![A photograph of a photo of Carmen Fields and her father, Ernie Fields, at a dinner table and smiling for the camera.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/0f6eae8/2147483647/strip/true/crop/300x223+0+0/resize/880x654!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F93%2F98%2Ff61b593a4e3e8e5f476bd0c56f22%2Fcarmen-fields-father-e1686146974316-300x223.jpeg)
Courtesy of Carmen Fields
On this edition of In Black America, producer/host John L. Hanson Jr. presents part one of a two-part discussion with Carmen Fields, Emmy Award–winning broadcast news journalist and author of Going Back To T-Town: The Ernie Fields Territory Big Band.
As a child growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Fields heard her father tell stories about life on the road touring with his 17-piece orchestra in the 1920s, '30s and '40s. In the mid-1980s she decided to record those memories from her father.
Fields talks about the talented musicians her father played with, how he became a big band leader, how he maintained his optimism even while he faced entrenched racial prejudice and threats of violence, and the legacy he left.