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Let's create smarter business. IDM Okay. This is Rob Gronkowski from Dudes on Dudes with Gronk and Jules. For the second season in a row, I partnered with T-Mobile's Friday Night 5G Lights, powering up hometown football across America. This year, T-Mobile invested over $4 million in prizes to help schools take their Friday nights to the next level.
Now it's time to crown our $1 million grand prize winner. A huge congrats to Derricks High School in Derricks, Arkansas, home of the Outlaws and your 2025 T-Mobile Friday Night 5G Lights Champion. They scored a home field upgrade, Gronk Fitness Weight Room, a 2026 tailgate party, and an all-expense paid trip to the SEC Championship game. to every school that competed, posted, and rallied your communities. Thank you.
And a big thanks to T-Mobile for making it all possible and helping communities shine under the Friday night lights. This season may be over, but the story isn't. Stay tuned for season three in twenty twenty six. A new year is on the horizon, and your twenty twenty six savings start here. Right now, you can access the Washington Post for just $2 every four weeks.
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Now's the perfect time to subscribe because great habits and great savings start together. Go to WashingtonPost.com/slash iHeart. That's WashingtonPost.com slash iHeart and start your year informed with the post. This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?
They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don't sleep on osa.com. This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company.
Coca-Cola For the big. for the small. This short? and the tall. Peacemakers.
Risk takers. For the optimus. Pessimists for long distance love. For introverts. and extroverts.
the thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola For everyone. Pick up some Coca-Cola at a store near you. Uh This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories.
In 2024, we took a trip to Dallas, Texas, and stumbled upon an amazing story of reconciliation, faith, and resilience. It was our good friends at the Sumners Foundation who actually told us about it. Let's get into the story. of the White Rock Chapel. Here to start us off is Donald Wesson.
Here also to tell the story is an historian Judith Segora. Let's start things off with Donald.
So you asked, what was the motivation for my family to get involved? My son had discovered this church. In receivership.
So He came to my wife and I and said, Dad, there are a number of individuals vying to buy what was a very valuable piece of land, a corner lot in a neighborhood of multi-million dollar houses. And knock it down, and this would be a tragedy.
So I asked him what he had learned. And the story that he had learned was something that needs to be touted.
Now, many of us know that President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 on January 1st.
However, word did not reach Texas until 1865. It was a brutal environment. Just imagine that. the circumstances under which the enslaved. Live.
Imagine that as parents, you don't have control over your children. Imagine as a spouse, the husband has no control outside of what the enslaver does over his wife. The wife has no control over her husband. It took physical brutality. to be able to hold individuals enslaved.
So, in order to make it from day to day, one had to envision a better tomorrow. Yeah. Mm-hmm. If not for me, my child, if not for my child, my grandchild, and so on. They had to envision a better life sometime.
So faith is key. to survive enslavement. Uh Now, in Texas, as in most places, they were not allowed to form churches on their own, and it was illegal to teach enslaved people to read. Those who did learn to read the Bible did so surreptitiously. There were often clandestine worship services at night.
Eventually, that physical enslavement ended and. They were now not just freed from the shackles of slavery, but they were now free to have their own spiritual experience that they determined.
However, if you can imagine The enslavers were compensated for the loss of their property. These families being released from slavery. Receive nothing. Absolutely nothing. I can't imagine.
How daunting it must have been to them.
So, of course, they're going to form Freedman's towns across the South. Many of them had learned to read. Ministers then grew out from among them. And there were always two elements that went with it. A church.
and a cemetery. The churches became the anchors of these Freedmen's Towns, and that was the impetus. for White Rock Chapel. These five families that left enslavement with nothing banded together and said. We're going to work.
Earn money. Pool our money. And purchased land for both a church. and a cemetery. And these families worked together 19 years.
My head still swims when I think about that, that these families held together. Work together for small amounts of money for those 19 years for the common good. And that, in and of itself, is an amazing story that needs to be told. The second part of the amazing story is they went to a man who had enslaved some of them.
Now, if you know anything about the history right after the Civil War among the relationship among whites and blacks. The word among whites is that you never sell. Blacks land because doing so would give them power. But for reasons that I have not been able to understand, and our historian that we're working with has not been able to understand. This former enslaver sold the land to these families.
And on top of that. He helped them build the church and attended church with them. The Formerly enslaved. And those who formerly enslaved them. Not only sat together in the same room at the same time.
They worship together. For at least a couple of generations, not just them, but their families. I mean, my goodness, what an amazing story in and of itself. It's just hard for me to imagine. Groups So disparate from each other, so potentially antagonistic of each other, worshiping together in a common structure.
I would love to believe that God moved them to do that. That's certainly, that's my supposition. Uh But unfortunately, in those days, the White Rock Creek flooded and there was a massive flood that swept away a family of five.
So they needed to build a church in another location. Thankfully, a wealthy white landowner Heard of their plight and donated land. His name was S.S. Noel. A poor man who made a living as a farmer in Georgia.
Who brought his family to Texas in 1875 and just with scraping together what he could started buying land. And Ended up being the largest landowner in what came to be the township of Addison. The town was called Noel Junction at the time. And I'll say it again: the feeling at the time among white landowners. is that you never So Black people land.
He was a really prominent citizen, and one of his Employees was a member of the White Rock Chapel Church, and he lived along with his wife and children on the Knowle Farm. And so mister Noelle And he had become really good friends and He was introduced to the fellowship there, and That wealthy landowner not only donated the land for the church, which is where the present church stands. But also helped them to build that church. And also he and his family attended worship services with them. for generations.
There was an article in a local publication here in Dallas in the mid-70s that they were interviewing a descendant, and he said, Our donating that land. Was the best thing that my family had ever done. It's a glimpse. that there were white people. in the 19th century who were not barbaric.
Who were In fact, kind and loving and supportive. Of those less fortunate than themselves, no matter what color they were. Bye. That simple story was the main motivation. for my family to purchase that church so that That story continues.
Because it is a lesson for us today. The things that we find the fight over, it pales in comparison to people who had been enslaved working with people who had enslaved them. If those early Texans can come together thin We can come together. and accomplish amazing things following the template that those individuals did more than 100 years ago. As you can hear in my voice, I'm still moved by the story.
The story of a church built on reconciliation. The story of White Rock Chapel. Here on our American stories. This is Eva Longoria from Hungry for History with Eva Longoria and Maite Gomez Rejon. Like the song says, it's the most wonderful time of the year, and also a wonderfully busy one.
All that merriment can weigh down even Santa Slay.
So keep it wonderful by keeping yourself wonderful with a crisp, cold Coca-Cola. Ugh. Pause for fizzy joy. Look out for yourself, and then look out for everyone else. And together we'll make this season as wonderful as it's meant to be.
Enjoy a Coca-Cola. Refresh your holidays. Ever wish you could try the Washington Post and see what all the talk is about? Right now, you can, with a one-week pass for just $7. No commitment, no strings attached.
To $7 for one week of unlimited access to the Post. It's the perfect way to explore our award-winning journalism and experience what subscribers already know. There's nothing else quite like it.
So why not give us a try? Go to Washington Post dot com slash week and start your $7 one week pass today. That's Washington Post dot com slash week. This is Sophie Cunningham from Show Me Something. Do you know the symptoms of moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea or OSA in adults with obesity?
They may be happening to you without you knowing. If anyone has ever said you snored loudly or if you spend your days fighting off excessive tiredness, irritability, and concentration issues, it may be due to OSA. OSA is a serious condition where your airway partially or completely collapses during sleep, which may cause breathing interruptions and oxygen deprivation. Learn more at don't sleep on OSA. com.
This information is provided by Lilly, a medicine company. Ten athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you. Will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000.
This is when mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Trainer Games on Prime Video, January 8th. Watch the trailer on TrainerGames.com. Season 2 of Unrivaled Basketball is here, and the talent is unreal.
The best women's players on the planet are running it back with even bigger moments and bigger stakes. Don't miss as Paige Becker, Snafiza Collier, Kelsey Plum, Brianna Stewart, and more take the court and redefine the game. This isn't your regular season. This is Unrivaled, where the pace is faster, the energy is higher, and every athlete shines. Unrivaled Basketball, Season 2, sponsored by Samsung Galaxy, tips off January 5th on TNT, True TV, and HBO Max.
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Mm-hmm.
