green) spent some time in his youth in North Carolina and Mississippi. Around the age of 16, they made their way, the Flake family and Green Flake, made their way to Nauvoo. And Joseph died right around the same time he came into Nauvoo. Green had joined the Church.
GT 08:31 Do we have any idea if Green knew Joseph?
Mauli 08:33 We don’t know. There are some who have said that he was there when Joseph was there for a short period of time. he served as one of Joseph’s bodyguards. There are those who say that we don’t know anything. So, we don’t know. I’m sure, over time, more things will come up. There’ll be this letter that we’ve been waiting for, or something that can give us more information. We’re not sure of the connection between them. Green Flake builds a home for his enslavers in Nauvoo, which also sounds crazy. He’s a young teenager. He builds them a home. He’s a member of the Church at this time, because back then, the policy was, you have to have the permission of the enslaver for the missionaries to preach to the enslaved. And so, if they said it was okay, then great. They preached to the enslaved. Green was preached to. He chose to be baptized. So, he’s a member of the Church at this time in Nauvoo. Brigham Young becomes the leader, not the prophet at the time, but the leader of the Church and he says, “We’re going. We’re heading to Utah.” Green Flake was put to be a part of this vanguard company. And in that vanguard company, there was someone who had to drive the first wagon, at least coming into Salt Lake, and that was Green Flake at [age] 19. Now when I think of that, and then the number 19, you think of a missionary. You think of these, our sons, our brothers, our sisters at age 19 doing incredible things. And he was enslaved, driving the first wagon on this epic pioneer trek. For me, it forever changes trek, to know that there was an enslaved man carving that trail for those to come through. And yeah, so…
GT 10:27 There’s a story, and I think Paul Reeve ruined it for me. (Chuckling) I don’t know if you heard this.
Mauli 10:28 He’s ruined a lot of things for me, too. (Both chuckling)
Mauli 10:39 We love Paul.
Mauli 10:40 Honestly.
GT 10:41 But the story was, I think Margaret Young told me this, that when Brigham Young was coming into the Salt Lake Valley, Green Flake was in his wagon, and it was he to whom Brigham Young said, “This is the place. Drive on.” Have you heard that story?
Mauli 11:02 I have heard that story.
GT 11:03 Is that a true story?
Mauli 11:04 I don’t know. I don’t know.
GT 11:07 Paul thinks it might not be.
Mauli 11:09 Right.
GT 11:09 Come on PauI! It’s a great story.
Mauli 11:11 I know, come on Paul, enough with the historian stuff. (Chuckling) No, but it might be, but it may not. But either way, we know that when he did say, “This is the right place,” it could have been a question mark: this is the right place? Who knows? Because he came after. Green Flake was already here.
GT 11:31 Yeah, Green Flake got here before Brigham.
Mauli 11:32 Yeah, so he’s already here, the crops are planted. And, people are tilling the ground. Work is being done. Then he says this. He’s not saying it to establish it. It’s already been established. So, what is that comment? That’s a big–to me, I hear it as a question. I would imagine someone said, ‘yeah this is it.’ That’s how I see it. But it also says a lot about what that relationship might have been between Green Flake and Brigham Young, because we know Brigham Young is a strong leader. It’s not like whoever gets to the front is in the front. Why was Green Flake the one to drive the first wagon? Why was this young man trusted to lead the way? And so, we know that there was…
GT 11:52 That’s interesting. It’s not like he’d been here before.
Mauli 11:55 Right. And so, it’s like, there is a unique relationship that I hope to learn more details about, as we keep uncovering more history about Brigham Young and Green Flake.
Utah Was a Slave Territory
GT 12:31 Yeah. Super cool. So do we have any more information or is it pretty sparse?
Mauli 12:37 There is some. What is unique and really confusing, to be honest, is so we know that Brigham Young is the reason, the catapult behind Utah becoming a slave territory, 1852. There was a big debate. Brigham Young is on one side leading debate that Utah needs to be a slave territory. You have Orson Pratt on the other end arguing the other direction, and Brigham Young and that group wins the debate. Utah is a slave territory. What does that mean for Green Flake, for Oscar Smith, for Hark Wales, who were all a part of that vanguard company led by Orson Pratt or that vanguard early group? What does that mean for them? I’m sure the black saints probably thought, ‘This is going to be different here.’ I just can’t imagine what they must have felt when it felt like ‘oh, my gosh. It’s like we’re back in the south again.’
GT 13:37 I know.
Mauli 13:38 I can’t imagine. So, Brigham Young sent a group on to San Bernardino. Initially, Green Flake was a part of that group to go.
GT 13:45 Oh?
Mauli 13:46 Yeah. So, you have one record of him going with that group. And then it shows that he was back, and then that group left again. And so, I don’t know if they began a journey, came back and then they went on without Green. But Green ended up staying behind and lived with Brigham Young. So, he’s living in the home with Brigham Young and Brigham Young is renting his labor for, I don’t know, a certain amount of oxen or something.
GT 14:16 Renting his labor.
Mauli 14:17 Right. I’m saying it like it’s so normal. Right?
GT 14:22 It was then!
Mauli 14:23 Well, that’s very interesting. Paul’s got a book coming out this year, hopefully this year.[1]
GT 14:20 It was then.
Mauli 14:20 I know and it’s just, it’s fascinating that our Church history, or that or the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is so integrated into American history. We’re in stride with what was going on during the times. I think before we would have thought that, not us; maybe the world, but not us. And it was us. But Brigham Young had Green living in the home and Agnes Flake became ill. Her husband passed away and she wrote a letter to Brigham Young or Amasa Lyman did on her behalf, saying, can you send me Green to build us a home or sell him? Brigham Young didn’t. In fact, he ended up being the catapult for Green attaining his freedom in the next year. So, Green really didn’t have to–in his family now he’s going to be married and have children. He didn’t have to endure slavery in Utah. And so that, to me, is a conundrum. On one hand, Brigham Young is enforcing a form of slavery. Then for Green Flake, he’s making sure that he is free. He’s breaking the rules to make sure that Green is free.
GT 15:40 Well, that’s very interesting. Paul has got a book coming out hopefully this year.
Mauli 15:47 Historians, they keep adding more to it. It’s like, we’ll just take it as is. Just give it to us. Yeah.
GT 15:51 So, it’s on the 1852 legislature. I’ve talked to Paul previously about this a little bit. He gave a presentation at MHA five or six years ago, I don’t remember what it was, along with Christopher Rich. And Christopher’s a lawyer, and he was making the case, because Brigham Young was arguing we need to have slavery. Christopher Rich is trying to make the case that the Act in Relation to Service was a form of emancipation, well, not emancipation, but gradual emancipation. So, I’ve talked with other people, Sally Gordon was like, Illinois had–in fact, the statute was based on an Illinois statute.
Mauli 16:44 Yeah.
GT 16:44 And we do look at Illinois as generally a free state. And so I do wonder, do we need to look relook at our history? I know you had said in a previous interview that Utah was a slave state from 1852 to 1862. Brigham Young freed Green Flake. Do we need to change the narrative that yes, Utah was a slave state, but they were looking for gradual emancipation?
Mauli 17:16 Yeah, if you’re looking for more detail, but it doesn’t change anything for anybody who’s enslaved. You can call it whatever you want to call it and add whatever things. Am I free to go? No. Okay. So, yes, there are levels of slavery and servitude. But for that group that came in to Utah, it had no difference as to whether or not they were free to go.
GT 17:42 Okay.
Mauli 17:42 Yeah.
GT 17:43 So it doesn’t really matter?
Mauli 17:45 It doesn’t matter unless there’s never a civil war, and Abraham Lincoln was never president. So, if that never happened, and America chose to do slavery for another 30 years, beyond most other countries, then it does matter. Because then you do have the children of the enslaved, because in that in that servitude law, an Act in Relation to Slavery, then they would have children that can be free. But it didn’t really apply, because there wasn’t enough time.
GT 18:16 It didn’t apply to the people now, but their children would have been free.
Mauli 18:19 Right.
GT 18:19 Okay.
Mauli 18:20 Yeah. And there were other things with it, like they can choose whether or not they–if they’re saying, “I’m going to sell you here,” the enslaved person has a say in that, if they’re like, I do not want to go there.
GT 18:32 Yeah, Brigham Young, tried to make it a more compassionate form of slavery, I guess. There’s that story about Biddy Mason in California who sued for her freedom and won, and she was enslaved by a Mormon.
Mauli 18:53 Right, Robert Smith. It’s incredible. It’s tough because we don’t–us as human beings looking at this history, it doesn’t feel good to say, well, it was a softer form of, it was a lighter form, because it’s like, slavery is slavery. But at the same time, it was a different form of slavery. It wasn’t chattel slavery. It wasn’t what we think of when we think of what was happening in the south, and so there is a difference. Whether or not Brigham Young was trying to find that middle ground, and he was trying to just be a politician in that moment, okay, we have the southerners over here. We have the Quakers over here. What’s the middle ground? Maybe. It definitely looks like he was finding a middle ground. But I don’t know what his thought process was, as he was debating. Because when he debates, he uses words so unequivocal, like this is it. So, I don’t know what he was feeling or thinking as he was drawing that line down the middle.
{End of Part 1}
[1] The book is called This Abominable Slavery and can be purchased at https://amzn.to/40Wqd8T. See our interview with Paul Reeve & Christopher Rich: https://gospeltangents.com/people/christopher-rich/
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