Musician and activist Reggie Harris uses his art to build community, share the burden of our challenges, and enact social change. He discusses the intersectionality of activism and the history of our country to exercise our rights as Americans. This week he shares his experience as a co-signer of a student loan that doesn’t even belong to him. Reggie is featured in the upcoming Scared to Debt documentary series.
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Transcript –
Nikki Nolan: I’m Nikki Nolan. And this is Matter of Life and Debt, a show about people in the United States and their student debt. Today’s episode, Student Loan Co-Signer. I talk with Reggie Harris, a Musician, Educator, and activist. We discuss his views on the intersectionality of activism.
He also shares his experience as a co-signer of a student loan that doesn’t even belong to him.
Reggie is featured in the Scare to Debt documentary series.
This is his story.
Welcome to the podcast. So good to have you here.
Reggie Harris: Thank you, great to be here!
Nikki Nolan: So we’re going to jump right into it. How much student debt do you have right now?
Reggie Harris: Actually, I just looked at it and it’s down to $15,039.
Nikki Nolan: What’s interesting about your story is that actually, the student debt isn’t for you. Tell us a little bit about what this loan is, how you got student debt.
Reggie Harris: Yeah, I wish it were for me. I’m feeling like I should at least have a degree or something as a result. I got a call, this was, years and years ago. I got a call from my sister one night and she and my brother-in-law were calling because my nephew was in school at Clark University in Atlanta. And, he had gone there on a track scholarship and something happened with the track team and the scholarship got taken away. So they were in a panic because they didn’t really have money to have him continue in school. And the school basically had written to them to say that they were going to basically throw him out and they wanted to panic.
They said, if you could just cover this loan with us, because they were tied up in another loan. And, they said, if you can cover this with us, then we’ll just make sure that, we, everything goes well. And you don’t, we don’t default. Well, as it happened, he graduated, his last year was kind of difficult, but he got out.
And a year went by and then we got this message from the New Jersey Higher Education Student Assistance Authority that he had defaulted on the loan. He was still living in Atlanta. I called and it just started some real dissension in the family because we couldn’t get a straight answer from anybody. And then all of a sudden we had this debt and, and I didn’t know anything about student loans. I didn’t take out a student loan when I was in school. and, so in addition to other debts that we had, career and this and that, we had this thing. And, then I discovered how hard it was to deal with these people. And, so we’ve been kind of dealing with that for like the last 10 years.
Nikki Nolan: What made it so complicated to deal with them?
Reggie Harris: Basically, they weren’t interested at all that it wasn’t for us, that we were signed on to a loan, for a nephew. it was just, well, here’s the money and pay it on our schedule and, and deal with it. And then I started finding out that people were hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt And then of course, I’ve been working with Mike Camoin for well sort of a long, long time on a variety of different projects. And since he became a filmmaker, from time to time over the last few years, he would say, I’m working on this project.
And, and he said, “can I show you this clip?” And he would show me these clips. So Ralph Nader or those clips of Matt Taibbi and the clips of people talking about how this whole thing started. And I realized that over the course of time, my wife and I had never discussed this with anybody.
We’ve never shared this information. We were ashamed that we had worked ourselves into this dilemma. And we just carried that shame around and swallowed it.
Nikki Nolan: Was there any sort of tactic that you took that really helped you break out of that?
Reggie Harris: It was actually, I had a liver transplant in 2008 and I’ve had to just deal with facing who I am. And I had to deal with just a lot of situations that I found myself in. I had a lot of debt from medical bills and, and just all of the colliding debt coming together and having to deal with these various companies and banks and what have you.
And I think once I saw Mike’s clips and once we talked about it and I saw that this was not something that I was alone in. Then I just began to kind of apply my general sense of, hey, you don’t deserve to be here, and you don’t deserve to be taken advantage of by predatory lending or, banks and the companies that are making money on the backs of, of human beings, of American citizens.
think my way in was just, I got angry. And, I just kinda said, okay, I have paid my fair share over the course of my life. I’ve paid off most of my debts and I’ve worked hard to get ahead and to see what has happened with this entire industry of taking people’s money and complicating and just making their lives a living hell.
It just made me angry. So I think in myself, I released myself from the mistake of not having done more homework on this. I knew that the reason that I got into this was because, I wanted to help my family. I wanted to help my sister and brother-in-law and my nephew to get ahead.
So my reasons for getting involved in this were very much on the up and up. And then to be involved in something, the fact of the matter is that the student debt is just so horrendous in this nation. This is not something that should be happening in America.
Nikki Nolan: It really shouldn’t. When we talked last time on the panel, we sorta talked about your extensive music career and role as an educator and all the actions that you’ve taken that informed your journey through this student debt crisis and how.
Reggie Harris: Absolutely. I’m constantly involved in lower schools and colleges and educational opportunities. Seeing students who are not wealthy, whose families are not wealthy. And so many of the people I deal with are first-generation college students. And, in the same way, that I look at, for example, first-generation homeowners.
And I see what has happened with mortgages and all of the mortgage crises that happened. So yeah, I think I began to educate myself a little bit about what this whole thing was about. Certainly, my relationship with Mike Camoin has been really helpful in looking at the ways that people like Alan Collinge have dedicated themselves to trying to solve this crisis.
Reggie Harris: And then I’m always sensitized about our government and the way that they do not really look at situations that make real people’s lives harder. That they were in bed with a lot of these powerful people who control the banking industry and control of the lending industry. And how you can’t get Congressmen to go on the record for doing something to solve this problem. So I think as I began to get more information and as I began to also watch the way this entire film has come together, it gave me more courage to speak to more people about it. And a lot of the shame went away.
Nikki Nolan: Amazing. Can you talk about some of your community activism?
Reggie Harris: So often those of us who are in education or those of us who are in activism, we get one topic that we really are working on. you might be working on the environment, you might be working on voting rights. And we worked tirelessly on that topic. Because in fact, solving any of those issues is a 24/7 job. But in doing that, we sometimes silo ourselves. We sort of edge out all of the other things that are connected to the very topics that we’re working on. And so I’ve been really working hard to think about the intersectionality of all these things and to talk to other people.
Whenever I am talking to someone, for example, about voting rights or any of the issues around civil rights, I’ll bring up the student loan crisis. And I’ll say to them, do you understand how this is affecting the very people that you’re trying to get to vote? Maybe they’re not getting to vote because they’re having to work three jobs to just meet their expenses for the month. And they’re certainly not going to be able to send their kids to school. And if they do, they’re going to take a student loan and that’s going to put you further in debt.
t’s about talking about these subjects in an intersectional way. And then my own situation and just kind of, being just more aware of when I’m dealing with these people of what my rights are as a citizen. And then writing to my Congresspeople. I’ve been writing to Schumer and I’ve been writing to my local representative Antonio Delgado, and trying to get them to focus their energy.
I actually went to a town meeting that Antonio Delgado had about a month ago. And I brought up the student loan crisis and I asked him what he was doing on this. So it’s a matter of just keeping our representatives’ feet to the fire.
Nikki Nolan: That’s wonderful. I’d love to talk a little bit more about how you use music to evoke change.
Reggie Harris: Music is my life and I can’t remember a time in my life when music wasn’t present and maybe at center. I think I first sang when I was three years old. But over the course of years, I have been a person who has used music; music of the Civil Rights Movement, music of the time in slavery when people use music as secret codes on the Underground Railroad. When they used it, they reminded themselves that freedom and justice are at the center of the American experience of trying to build community. And that’s been one of the things I’ve been using music for, is to build relationships with people so that we can talk about all of these issues. A lot of people think that they just listened to music to make their day go better, which is a really fine way to use music.
But music is a wonderful way to pass messages. And a wonderful way to reinforce our connection to each other. So what I’m always interested in doing is stimulating the public’s ability, through either music that affects the way you feel, or music that is topical. Songs that either I write or that have been written about issues in our world issues in our country that need to be changed.
And, certainly, I have, I started out just hoping to become rich and famous and sing love songs but over the course of years, I’ve been much more of a topical songwriter writing about issues, writing about things that make it hard for us all to live.
Nikki Nolan: When you’re feeling in a space that you need to be uplifted, what are some of the things that you put on? What do you listen to help give you hope?
Reggie Harris: Well, I’m a part of a musical community. Folk music is generally geared toward discussing issues and to raising people’s awareness and to raising their spirits. But I listen to a lot of jazz too. I love the improvisational nature of it. I’m of the Woody Guthrie school who said, “I love a song that tells you that you are worth”. He said, “I love a song that makes you feel like you can really make a difference in the world”. I hate a song that tells you that you’re not smart enough, you’re not wise enough, you’re not educated enough. So I come from the school of Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and Harry Belafonte, who were all about creating atmospheres and pride in people. And also atmospheres of a community, so that we know that we’re not all working by ourselves. So often the messages in this world are telling us that we have to build our own wealth and we have to make our own way. The way of the world has always been to live in a community and to hold each other’s burdens.
And so that’s what I’m interested in doing with my music. If people are listening to my songs, they’re hearing that. Well, my one song says we will not rest until the storm is over. We will not lay this burden down. We will keep each other strong. We will love and carry on until we stand altogether on solid ground.
Another song I wrote “In the Shelter of Each Other” comes from a phrase in the shelter of each other, where the people live. We’ve got to get back to being concerned about our neighbor in this nation. And being concerned about the issues that affect us all, that we think are just affecting one or two. And I think music is a great way to spread that message.
Nikki Nolan: Can you tell me a little bit more about your documentary experience with Mike, which is the documentary series called Scared to Debt. What did you learn, being involved with that?
Reggie Harris: Well, the first thing I learned is that it’s business as usual. I think when we talked before, I mentioned that so much of American history is powerful people taking advantage of the rest of everyone. If we’re looking at, the beginnings of this nation and people coming to this either as indentured servants or as slaves, and both of those situations were codified in, in our government’s Constitutional foundation. People who have money, were able to make more money. And so they were able to co-op people, indentured servants coming here and finding out that perhaps, the people that they owed money to work on, let them out of their lending situation. Of course we all know the story about slavery. But encased in all of that over the course of years is unfair housing, labor relations. I mean, it all really boils down to the same thing. And as I’ve talked about, civil and human rights in this nation, in my role as a performer and a storyteller, I just see more and more of the same that it’s hard for people to get ahead because some people hold the reins to anyone getting ahead. Just today I just picked up the newspaper and I saw more articles on the fact that Congress is continuing to not look at situations. That they won’t even raise the national debt limit. They’re not taking care of their business, which is to serve us as citizens.
And that just makes me angry. So as I talked to Mike, and as we were working on other projects that we’ve done, he would constantly bring this up and he would say, “can I get you to talk a little bit about, not only your debt, but how you see this in the history of our country?”
And it is so astonishingly similar to the ways in which corporations and banks and powerful rich people have made our lives difficult. So I’m interested in being a part of anything that will help change.
Nikki Nolan: Is there anything you learned throughout the process of the documentary that made you feel this has really helped me see this problem in a totally different way?
Reggie Harris: I think the thing that I love about this is that, so often we get jaded into thinking that nobody cares. Or we think that all of these things are just kind of set in stone, that we have no control. I think as I watched people like Mike and people like Alan and some of the other folks, people like you- who have encountered an issue and then put their lives and their time on the line to investigate the issue and find solutions. This is the way that movements have worked in this nation. This is the way that people got out of slavery. This is the way that the labor movement actually came up with the 40 hour week and the 8 hour day. And ended child labor. This is the way that people have dealt with the food crisis here in America, which still exists, unfortunately, in the richest nation in the world. People started working hard to find out what really is happening. I love investigative reporters.
love the fact that so many people are coming clean. There are people of honest integrity who are saying no, this isn’t right. Even people who were part of this entire industry are coming forward and telling what they know. I’ve had my appreciation for the human spirit. And for the integrity that is still present in our world, but it’s challenged. And I think that as a people and as individuals, we have a responsibility to, in this challenging moment, step up and, and do our part. And so I love that this message is going out and that it’s widening. I love to see all the diverse faces in the Scared to Debtdocumentary.
love seeing the people who are working hard to expose this entire thing. And I am more than ever committed. You know, we need these messages that all is not lost. So I’m going to say, all is not lost. We’ve got a lot of work.
Nikki Nolan: s there any advice that you would give to your younger self knowing what you know now?
Reggie Harris: Well, I think the first thing I would tell my younger self is don’t sign that contract for the student loan. But I would say to my younger self, believe in people more. I would say to my younger self, speak up. I think that for so many years I let my voice be silenced because I thought I wasn’t smart enough.
thought I didn’t know enough. I thought that no one would listen to me. And over the course of years, I’ve learned that I do have a voice that gets heard. My music helped to teach me that, but also working with people, on a variety of different issues as I do every day, I would need to remind my younger self that there’s power in numbers and there’s power in community. So I have come as far as I have come because I have lived in the shelter of others. And I continue to do that every day.
Nikki Nolan: Is there anything that you want to promote before we come to an end?
Reggie Harris: Well, I will say that one of the other folks that I’m involved with is a man named Rob Shetterly. Rob was so angry years ago, about the way things were going, that he began to paint portraits of people that, as he called them, people who tell the truth. He is now up to 254 paintings, and there’s a film that’s coming out soon called Truth Tellers. And, so I would say to folks to watch that film. It’s made by Dick Kane of Maine Masters. It’s a great story about a man who was just feeling like all was lost and that he was just so angry every day. And through the painting of these portraits of people like Bayard Rustin, of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., of Gandhi. Of people in environmental, civil rights, social action. He has painted these portraits and told the story of these people and taken them into schools and taken them into communities to inspire others. So that film Truth Tellers will be coming out soon. And I am happy to say that I’m one of the portraits and I’m in the film.
You can find me at reggieharrismusic.com. I’m easy to find. And I’m willing at all times to have that conversation with people that makes both of us feel better and more committed to making this world more just.
Nikki Nolan: Thank you so much for being here.
Reggie Harris: Thank you!
Nikki Nolan: Matter of Life and Debt is produced by me, Nikki Nolan. Special thanks to Efe Akmen for creating the music and mastering the audio additional support. And thanks to Emma Klauber who writes the information and transcripts about each episode. This podcast would not be possible without them. Visit our website for more information, www.matteroflifeanddebt.com where you can listen, read transcripts, get additional context for the subjects you just heard about. Subscribe absolutely for free. That website again, www.matteroflifeanddebt.com. Thanks again for listening.
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