This profile is part of a series of interviews chronicling the experiences of researchers who use The New York Public Library's collections for the development of their work.

Mosi Secret is an independent journalist and writer based in Brooklyn and a recipient of the Library’s Diamonstein-Spielvogel Fellowship. Mosi’s feature work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, New York Magazine, and on the podcast This American Life, and he has worked as a reporter at the New York Times, ProPublica, and alternative weekly newspapers. His first book, Teaching Them: The 1960s Experiment to Desegregate the Boarding Schools of the South, will come out in 2023 with Little, Brown.

When did you first get the idea for your research project?

My project began as a tip back in 2015. I was a reporter at the New York Times when an old family friend who was the father of my best friend from childhood contacted me to suggest that I look into the little known history of private school desegregation in the American South. This elder friend had been one of dozens of Black students chosen by a small group called the Stouffer Foundation to receive scholarships at all-white boarding schools in the late 1960s. He imagined a short newspaper story at the time, but I ended up finding all of these layers to the material. The most interesting discovery was probably that this scholarship program was largely designed to cure elite, white students of their bigotry through exposure to Black students. The history was so rich that I wrote a magazine feature and made a podcast, and now I’m going even deeper with the book. 

What brought you to the Library?

I first learned about the Allen Room in a nightclub! I was out dancing (pre-pre-COVID) and met another writer on the dance floor who screamed in my ear about a room in the Library with pristine quiet and long-term borrowing privileges. Heaven! Even then I was struggling with working from home, so I signed up right away. I’m not sure how I survived so long without NYPL. 

What research tools could you not live without?

MaRLI; Oxford Bibliographies; JSTOR.

What’s the most unexpected item you encountered in your research?

A few years ago, I found tape recorded interviews from the 1960s and 70s with the children who participated in the school desegregation program. A big challenge in writing narrative nonfiction on such an old subject is dealing with failing memories. The archival audio was essentially a time capsule that allowed me to recover the participants' mental states from decades ago.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned from a book recently?

Hmmm, that’s a hard one to isolate because I constantly have a bunch of books open. But most of my outside reading is in the areas of metaphysics and psychology. I’m really interested in the idea that unknown abilities lurk in our subconscious minds, and lately I’ve been reading about the practice of using hypnotherapy to unlock memories and abilities. I’m going to try it. 

Describe a moment when your research took an unexpected turn.

I have been researching this history for six years now, and at various times I have felt fatigued with the material, so much so that at times it was hard to imagine how I would ever finish. But I went on a fellowship retreat recently and took the time to read some essays by Ralph Emerson called Representative Men. Emerson was really interested in the idea of exemplary individuals (for him, they were men), who are models for the rest of us in constructing our lives, and who expand our collective sense of what’s possible. Gradually it occurred to me that some of these same ideas were floating around in the history I’m exploring, overlapping with some of DuBois’s ideas about the Talented Tenth. I realized that my book is actually about how much power individuals have to change society, and I reworked a lot of my structure to reflect that.

How do you maintain your research momentum?

I give my curiosity free reign and welcome nonlinear diversions as a part of my process. Also, momentum flagging isn’t the worst thing. Often my work benefits from taking a step back and returning with a new perspective. Keeping my notes organized (I write with an application called Scrivener) is key for that. 

After a day of working/researching, what do you do to unwind?

My favorite thing to do is practice piano. I started playing in my mid-30s, so it’s definitely a labor of love. But few things bring me more pleasure.

Is there anything you'd like to tell someone looking to get started?

Follow your passions wherever they take you, but do it with discipline. Return to the work every day and look for new connections. Write down the interesting ideas that pop into your head.

Have I left anything out that you’d like to tell other researchers?

I can’t wait until we can sit down together with our masks off. Until then, please say hello. It doesn’t have to be THAT quiet.