Honouring the Overlooked
This interview was originally published in SEEMA Magazine. Note: Edited excerpts. Read the entire interview here on page 30.
In 2017, Amisha (Amy) Padnani, an editor at The New York Times’ obituaries desk, realised an oddity in the manner in which the newspaper had traditionally featured obituaries. Since 1851, The Times had published tributes to noteworthy people who were predominantly male and white. Only a fraction of the obituaries registered the lives of women and people of colour.
The paper’s archives were missing obituaries of legends like Charlotte Brontë (who authored ‘Jane Eyre’), Henrietta Lacks (who unwittingly transformed the landscape of medical research, thereby saving countless lives), Ida B. Wells (“the most famous black woman in the United States during her lifetime” who crusaded against lynching), Madhubala (the gorgeous Bollywood superstar of the ‘50s-‘60s), and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (who supported gay rights in 19th century, long before the term ‘homosexuality’ was coined).
Padnani wondered if the paper could “look harder” and acknowledge the unsung lives of individuals who had positively altered society’s trajectory, yet had been marginalised by history due to their race, gender, sexual orientation and so on. As a result, in 2018, The Times introduced a series aptly titled, Overlooked, which became a part of its obituaries section. It traced and honoured the lives of extraordinary people who had receded into obscurity. The Times admitted on its Overlooked webpage: “To look back at the obituary archives can, therefore, be a stark lesson in how society valued various achievements and achievers”.
Across borders, readers have gravitated towards these compelling stories. The project has become a propellant in changing the narrative of whom we think is “important” in society. Padnani, the lead editor of Overlooked (which is going to be adapted as a web series for Netflix), tells SEEMA what went into making the series, the impact it has made thus far, and how those who were once side-lined by history are finally being brought to the forefront and celebrated.
To begin, what inspired your interest in the Obituary section of The New York Times?
One of the reasons I’ve always been drawn to journalism is because I enjoy learning about life through people. Obituaries are a perfect example of this. There is a beautiful serendipity in picking up the day’s paper and reading about how a person helped shape the world as we know it. Obituaries are also an art form, especially at The Times. Our writers take the story of a person’s life and spin up beautiful narratives that go beyond just the basic facts of a person’s life. Take, for example, this wonderfully written piece about Frances Gabe, the inventor of the world’s only self-cleaning house. She was a visionary who achieved something many people have dreamed of.
How did the fascinating Overlooked series come into being?
After I joined the Obits desk, in 2017, I noticed we would occasionally get emails from readers asking, “Why don’t you have more women and people of color in your pages?” I asked my team how we usually respond. They said, “Well, obituaries are a rear-view look at society, and the people who are dying today were of a generation when women and people of color weren’t invited to the table to make a difference. Perhaps in a generation or two, we’ll see more of a balance.”
“When Overlooked launched, I got hundreds of emails. People said they cried reading these obituaries because they felt seen for the first time. ”
While there is some truth to that line of thinking, I still felt unsatisfied. Couldn’t we look a bit harder? I began mulling over this issue and having conversations with colleagues around the newsroom and in the industry. Then one day while I was doing some research, I came across a website about the history of tennis. It credited Mary Ewing Outerbridge with introducing tennis to America. Tennis is such a major sport, and yet I had never heard of her. I wondered if she received a New York Times obituary when she died. On a hunch, I checked our archives: she hadn’t. I wondered who else we missed, and I went on a deep dive through the archives. Before long I had a list of a couple of dozen names. I went back to my team and said, “What if we were to tell their stories now?” On March 8, 2018, International Women’s Day, we launched Overlooked with the stories of 15 remarkable women, and we have continued adding to the series ever since.
As the creator and lead editor of Overlooked, how did you envision the series to bring about a paradigm shift?
To be honest, I didn’t predict the impact of Overlooked. You see, at the time the Black Lives Matter movement was at a rolling boil and the #MeToo movement was just beginning. All of these people were coming out of the shadows to tell stories of injustices that they had faced and I could relate; as the daughter of Indian immigrants growing up in the United States, I, too, had faced discriminating encounters. People were demanding change. And meanwhile, in my new role I had identified an imbalance that I could address.
“I’m brought to tears when I read about women like Margaret Garner, a slave who, in one soul-chilling moment, killed her own daughter so that she would not have to experience the horrors of slavery.”
When Overlooked launched, I got hundreds of emails. People said they cried reading these obituaries because they felt seen for the first time. And all of a sudden, I realized how so many people like me had been walking around feeling invisible, and how this sort of work, of trying to rewrite history and correct the wrongs of the past, could help us think about what we need to be doing differently as a society going forward.
Which has been the most revelatory story that you’ve managed to pull out of the shadows? Has that story left you inspired in any way?
There are so many! I’m delighted when I read about problem solvers, like Melitta Bentz, who invented the coffee filter after she became tired of getting grounds in her teeth. I’m humbled when I read about brave souls like Minnie Freeman, a teacher who rescued her schoolchildren when the building was being torn apart in a freak blizzard. I’m inspired when I hear about strong women who survive adversity to do something great, like Grandma Gatewood, who overcame 30 years of domestic violence at the hands of her husband, to become the first woman to complete the Appalachian Trail in its entirety alone, when she was 67.
I’m brought to tears when I read about women like Margaret Garner, a slave who, in one soul-chilling moment, killed her own daughter so that she would not have to experience the horrors of slavery. Reading these stories of vision and strength is revelatory — they teach us about our role in society, about what we can accomplish and who we should be as individuals going forward.
What is the process behind choosing who deserves to be featured from the past? Is there is certain criteria they must meet?
As the lead editor of the project, I’ve gotten thousands of pitches from readers on who else we might have overlooked. The primary criteria is that the person has to have died after The New York Times began publishing, on Sept. 18, 1851. Other than that, the criteria is pretty similar to how we select contemporary figures. Generally speaking, the subject should have helped shape society or a way of thinking for a set of people in some way.
