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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

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Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did cool stuff.

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Speaker 2: You're a weekly reminder that when there's bad things happening,

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Speaker 2: there's people trying to do good things. And one of

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Speaker 2: the people who I think does good things like write

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Speaker 2: books and do podcasts is my guest Courtney Cosak.

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Speaker 1: Hi.

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Speaker 3: Hello are you.

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Speaker 1: I'm good. I'm so excited after that cliffhanger. What's in

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Speaker 1: store for week two or episode two?

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Speaker 2: Well, one of the things that's going to happen is

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Speaker 2: I'm going to remember to introduce Sophie.

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Speaker 3: Hi. Sophie. Sophie is my producer.

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Speaker 2: Hey, I started breaking from my format of how I

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Speaker 2: start every single episode and now I'm like left in

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Speaker 2: the darkness of not knowing exactly how I do it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: but I'm trying new stuff. I'm exploring.

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Speaker 1: That's a cool thing.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, live your truth. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So this is part two of a two parter, and

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Speaker 2: if you don't listen to part one, then you have

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Speaker 2: a different brain than I do.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, you're going to us out on all the contexts.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not going to know what the hell share

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Speaker 2: crapper is unless you actually paid attention in school or.

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Speaker 4: I couldn't teach that shit in school.

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Speaker 2: I think my school did, but I had like a

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Speaker 2: kind of cool social studies teacher that, in retrospect was

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Speaker 2: so obviously a lesbian. The way that the Gay Straight

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Speaker 2: Alliance started my high school was that I was going

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Speaker 2: to regional Gay Straighter Alliance meetings as an ally, of course,

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Speaker 2: and so these two teachers who were so obviously lesbians

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Speaker 2: cornered me in the stairwell in the morning and were like,

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Speaker 2: did you know that teachers can't start student groups? And

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Speaker 2: I was like, I did not know that, and they

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Speaker 2: were like, here's all the filled out paperwork of start

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Speaker 2: Straight Alliance. We hear you've been going to regional meetings,

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Speaker 2: and I was like, ah, I'm the founder of the

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Speaker 2: Gay Straight Alliance.

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Speaker 4: I love that in a way, aren't you. Friends.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, the social studies teacher with the hyphenated last name

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Speaker 2: who was Butch's hell, and the gym teacher who was

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Speaker 2: long hair Butch, the both wonderful people.

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Speaker 3: Anyway.

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Speaker 2: I don't know why I'm talking about them. Oh, because

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Speaker 2: that teacher who I'm not going to name, tried to

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Speaker 2: actually teach us and I just wasn't listening.

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Speaker 5: I feel like all the lessons in social studies or

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Speaker 5: history or whatever, though it was like one sentence or

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Speaker 5: a paragraph on a thing that's like actually books and

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Speaker 5: books and books totally.

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Speaker 2: And I didn't care about history when I was a

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Speaker 2: kid because I didn't understand its role in the present,

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Speaker 2: in the future, and I didn't understand my role in it. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and you know, other people might have different identities and

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Speaker 2: positions that might make them care more about history from

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Speaker 2: the start, but like, until I was involved in social change,

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Speaker 2: I didn't care much about history. And now I'm like,

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Speaker 2: oh my god, it's the grandest story ever told, of

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Speaker 2: a million interwoven parts, and we're the spiders in the

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Speaker 2: web making it ourselves and other grandiose metaphors that I'll

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Speaker 2: come up with as I go.

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Speaker 3: You know, totally.

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Speaker 2: So the grand web we're weaving is that In part one,

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Speaker 2: we talked about the sharecropping system and how it was bad,

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Speaker 2: and we talked about how for a brief moment there

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Speaker 2: was a chance to try and actually do land reform,

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Speaker 2: but then a democrat, one of those demon crats, got

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Speaker 2: into office and made it impossible.

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Speaker 1: Not a demon crat.

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Speaker 3: That's so good.

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Speaker 2: My favorite thing in the world is when modern Republicans

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Speaker 2: don't understand or intentionally misunderstand that political terminology changes and

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Speaker 2: try to like claim Lincoln or the IRA and those

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Speaker 2: are just two groups that you don't get to claim

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Speaker 2: modern Republicans totally. Where we left off our story, the

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Speaker 2: Farmers Alliance had just formed, but the Farmer's Alliance is

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Speaker 2: actually three different groups that are usually conflated by history. Well,

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Speaker 2: no one actually talks about this history, but the first

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Speaker 2: many articles I read conflated them all. There's the Northern

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Speaker 2: Farmer's Alliance, which we're not even going to talk about,

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Speaker 2: the Southern Farmers Alliance, which is usually just called the

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Speaker 2: Farmer's Alliance. And then the hero of this week's tale,

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Speaker 2: the Colored Farmer's Alliance. And they didn't fuck around North

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Speaker 2: versus South. They had like some shit in New Jersey.

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Speaker 5: Is this the cooperative that you introduced in the last episode.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So at the very top of the thing, I

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Speaker 2: talked about the Colored Farmer's Alliance and that's going to

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Speaker 2: be the hero of this week's tale. And then the

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Speaker 2: Farmer's Alliance itself, isn't the Grange or the Agricultural Wheel.

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Speaker 2: Those are like the predecessor groups kind of, And the

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Speaker 2: Southern Farmers Alliance is the one that people are talking

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Speaker 2: about when they say the Farmer's Alliance. They fucking hated

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Speaker 2: the crop lean system. They hated the idea that you

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Speaker 2: could just put someone into a peonage by saying like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: I own the food you're about to grow. They hated

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Speaker 2: the gilded age they lived in of rich millionaires telling

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Speaker 2: everyone else what to do. Imagine that. And in order

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Speaker 2: to stop that, they worked towards cooperativism. Specifically and differently

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Speaker 2: than the Grange before them. They tried to do a

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Speaker 2: more centralized cooperative marketing thing. So the cooperative is like

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Speaker 2: actually trying to sell the goods cooperatively as well. I

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Speaker 2: think that the Grange was like, hey, we're all going

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Speaker 2: to chip in together to buy seeds, and now you

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Speaker 2: can buy seeds cheaply. Right. I believe that the Farmer's

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Speaker 2: Alliance was taking stuff a step further. And a minority

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Speaker 2: of these people in the White Farmers Alliance was like,

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Speaker 2: we need to build a society based on cooperation. And

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Speaker 2: so they were anti racist and anti segregation as like

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Speaker 2: a decent imagine that.

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Speaker 1: Just trying to be good people over here.

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Speaker 2: Right, minority of them they were not the people in charge,

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Speaker 2: and so black farmers started their own group in eighteen

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Speaker 2: eighty six, the Colored Farmer's National Alliance and Cooperative Union,

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Speaker 2: and it was founded in Texas by sixteen black farmers,

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Speaker 2: and it was founded as a secret society. Partly they

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Speaker 2: founded it as a secret society because what they were

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Speaker 2: doing is rather dangerous and questionably legal. Black people could

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Speaker 2: get a whole lot more killed for organizing than white

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Speaker 2: people could, and white people were also getting killed for

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Speaker 2: organizing a lot, so like it was a hard time

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Speaker 2: to be an organizer, so secret society.

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Speaker 3: It just made sense.

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Speaker 2: The other reason it was a secret society, as we

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Speaker 2: talked about a little bit last time, is that everything

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Speaker 2: was a secret society in the nineteenth century. If you

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Speaker 2: want to get anything done outside of government, you form

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Speaker 2: a fraternal society that is at least somewhat secret, and

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Speaker 2: that's just what is done. There's exceptions to this, but

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Speaker 2: like the big labor union at this time is called

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Speaker 2: the Knights of Labor, and they're like, we are the

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Speaker 2: Knights of Labor. We have our secret stuff. But they

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Speaker 2: also like are kind of milk toast. They're like kind

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Speaker 2: of moderate, you know, although they're actually not segregated.

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Speaker 1: Of Columbus was in my hometown and they just did

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Speaker 1: pancake brunches.

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Speaker 3: I don't know what they did in secret.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, yeah, exactly like everything. I think the

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Speaker 2: Knights of Columbuses right wing stuff, but I actually not

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Speaker 2: one hundreder cent certain Please don't come for me.

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Speaker 4: It's a Catholic men's group.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Catholic always eating pancakes, those Catholics.

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Speaker 4: There's always bread.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, the Body of Christ. Excuse you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it was a pancake quite famously. That's what

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Speaker 2: people don't say. They say bread, but people who are

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Speaker 2: in the know know that it was pancakes. It was

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Speaker 2: a pancake dinner with wine blood wine like the Klingons drink.

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Speaker 2: So the Klingons killed their gods, and that's why Klingon

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Speaker 2: wedding ceremonies are about will you join with me so

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Speaker 2: that we can kill the gods together or just.

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Speaker 1: Bringing it together all the lore.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, continer, yeah, So membership of the Colored Farmers Union

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Speaker 2: was shockingly only open to black farmers, but they figured

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Speaker 2: they needed a white guy in the group. He wouldn't

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Speaker 2: be in charge. He would be the spokesperson because he

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Speaker 2: was able to say to the press the stuff a

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Speaker 2: black person couldn't because everyone was kind of like, I'll

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Speaker 2: get killed if I say that.

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Speaker 3: I don't want to get killed. How'd they find this guy?

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Speaker 2: He was a member of the Farmer's Alliance, the White

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Speaker 2: Farmers Alliance, and he was probably one of the people

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Speaker 2: who was like, hey, why aren't we open to black

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Speaker 2: people too? And I've read conflicting reports about this guy

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Speaker 2: and his motivations. It's hard to get a really solid

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Speaker 2: sense of how much power he exerted. Most pop history

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Speaker 2: is just basically like, oh, this guy was in charge,

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Speaker 2: but he wasn't. We actually know the name of the

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Speaker 2: original president of the group, and he was very specifically

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Speaker 2: a certain type of, you know, spokesperson, but we don't

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Speaker 2: know of what he said. How much was his own

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Speaker 2: ideas and how much was the group because secret society.

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Speaker 2: His name was R. M. Humphrey and he was a

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Speaker 2: white farmer, a Baptist minister, and a former Confederate officer.

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Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Yeah, And one account I read claims that

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Speaker 2: he started off doing this cynically. He wanted to run

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Speaker 2: for Congress, and his particular area of Texas that he

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Speaker 2: grew up in or lived in hadn't been voter suppressed yet,

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Speaker 2: so most of the electorate was black, and so he

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Speaker 2: was like, all right, I'll do this thing. The voters

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Speaker 2: will like me. I'll get to go to Congress.

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Speaker 1: I'll need to make up for that Confederate shit.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, But he lost his campaign in eighteen eighty eight,

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Speaker 2: and he just kept going and he doubled down on

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Speaker 2: the Colored Farmer's Alliance and it became his full time

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Speaker 2: job and his passion.

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Speaker 3: People can change.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, he gets protagonized pretty heavily by most of the

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Speaker 2: history about this, in part because he's white, but in

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Speaker 2: part because it was a secret society and he's the

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Speaker 2: guy talking to the press, so he's like pretty much

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Speaker 2: the guy we know about.

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Speaker 3: There's a couple other names.

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Speaker 2: And the other thing is, I don't think I've ever

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Speaker 2: researched a subject with less information about them. And I've

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Speaker 2: read a bunch of shit about like shit from two

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Speaker 2: thousand years ago. A bunch of the historians straight up

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Speaker 2: are just like and historians haven't figured out this part yet.

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Speaker 3: Wow, Like, there's.

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Speaker 2: Just a bunch of unknowns about this group that may

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Speaker 2: or may not be the largest black organization ever in

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Speaker 2: US history. That's one of the unknowns.

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Speaker 3: Were they.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, couldn't find anyone who knows. Read a

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Speaker 2: lot of people say they don't know the Colored Farmers Alliance.

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Speaker 2: We know what they did in like short little bits,

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Speaker 2: and it fucking rules. This is the kind of thing

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Speaker 2: that I would love to just focus the whole thing on.

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Speaker 2: They set up cooperative stores and educational opportunities. They would

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Speaker 2: set up these exchanges. And they set one up in Norfolk,

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Speaker 2: which is not Newark, And so I was wrong. They're

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Speaker 2: not in New Jersey. I just fucking kim some shit

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Speaker 2: in my head. I don't even know where Norfolk is.

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Speaker 2: It's probably not New Jersey.

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Speaker 1: Virginia, right or West Virginia. I might be making that up.

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Speaker 3: Too, I don't know.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, And then they're in one of the Charleston's, and

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Speaker 2: they're in Mobile, and they're in New Orleans, and they're

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Speaker 2: in Houston. And at these exchanges, members could buy any

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Speaker 2: goods cheap, so you can go get your tools at cost,

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Speaker 2: and you can get like seeds, and you can get

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Speaker 2: all the stuff you need for a farm. And they

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Speaker 2: probably were also food cooperatives. We can go and get

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Speaker 2: your groceries and shit. But I'm not certain.

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Speaker 1: And they're serving black communities.

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Speaker 2: Yes specifically, yes, because it's members, and there's probably the

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Speaker 2: white farmers had a similar thing going on, but I

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Speaker 2: didn't do as much research about them because they're the

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Speaker 2: White Farmers Union.

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Speaker 3: I don't know who cares yeap.

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Speaker 2: And also you can go there and you can get

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Speaker 2: a loan to pay off your mortgage. Like if you

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Speaker 2: buy land, instead of being owned by like the white

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Speaker 2: bank or your old landowner, you can now oh, your

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Speaker 2: money to this group instead. They also raised money so

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Speaker 2: that schools could be open longer, because like public schools

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Speaker 2: were you know, wildly underfunded in black communities or whatever,

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Speaker 2: which is totally obviously changed. And they may or may

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Speaker 2: not have founded universities. That's like a thing where people

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Speaker 2: are like or academies. We just like, don't know, aren't

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Speaker 2: some of these people alive?

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Speaker 3: No?

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Speaker 2: No, this is eighteen this is eighteen l Oh, we're

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Speaker 2: still in okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a long

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Speaker 2: time ago.

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Speaker 1: We had jumped generations.

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Speaker 2: Okay, oh yeah yeah yeah. Now we're still just after

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Speaker 2: the Civil War. We're talking about eighteen eighties. Ok yeah,

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Speaker 2: and so they did all this shit, and they also

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Speaker 2: served as insurance, like I was talking about last time.

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Speaker 2: And so if you join this group, if you get

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Speaker 2: sick or you come disabled, or you need to pay

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Speaker 2: for your funeral, this group you pay your dues in

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Speaker 2: and then you're taken care of. And this is why

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Speaker 2: I'm like, this sounds nicer than modern insurance, because that's

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Speaker 2: the same idea, but you're paying like eight million ferent

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Speaker 2: kinds of insurance. And back then, when you're doing it

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Speaker 2: with these organizations, you get the impression that the people

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Speaker 2: doing it like like you and your part.

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Speaker 5: Give a shit about you. Yeah, they're not trying to

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Speaker 5: like deny your claim.

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Speaker 2: Yes, cooperative insurance instead of private healthcare insurance or whatever

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Speaker 2: the fuck you know for a profit shit. Yeah, no

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Speaker 2: one's showing up with deny whatever. I can't remember the

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Speaker 2: other bullets names.

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Speaker 1: Oh right, den defend.

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Speaker 2: You would think of all people, I would know this.

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Speaker 2: Everyone listening is really mad because they know it.

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Speaker 3: Whatever. You haven't been talking for.

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Speaker 2: Hours into a microphone and have your brain go blank

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Speaker 2: of everything except about what's happening in this particular union.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, fuck, look up.

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Speaker 2: Luigi Galliani by accident and you'll find a even more

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Speaker 2: aggressive version. Anyway, they taught black empowerment through ownership. Don't

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Speaker 2: be in debt, own your own home. And this predates

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Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say a like I have no like

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Speaker 2: to stand on and having an opinion about these fights

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Speaker 2: about what black empowerment looks like one hundred and twenty

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Speaker 2: five years ago. But this predates the Booker T. Washington

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Speaker 2: approach of black empowerment by a few years. This idea

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Speaker 2: that like, work hard and that will free us and

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Speaker 2: will do economic empowerment and things like that. I think

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Speaker 2: we've talked about this before on the show, But pretty

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Speaker 2: soon you're going to have this thing where you have

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Speaker 2: Booker T. Washington and his approach when he ends up

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Speaker 2: starting Tuskegee University, I think, and like you know, is

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Speaker 2: trying to do empowerment versus you have the Web du

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Speaker 2: Bois approach, which is like, we need to change the

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Speaker 2: political situation and get actively involved in changing that right.

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Speaker 2: And so they're doing this stuff. They're doing empowerment, they're

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Speaker 2: doing cooperatives, doing all kinds of cool shit. And the

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Speaker 2: three alliances, the Northern, the Southern, and the Colored they

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Speaker 2: work together pretty often but they're not in lockstep the

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Speaker 2: Colored and Southern. For example, for a while, they teamed

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Speaker 2: up against the Northern to oppose higher prices on vegetable

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Speaker 2: oil because the Northern farm were producing the vegetabile and

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Speaker 2: the Southern farmers were consuming it. So the Southern farmers

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Speaker 2: wanted the following, you know, like, and they disagreed on

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Speaker 2: a bunch of bills.

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Speaker 3: But what they wouldn't have disagreed.

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Speaker 2: About, what they would have been in lockstep about, is

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Speaker 2: what a sweet deal all of the products and services

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Speaker 2: that are supporting this podcast are offering.

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Speaker 3: They sure did?

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Speaker 2: I feel one hundred percent certain, And I'm not just

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Speaker 2: cynically saying it because it's my weight.

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Speaker 3: Am just nope.

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Speaker 2: Anyway, whatever, here's ads.

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Speaker 3: And we're back.

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Speaker 2: The splits between the Colored Farmers Alliance and the Southern

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Speaker 2: Farmers Alliance came to a head in eighteen ninety one

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Speaker 2: when the Colored Farmers Alliance supported federal oversight of Southern

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Speaker 2: elections because you know, black people in the South were like, yes,

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Speaker 2: could you please send back the Union Army the Confederates

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Speaker 2: are still here and prevent us from voting because you

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Speaker 2: fucking pardoned them all and left them in power economically

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Speaker 2: over the entire country, so they wanted federal oversight of

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Speaker 2: the elections. The White Alliance did not. The two never

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Speaker 2: reconciled after this. I've also read that they split over

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Speaker 2: another thing that's about to happen in eighteen ninety one,

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Speaker 2: and I suspect it's just both.

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Speaker 1: Which are you gonna are you about to tell me?

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Speaker 5: Oh?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to talk about it? Yeah, okay, Yeah, No,

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Speaker 2: this is gonna be a big strike. Well, no, there's

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Speaker 2: gonna be a small strike. That always almost a big strike.

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Speaker 3: If Humphrey is.

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Speaker 2: To be believed, they had one point two million members

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Speaker 2: at their peak. Every historian i've read leaves it at that.

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Speaker 2: They're like, if Humphrey is to be believed, no one

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Speaker 2: seems to actually believe him, but no one has any

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Speaker 2: evidence that he's lying either. And I do know that

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Speaker 2: they absorbed a bunch of smaller groups over the years,

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Speaker 2: and so there were probably at least hundreds of thousands

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Speaker 2: of members of this group.

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Speaker 5: Is it in his interest to inflate the numbers, because

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Speaker 5: aren't they trying to fly under the radar a little bit?

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Speaker 2: I think it's in his interest to inflate the numbers

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Speaker 2: because he starts, we starts biting off more than he

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Speaker 2: can chew. And he's trying to influence politics, and he's

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Speaker 2: trying to influence like wages and things like that. And

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Speaker 2: so by being like we're a fucking army, yeah, it's

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Speaker 2: going to be in his interests, but it also is

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Speaker 2: going to scare the white Southern elites, which is not

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Speaker 2: in anyone's interest, but is also like you kind of

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Speaker 2: got to scare the bad people if you want to

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Speaker 2: stop the bad people. It's just it's dangerous, but so

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Speaker 2: is everything. Maybe you're not going to get out of alive.

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Speaker 2: No one who is alive back then is alive now.

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Speaker 2: And so, yeah, they might have had a one point

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Speaker 2: two million members, they might have had fucking thirty members,

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Speaker 2: but probably not.

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Speaker 3: They did.

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Speaker 2: We don't know everything about them. We know very little

356
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Speaker 2: about them, but we know they tried to organize a

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Speaker 2: general strike. Friend of the pod, the general strike, well,

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Speaker 2: friend of it could happen here.

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Speaker 3: The general strike.

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Speaker 2: And organizing this general strike was kind of the death

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Speaker 2: of them. Oh no, and for some of them, twenty

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Speaker 2: or so of them more or less literally in eighteen

363
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Speaker 2: ninety one, the various planters the owners of the plantations.

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Speaker 2: They came together from all across the South to do

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Speaker 2: something called wage fixing. In a capitalist system, you're supposed

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Speaker 2: to let competition set the prices. But same as the

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Speaker 2: underdog gains a lot through cooperation instead of competition, so

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Speaker 2: does the oppressor class. Like we run across this again

369
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Speaker 2: again in history. Anytime unions start getting a lot done,

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Speaker 2: the like people who like putting down unions form unions.

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Speaker 2: You have like owners unions. I would argue that police

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Speaker 2: unions are also the form of this kind of union.

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Speaker 5: That's fascinating because these guys are always anti any communists bullshit.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, unless it serves them.

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Speaker 3: Yes.

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Speaker 2: Like, we did a couple episodes about the Newsy's strike,

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Speaker 2: which was real, and one of the things that happened

378
00:18:52,200 --> 00:18:54,719
Speaker 2: is that the two big newspapers in New York, like

379
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:57,359
Speaker 2: they were always at each other's throats and they were like, no,

380
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Speaker 2: this is a war the death between these papers until

381
00:19:00,280 --> 00:19:02,000
Speaker 2: there was a Newsya strike and they were like, all right,

382
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Speaker 2: you wanta team up to fire all these people?

383
00:19:04,200 --> 00:19:05,439
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, I want to team up to fire all

384
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Speaker 3: these people.

385
00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:11,960
Speaker 2: But in this case, the wage fixing actually predates, not

386
00:19:12,080 --> 00:19:14,560
Speaker 2: the creation of this union, but the threat of strike.

387
00:19:15,800 --> 00:19:17,720
Speaker 2: So in the summer of eighteen ninety one, they got

388
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Speaker 2: together to agree to only pay laborers fifty cents per

389
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Speaker 2: hundred pounds of cotton. I am bad at old timey

390
00:19:26,160 --> 00:19:29,359
Speaker 2: money to new money, but it's a bad wage. And

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Speaker 2: one hundred pounds of cotton is just so much. It's

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Speaker 2: just so much cotton.

393
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Speaker 3: Yeah.

394
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Speaker 2: And when I first wrote this, I wrote into my

395
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Speaker 2: script and wage fixing used to be legal. But then

396
00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:42,640
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, I'm going to look that up.

397
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Speaker 2: It's true that wage fixing used to be legal, but

398
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Speaker 2: it has been illegal since the Sherman Eh we know that. Okay,

399
00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:56,080
Speaker 2: Anti Trust Act was passed that outlaws wage fixing. That

400
00:19:56,160 --> 00:19:59,080
Speaker 2: was passed in eighteen ninety whoa.

401
00:20:00,000 --> 00:20:01,400
Speaker 1: He did two good things.

402
00:20:01,680 --> 00:20:03,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, I assume I actually didn't look up who it

403
00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:04,880
Speaker 2: was him, but I think as him.

404
00:20:06,280 --> 00:20:06,720
Speaker 5: Whoa.

405
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:10,800
Speaker 2: And do you know when the first time someone was

406
00:20:10,840 --> 00:20:13,000
Speaker 2: convicted of wage fixing in the United States?

407
00:20:13,600 --> 00:20:18,119
Speaker 4: No idea, it's gonna be ridiculously funny based on your face.

408
00:20:18,840 --> 00:20:21,840
Speaker 2: April fourteenth, twenty twenty five.

409
00:20:22,359 --> 00:20:24,880
Speaker 1: Oh my god, what was it?

410
00:20:25,400 --> 00:20:30,360
Speaker 2: Eduardo Eddie Lopez got forty months in prison for conspiring

411
00:20:30,400 --> 00:20:33,240
Speaker 2: to fix the wages of home health care nurses.

412
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Speaker 4: This country, so fuck does country? So stupid, so stupid.

413
00:20:37,920 --> 00:20:40,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, he worked with basically like all the people in

414
00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:43,000
Speaker 2: Vegas to be like, hey, we should set the wages

415
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:45,040
Speaker 2: for all of our home healthcare nurses so none of

416
00:20:45,119 --> 00:20:48,480
Speaker 2: us have to pay too much, which is illegal. And

417
00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:53,040
Speaker 2: the deal is that every other time people have tried

418
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Speaker 2: to stop wage fixing, it's been a civil case instead

419
00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:59,280
Speaker 2: of a criminal case. Even though it's a crime, they're

420
00:20:59,280 --> 00:21:01,600
Speaker 2: just like, eh, a white collar crime. We don't got

421
00:21:01,600 --> 00:21:02,600
Speaker 2: to prosecute that.

422
00:21:03,240 --> 00:21:05,800
Speaker 3: So why'd they get this guy? I am not one

423
00:21:05,880 --> 00:21:06,840
Speaker 3: hundred percent certain.

424
00:21:06,920 --> 00:21:09,600
Speaker 2: It was awful to read articles that were positively quoting

425
00:21:09,640 --> 00:21:13,879
Speaker 2: Pam Bondi saying true things about wanting to get people

426
00:21:13,880 --> 00:21:17,080
Speaker 2: who are fucking people over. I don't know whether it

427
00:21:17,119 --> 00:21:19,760
Speaker 2: was a political game. I read like three different articles

428
00:21:19,760 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 2: about it. None of them had the nerve to get

429
00:21:22,040 --> 00:21:26,200
Speaker 2: into why this is changing. But he also, for example,

430
00:21:26,480 --> 00:21:31,960
Speaker 2: he was being looked into for antitrust stuff already, and

431
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:34,960
Speaker 2: the other thing he did was fraud. So my guess

432
00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:37,600
Speaker 2: is he probably did some fraud around, like frauded someone

433
00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:40,360
Speaker 2: who likes Trump, or Trump likes or something like that.

434
00:21:40,680 --> 00:21:44,000
Speaker 2: He sold his home healthcare nurse thing while he was

435
00:21:44,080 --> 00:21:48,040
Speaker 2: under investigation without admitting that he was under investigation. So

436
00:21:48,080 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 2: that was fraud because he was representing the company in

437
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:54,480
Speaker 2: a way that was not true. But in an interesting

438
00:21:54,600 --> 00:22:00,720
Speaker 2: parallel about home healthcare nurses, the country's largest work cooperative,

439
00:22:00,760 --> 00:22:04,760
Speaker 2: like right here now today twenty twenty six. It's called

440
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:08,479
Speaker 2: Cooperative Home Care Associates mm hmm, and it was founded

441
00:22:08,520 --> 00:22:11,240
Speaker 2: in the Bronx in eighteen sorry in nineteen eighty five,

442
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:15,200
Speaker 2: and it currently has over two thousand members. And they're

443
00:22:15,240 --> 00:22:18,600
Speaker 2: fucking cool because it's like, yeah, who needs to be

444
00:22:18,760 --> 00:22:21,679
Speaker 2: a cooperative more than the people who like home healthcare

445
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:23,399
Speaker 2: nurses have it as a rough gig.

446
00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:28,760
Speaker 4: It's a very very very difficult job. It is very underappreciated, Yeah,

447
00:22:28,800 --> 00:22:32,120
Speaker 4: and is always in demand.

448
00:22:32,680 --> 00:22:35,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, one day I might even just do a whole

449
00:22:35,400 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 2: thing on Cooperative Home Care Associates because they're just they're

450
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 2: just cool.

451
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 4: They're just fucking cool.

452
00:22:39,840 --> 00:22:44,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, largest cooperative been around for forty years now, Like anyway,

453
00:22:44,720 --> 00:22:47,200
Speaker 2: so they're doing price fixing back in ye oldie times.

454
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:50,119
Speaker 2: We're going back one hundred years again. And word of

455
00:22:50,119 --> 00:22:53,080
Speaker 2: this price fixing got around and black laborers and the

456
00:22:53,119 --> 00:22:56,000
Speaker 2: farm Alliance were pissed as hell. It was just too

457
00:22:56,040 --> 00:22:59,840
Speaker 2: little money, and so some folks were like, we should strike,

458
00:23:00,359 --> 00:23:04,320
Speaker 2: but the Alliance was far from inconsensus about this. Some

459
00:23:04,359 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 2: folks were like, yeah, white people keep getting shot for striking.

460
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 2: What the fuck do you think they're going to do

461
00:23:09,840 --> 00:23:11,960
Speaker 2: to us? Like, as we've talked about a couple of times,

462
00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:13,760
Speaker 2: like I think in eighteen seventy seven there was a

463
00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:18,040
Speaker 2: big railroad strike where I want to say twenty seven.

464
00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:19,160
Speaker 3: Workers were just gunned down.

465
00:23:19,720 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 2: WHOA, Yeah, Now I usually just get shot for striking,

466
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:26,800
Speaker 2: real common. So people are like, what the fuck do

467
00:23:26,800 --> 00:23:28,040
Speaker 2: you think they're going to do to us if we

468
00:23:28,119 --> 00:23:31,320
Speaker 2: do it? But then the other reason courney. I wish

469
00:23:31,359 --> 00:23:33,399
Speaker 2: this was a video medium so people can see the

470
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:38,800
Speaker 2: look of yeah. But other people in the Colored Farmers

471
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:42,840
Speaker 2: Alliance were like, actually, some of us are black farmers

472
00:23:42,840 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 2: who hire laborers, and we're quite.

473
00:23:44,520 --> 00:23:47,040
Speaker 3: Happy with the low wages. Ah.

474
00:23:47,080 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 2: And so the wealthier farmers were I think more likely

475
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:52,840
Speaker 2: to be in power inside the Farmer's Alliance, but not

476
00:23:52,840 --> 00:23:53,960
Speaker 2: one hundred percent third about that.

477
00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:54,920
Speaker 3: But that's my inference.

478
00:23:56,119 --> 00:24:01,320
Speaker 2: So I promised you a secret society within a secret societ. Yes,

479
00:24:02,040 --> 00:24:07,800
Speaker 2: they formed the Cotton Pickers League, And we don't know

480
00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:11,119
Speaker 2: shit about the Cotton Pickers League because it is a

481
00:24:11,160 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 2: secret society in a secret society, and they were actually

482
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:19,479
Speaker 2: good at it. And the Cotton Pickers League started sending

483
00:24:19,600 --> 00:24:23,480
Speaker 2: labor organizers around the South trying to drum up support

484
00:24:23,480 --> 00:24:26,960
Speaker 2: for striking. They thought that the Alliance mostly worked for

485
00:24:27,000 --> 00:24:29,119
Speaker 2: things that were good for the land owners, and the

486
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:34,320
Speaker 2: Cotton Pickers League worked for the landless farmers. However, they

487
00:24:34,359 --> 00:24:39,119
Speaker 2: either weren't good labor organizers or that guy Humphrey was

488
00:24:39,200 --> 00:24:41,240
Speaker 2: like sabotaging them.

489
00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 3: No, he just.

490
00:24:42,880 --> 00:24:45,280
Speaker 2: Might not have been very good about how we talked

491
00:24:45,320 --> 00:24:50,000
Speaker 2: about it. To quote an article by Floyd J. Miller quote,

492
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,520
Speaker 2: when asked how the pickers would support themselves during a strike,

493
00:24:54,080 --> 00:24:58,040
Speaker 2: Humphrey suggested that they would find other jobs. In the

494
00:24:58,119 --> 00:25:01,119
Speaker 2: rural South. Of that era, there was no alternate means

495
00:25:01,160 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 2: by which blacks could support themselves. You can tell the

496
00:25:04,440 --> 00:25:06,680
Speaker 2: era of articles that I'm reading based on how they

497
00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:09,199
Speaker 2: phrase things. But yeah, so he's just like, I don't know,

498
00:25:09,920 --> 00:25:10,400
Speaker 2: they'll just.

499
00:25:10,359 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 1: Get other jobs, and there's no other jobs.

500
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 3: There's no other jobs.

501
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: A lot of these plantations are like islands, like some

502
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:18,720
Speaker 2: of them I was reading about where like you like

503
00:25:19,080 --> 00:25:21,960
Speaker 2: can't even get a carriage there, you know, like.

504
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:23,720
Speaker 1: You have to take your fucking stupid mule.

505
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:30,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so like they clearly at least Humphrey didn't

506
00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 2: know shit about shit, is my read. And there's a

507
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:35,280
Speaker 2: lot of question around whether or not he's kind of

508
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:39,920
Speaker 2: just a mouthpiece or not, like or whether he's kind

509
00:25:39,960 --> 00:25:42,480
Speaker 2: of being like, no, we should just do it anyway,

510
00:25:42,800 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 2: you know, we should strike, Like we don't know whether

511
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:49,399
Speaker 2: he's calling the shots or not, just straight up don't know.

512
00:25:50,600 --> 00:25:53,760
Speaker 2: He started telling newspapers everywhere that he had six hundred

513
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:57,520
Speaker 2: thousand black workers ready to strike on September twelfth, eighteen

514
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:02,399
Speaker 2: ninety one. He was probably probably bluffing. He also was like,

515
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 2: and forty thousand more are joining every day. He also

516
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 2: told the would be strikers to make sure they didn't

517
00:26:08,080 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 2: cause any violence or act up or act insolent to

518
00:26:11,119 --> 00:26:15,159
Speaker 2: the white people. So that's not points in favor for

519
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,439
Speaker 2: him to tell people not to act insolent. But whatever,

520
00:26:18,840 --> 00:26:23,119
Speaker 2: September twelfth comes and goes, and the strike didn't happen.

521
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:24,040
Speaker 3: Not really.

522
00:26:24,960 --> 00:26:28,879
Speaker 2: Pickers struck on one farm outside Palestine, Texas, and they

523
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:34,159
Speaker 2: were immediately all fired. The bluff alone, though, had a

524
00:26:34,160 --> 00:26:38,080
Speaker 2: bunch of impacts. Plenty of owners gave out minor raises

525
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:42,520
Speaker 2: just to stave off the strike. It did break the

526
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,680
Speaker 2: owner's alliance whatever the fuck they called it. You know, Oh,

527
00:26:45,720 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 2: that's good because they had all committed to fifty cents

528
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:51,640
Speaker 2: only or whatever. Other owners just brought around a ton

529
00:26:51,680 --> 00:26:54,919
Speaker 2: of cops in case people went on strike. But one

530
00:26:54,960 --> 00:26:59,280
Speaker 2: small group went hard. There was this thirty year old

531
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,400
Speaker 2: black organize her named Ben Patterson, and he was probably,

532
00:27:02,600 --> 00:27:05,600
Speaker 2: but we don't know, one of the many many organizers

533
00:27:05,600 --> 00:27:08,480
Speaker 2: of the Cotton Pickers League was traveling around trying to

534
00:27:08,520 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 2: get people ready to strike.

535
00:27:10,480 --> 00:27:11,239
Speaker 3: And he showed up.

536
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 2: He's from Memphis, and he showed up in Lee County, Arkansas,

537
00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:18,720
Speaker 2: and I think he started sulting. This is my inference.

538
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:21,040
Speaker 2: You work for a place just to organize the workers.

539
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:23,520
Speaker 2: That's a it's called sulting. It's a thing that unions do.

540
00:27:25,280 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 2: And he got together a crew of about twenty five

541
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 2: people who are ready to fight for a decent wage.

542
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 2: I think that they knew that they didn't have the

543
00:27:32,359 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 2: numbers to start anything yet, but they were just they're

544
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,000
Speaker 2: just getting ready. But if you want to get ready,

545
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 2: if we're sponsored by preparedness as a general concept, which

546
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:45,720
Speaker 2: I believe we are, then you can listen to our sponsors,

547
00:27:45,760 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 2: at least the sponsor that is preparedness as a general concept,

548
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,480
Speaker 2: and then you too will be ready, although you should

549
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:54,080
Speaker 2: maybe make I'm not actually mad.

550
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,120
Speaker 3: At these people ms I don't know.

551
00:27:56,359 --> 00:27:58,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, so whatever I already spoiled, it's not going

552
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 2: to go great for these folks. But like you know,

553
00:28:01,280 --> 00:28:05,399
Speaker 2: you gotta fight sometimes, and they do anyway, Preparedness general

554
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:13,119
Speaker 2: concept and whatever else we advertise and rebeca So you

555
00:28:13,200 --> 00:28:15,880
Speaker 2: have these people ready and they're like the strike is coming,

556
00:28:15,920 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 2: gone and didn't happen, and so they're like, oh, should

557
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:18,000
Speaker 2: we go?

558
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:19,840
Speaker 3: Should we When should we strike?

559
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 2: You know, like because September twelfth came and they didn't

560
00:28:22,640 --> 00:28:24,600
Speaker 2: all go on strike. And so but you got twenty

561
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:27,639
Speaker 2: five people who are ready to throw down. And then

562
00:28:27,680 --> 00:28:32,040
Speaker 2: this guy who owned a bunch of plantations showed up

563
00:28:32,400 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 2: to visit one of his many plantations in Lee County, Arkansas.

564
00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:40,239
Speaker 2: White guy, Yeah, white guy, J F. Frank his name.

565
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:41,600
Speaker 2: You don't need to know. He's not going to come

566
00:28:41,640 --> 00:28:44,840
Speaker 2: up again. But his local manager, Tom Miller, his name

567
00:28:44,880 --> 00:28:48,000
Speaker 2: is going to come up again and his obituary. So

568
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 2: he was like, hey, we agreed at the totally illegal

569
00:28:52,600 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 2: wage fixing meeting that we shouldn't pay more than fifty cents.

570
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 2: He says to his big boss. Big boss is like, hey,

571
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,120
Speaker 2: what's going on. He's like, oh, hey, we agreed to

572
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 2: do wage fixing. And then the mega rich guy in

573
00:29:03,480 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 2: a rare move where the mega rich guy's the better man,

574
00:29:06,360 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 2: and he says this loud enough that people overhear him.

575
00:29:09,360 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 2: He says that he quote was an old man and

576
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 2: had been in business many years, and that the only

577
00:29:14,080 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 2: way to get a thing was to pay for it.

578
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:20,720
Speaker 2: And so he was like, hell, I'll pay a dollar

579
00:29:20,760 --> 00:29:23,880
Speaker 2: for one hundred pounds of cotton. And he was probably

580
00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:27,880
Speaker 2: being hyperbolic. He probably was like, I'd pay the moon

581
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:29,560
Speaker 2: if it got me cotton. You know.

582
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 5: He's like, why are you talking about price fixing out loud?

583
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 5: Sh Yeah, I'm totally against this.

584
00:29:36,160 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he says it really loud. And so some

585
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 2: workers over here and they start telling farmers at other

586
00:29:40,640 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 2: farms and they're like, yeah, they're willing to pay us more.

587
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,600
Speaker 2: We just have to fight for it. So some folks

588
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:51,120
Speaker 2: went on strike nearby for seventy five cents and they

589
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 2: were all fired. And so Ben Patterson, the guy from Memphis,

590
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:57,479
Speaker 2: he starts going around giving speeches in local towns, being like,

591
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 2: you know, let's just do this shit like hiring our friends.

592
00:30:00,880 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 3: We got to join in.

593
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,000
Speaker 2: And so the strike is on kind of, they're kind

594
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 2: of going around and going to plant I think they're

595
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:12,120
Speaker 2: going around to plantations and are like, hey, you should

596
00:30:12,200 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 2: join us, and some people are like yeah, some people

597
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:18,440
Speaker 2: are like no, and some folks a brawl broke out

598
00:30:19,320 --> 00:30:22,360
Speaker 2: with hose sticks, knives and revolvers.

599
00:30:22,440 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 3: So one hell of a brawl.

600
00:30:25,480 --> 00:30:27,800
Speaker 2: Not a fair fight, no, And I don't know which

601
00:30:27,840 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 2: side of which, but I will guess because two non

602
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:34,360
Speaker 2: striking workers died, and it's generally presented as a brawl,

603
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:37,160
Speaker 2: not a targeted attack on scabs. But honestly, I can't

604
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 2: tell if that's people not taking black labor actions seriously

605
00:30:39,920 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 2: by presenting it as a brawl, I don't know. So

606
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:47,040
Speaker 2: the twenty five strikers are like, oh man, we were

607
00:30:47,080 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 2: probably in trouble. Now, we just like killed some people

608
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:51,800
Speaker 2: that were probably call them scabs. Oh, I wonder if

609
00:30:51,800 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 2: they call them black legs. That was like before people

610
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,720
Speaker 2: started calling people scabs. They call people black legs. I

611
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 2: don't know, I don't know what word they used. Interesting,

612
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 2: So at this point I think they're just like, fuck it,

613
00:31:04,640 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 2: We're gonna just do this shit because we're fucked. That's

614
00:31:07,840 --> 00:31:10,880
Speaker 2: my best guess about their Because then they tracked down

615
00:31:10,920 --> 00:31:14,440
Speaker 2: that manager, Tom Miller, the one who's been fucking them over,

616
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,360
Speaker 2: and they just shoot him to death with a shotgun. WHOA, Okay,

617
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:21,880
Speaker 2: They're just like, well, he's the bad one, I'm killing him.

618
00:31:22,360 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 2: And when I read about this massive rural strike in

619
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:30,120
Speaker 2: Patagonia and Argentina in nineteen twenty, the strikers basically lived

620
00:31:30,120 --> 00:31:32,440
Speaker 2: as bandits in the hills. They would show up as

621
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:35,440
Speaker 2: plantations and liberate the workers, and this felt like a

622
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,840
Speaker 2: tiny version of that. Near as I can tell, these

623
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:42,280
Speaker 2: strikers are doing like hit and run more than what

624
00:31:42,320 --> 00:31:45,960
Speaker 2: we traditionally think of as a strike. And some of

625
00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:48,040
Speaker 2: them went and burned a cotton gin, which is a

626
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 2: very expensive machine that separates cotton fibers from seeds. And

627
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:55,240
Speaker 2: there's this big hole posse after them because the white

628
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:58,200
Speaker 2: guy they killed people actually cared about because he was

629
00:31:58,240 --> 00:32:02,080
Speaker 2: a deputy. He'd been deputized because the history of police

630
00:32:02,080 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 2: in the South is the history of white supremacist order,

631
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 2: so of course they are deputizing this man. So the

632
00:32:07,400 --> 00:32:10,200
Speaker 2: deputy is dead and the Strikers are on the run.

633
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 2: Most articles point out that there were black people in

634
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:15,800
Speaker 2: the posse that was after them, but the more serious

635
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 2: histories say, we actually don't know. We don't know if

636
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 2: there were. It's possible because there were black landowners as well,

637
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:25,480
Speaker 2: but we don't know. We know that their lives were

638
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 2: saved temporarily by a black preacher. The strikers were heading

639
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:31,720
Speaker 2: to this town that they thought would be safe, and

640
00:32:31,840 --> 00:32:34,040
Speaker 2: the posse was there, and they'd set up an ambush.

641
00:32:34,200 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 2: So a preacher meets him on the road and it's like, y'all,

642
00:32:37,280 --> 00:32:38,120
Speaker 2: you got to turn around.

643
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:39,120
Speaker 3: There's an ambush.

644
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 2: So they fuck off to an island in the Mississippi

645
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,920
Speaker 2: River instead, hoping to catch a ride on a steamboat

646
00:32:44,960 --> 00:32:46,640
Speaker 2: and get away. I would watch the movie of this.

647
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, did you read James.

648
00:32:50,760 --> 00:32:54,800
Speaker 5: It's not about this, but I'm feeling similarly propulsive energy.

649
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:55,920
Speaker 3: Wait, what is James?

650
00:32:56,040 --> 00:32:59,360
Speaker 1: James is the like Huck Finn.

651
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 5: It was a national Book Award winner, but it's like

652
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 5: from the black.

653
00:33:04,160 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: Perspective, oh shit, oh it's a fabulous.

654
00:33:07,360 --> 00:33:09,840
Speaker 2: Book, and calling him James instead of the name that

655
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:12,560
Speaker 2: I'm not going to say. Yeah, oh, I think that

656
00:33:12,680 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 2: is this era. I remember I read the originals of

657
00:33:14,840 --> 00:33:18,040
Speaker 2: those books, but you will read James. Yeah, No, totally, Okay.

658
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,160
Speaker 2: The thing I remember about HWK Finn is that at

659
00:33:21,160 --> 00:33:23,680
Speaker 2: one point he's dressed like a girl to disguise himself,

660
00:33:23,720 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 2: and the way that he gets caught is that the

661
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:30,720
Speaker 2: woman throws him. He's doing sewing, and so she throws

662
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:33,960
Speaker 2: him a like thread, like a spindle of thread, and

663
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,960
Speaker 2: instead of opening his legs to catch it in his skirt,

664
00:33:38,280 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 2: he closes his legs to catch it on his legs.

665
00:33:41,400 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 3: Oh, and so like, uh, you're.

666
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:45,520
Speaker 2: A boy dressed up as a girl, but you don't

667
00:33:45,520 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 2: know girl things like if someone throws you something you're

668
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,120
Speaker 2: wearing a skirt, you open your legs. Interesting. Yeah, I

669
00:33:51,160 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 2: think about that all the time, as I've been wearing

670
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:54,320
Speaker 2: skirts most.

671
00:33:54,160 --> 00:33:55,520
Speaker 3: Of my life.

672
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 2: Anyway, No, I absolutely want to read James. So they're

673
00:34:00,480 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 2: hanging out on this island and they're like, oh, fuck,

674
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:06,560
Speaker 2: what are we gonna do? And maybe the Island had

675
00:34:06,600 --> 00:34:10,880
Speaker 2: a tavern, and I don't know. I can't God damn it.

676
00:34:11,040 --> 00:34:11,760
Speaker 2: I want more.

677
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:14,640
Speaker 1: Where's the fucking island? Aren't we in the South.

678
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:18,640
Speaker 2: It's in the Mississippi River? Oh right, sorry? Yeah, Well

679
00:34:19,080 --> 00:34:22,239
Speaker 2: then what's complicated is it's the history I read says

680
00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:24,879
Speaker 2: it's Cat Island in the Mississippi River. But I looked

681
00:34:24,920 --> 00:34:27,640
Speaker 2: up Cat Island, Mississippi, and that's an island off the

682
00:34:27,680 --> 00:34:28,800
Speaker 2: coast in the Gulf.

683
00:34:30,080 --> 00:34:33,520
Speaker 3: It's actually Dog Island. So I don't know.

684
00:34:33,600 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 2: There's another Cat Island and it's like near Arkansas instead.

685
00:34:36,200 --> 00:34:38,759
Speaker 3: I just like, I don't know. I'm just here to

686
00:34:38,800 --> 00:34:39,919
Speaker 3: provide misinformation.

687
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, I know, And I'm like, I tried

688
00:34:42,760 --> 00:34:43,319
Speaker 2: to find out.

689
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:43,920
Speaker 3: I don't know.

690
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 2: You know, so much of this episode is I tried

691
00:34:46,200 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 2: to find out. Is a very frustrating episode of research.

692
00:34:49,040 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 2: And so they get caught there, maybe in a tavern

693
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:56,920
Speaker 2: and maybe not. And I read once that it was

694
00:34:56,960 --> 00:35:00,400
Speaker 2: a fight where they're both throwing down both sides, and

695
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:04,320
Speaker 2: I read another version where like, nah, none of the

696
00:35:04,360 --> 00:35:07,360
Speaker 2: posse are even injured, and they kill two of the

697
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,680
Speaker 2: strikers and they capture nine other ones, and then the

698
00:35:10,800 --> 00:35:14,200
Speaker 2: captured nine are immediately in police custody, and then they

699
00:35:14,200 --> 00:35:16,880
Speaker 2: get lynched out of police custody. Another posse comes up

700
00:35:16,880 --> 00:35:20,799
Speaker 2: to the posse and takes them away and kills them,

701
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:25,320
Speaker 2: hangs them one by one, and Ben and another person escaped.

702
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:27,760
Speaker 2: Ben took a bullet in the leg and in the process,

703
00:35:28,120 --> 00:35:30,879
Speaker 2: and he gets on a riverboat. But the crew is like, wait,

704
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 2: who are you And he's like, ah, Ben.

705
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:34,600
Speaker 1: You don't know me.

706
00:35:35,640 --> 00:35:36,879
Speaker 3: Yeah.

707
00:35:36,920 --> 00:35:39,360
Speaker 2: A white posse comes I think, at the next step

708
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:43,799
Speaker 2: and kills him. Oh no, And I don't know about

709
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 2: what happens to the other guy who's with And the

710
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 2: white press was ecstatic that these terrible bandits have been

711
00:35:50,440 --> 00:35:52,279
Speaker 2: caught and killed. And the Black press, of course, was

712
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 2: solemn about the whole thing. And that's the strike eighteen

713
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:55,600
Speaker 2: ninety one.

714
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 3: What happened in the price of cotton. I don't fucking know.

715
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:04,759
Speaker 2: God, I don't think that they impacted it.

716
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:10,520
Speaker 3: They didn't, yeah, okay, but they did try. They tried.

717
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:13,040
Speaker 2: The fact that people were going to strike at all

718
00:36:13,280 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 2: caused a lot of people to get their wages raised.

719
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:19,640
Speaker 2: They also died on their own terms. And it's harder

720
00:36:19,680 --> 00:36:21,600
Speaker 2: than usual. Usually I can spin a little bit of

721
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,680
Speaker 2: like died fighting the good and they fucking did.

722
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:27,360
Speaker 3: But it did not go well.

723
00:36:27,400 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 2: And the strike, by some accounts, some say the permanent

724
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 2: rift between the White and the Colored Alliances was caused

725
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:37,160
Speaker 2: by the disagreement about voting. I've also read accounts that

726
00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:40,480
Speaker 2: this strike is what caused the permanent rift. But it

727
00:36:40,560 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 2: also it pretty much ended the Colored Alliance. This strike,

728
00:36:44,880 --> 00:36:47,879
Speaker 2: it bled members and then it disappeared in a year,

729
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 2: And I have so many questions about how it ended,

730
00:36:51,560 --> 00:36:54,759
Speaker 2: because I'm like, what happened to the loans, you know,

731
00:36:54,800 --> 00:36:58,120
Speaker 2: what happened to them, the cooperative associations that they had built,

732
00:36:58,239 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 2: all of these things.

733
00:36:59,680 --> 00:37:00,640
Speaker 3: But I do know.

734
00:37:02,160 --> 00:37:05,080
Speaker 2: That the one point two million people or however many people,

735
00:37:05,680 --> 00:37:07,960
Speaker 2: they didn't just disappear, and they didn't stop trying to

736
00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:11,399
Speaker 2: improve their lives. And one major place that they went

737
00:37:11,600 --> 00:37:14,560
Speaker 2: is that they actually helped form the Populist Party, which

738
00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:17,520
Speaker 2: was the most serious attempt at a third party in

739
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:20,759
Speaker 2: US history. Like it's like the one that kind of

740
00:37:21,120 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 2: almost broke the two party system. And the other thing

741
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,520
Speaker 2: I can say is that people are still organizing today.

742
00:37:31,719 --> 00:37:34,160
Speaker 2: Obviously you have like Vannie Lou Hamer, who I talked about,

743
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 2: but also the group that.

744
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:39,480
Speaker 3: I don't know.

745
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:41,480
Speaker 2: I don't know if it's actually similar in too many ways,

746
00:37:41,480 --> 00:37:44,280
Speaker 2: but like, there's a group called the Federation of Southern

747
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:48,319
Speaker 2: Cooperatives and they're still around, and they're a black organization

748
00:37:48,400 --> 00:37:51,880
Speaker 2: that helps protect and expand black cooperative farming in the South,

749
00:37:52,640 --> 00:37:56,680
Speaker 2: and they've been around since nineteen sixty seven, so they're

750
00:37:56,960 --> 00:38:00,319
Speaker 2: way older than doublest any organization that I cover on

751
00:38:00,320 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 2: this show. And that federation, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives,

752
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:10,040
Speaker 2: is itself part of a larger cooperative called seed Commons that,

753
00:38:10,239 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 2: for full disclosure, I used to work for as a

754
00:38:12,640 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 2: grant writer before I took podcasting job. I love that,

755
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:20,240
Speaker 2: and Seed Commons provides non extractive finance to build worker

756
00:38:20,280 --> 00:38:24,879
Speaker 2: cooperatives and reverse economic extraction. And if that sounds jargony,

757
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 2: it's because I was a grant writer for them for

758
00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:29,919
Speaker 2: several years and I know that jargon inside and out,

759
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 2: and my job was to both say it and then

760
00:38:32,280 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 2: explain it. But I'm going to one day cover seed

761
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:35,240
Speaker 2: Comments probably more on this show.

762
00:38:35,840 --> 00:38:37,280
Speaker 3: You were kind of like comfree.

763
00:38:38,000 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, totally absolutely, And there's a million

764
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:45,200
Speaker 2: of us. Although actually Seed Commons is like has a

765
00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:49,320
Speaker 2: thirty nine different members who all work to build cooperatives

766
00:38:49,360 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 2: in their regions, all across the country, and most of

767
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:55,719
Speaker 2: them are tied into like working with specific disenfranchised communities.

768
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 4: And then I stole you from them.

769
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 5: You try to do a good thing, and then you

770
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,200
Speaker 5: get capitalism.

771
00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:09,920
Speaker 2: My skills are better applied here, Frankly, they are. I

772
00:39:10,040 --> 00:39:13,640
Speaker 2: was a decent grant writer. I can write some shit, but.

773
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:15,440
Speaker 1: You're a podcast historian.

774
00:39:15,440 --> 00:39:18,160
Speaker 2: We need to yeah, yeah, no, I be entertaining into

775
00:39:18,239 --> 00:39:21,520
Speaker 2: microphone was not a skill that I needed in that job.

776
00:39:22,320 --> 00:39:24,800
Speaker 2: The Federation of Southern Cooperatives is I believe, the oldest

777
00:39:24,800 --> 00:39:27,040
Speaker 2: of the members of Seed Commons, not the first member

778
00:39:27,080 --> 00:39:29,040
Speaker 2: of Seed Commons. I was the working world in New York.

779
00:39:29,040 --> 00:39:31,720
Speaker 2: They got their idea from Argentina, where I've covered before

780
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:33,319
Speaker 2: on the show. A bunch of workers took over their

781
00:39:33,320 --> 00:39:38,720
Speaker 2: factories in the early aughts. But the Federation of Southern

782
00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 2: Cooperatives is the one that's been around the longest, and

783
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:43,680
Speaker 2: people have never stopped fighting for cooperative control of the

784
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 2: economy and the land, and Black people have been at

785
00:39:46,880 --> 00:39:49,520
Speaker 2: the forefront of that fight since the beginning. And this

786
00:39:49,680 --> 00:39:52,279
Speaker 2: was like again, I thought I was going to do

787
00:39:52,520 --> 00:39:55,520
Speaker 2: like the history of Black cooperatives two parter, and I

788
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 2: was like, oh no, I've discovered this one group and

789
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:03,840
Speaker 2: that is my two parter. There's so much history involved

790
00:40:03,880 --> 00:40:06,640
Speaker 2: in cooperative movement in black cooperatives, and like all of

791
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:07,160
Speaker 2: this stuff.

792
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:09,239
Speaker 5: It's crazy that you can do a two parter on

793
00:40:09,280 --> 00:40:12,440
Speaker 5: these people that just my only note for them is

794
00:40:12,520 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 5: like leave some records, like I dig a hole, leave

795
00:40:16,680 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 5: some records and just tell, you know, one of your

796
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:22,680
Speaker 5: grand kids to dig it up in forty years or whatever.

797
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:24,919
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I think about this all the time,

798
00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:26,839
Speaker 2: where there's like so many things where like.

799
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,240
Speaker 3: There's just history that just isn't there.

800
00:40:30,760 --> 00:40:33,000
Speaker 2: And so then if you get into modern times, like

801
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:35,440
Speaker 2: you know, past two hundred or so years, there's so

802
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,760
Speaker 2: much history there that the history that isn't there is invisible.

803
00:40:39,400 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you think you have a picture of what's happening, right,

804
00:40:43,440 --> 00:40:45,520
Speaker 2: but then there's a piece that you don't have totally.

805
00:40:45,560 --> 00:40:46,400
Speaker 1: It's an illusion.

806
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:46,800
Speaker 3: Yeah.

807
00:40:46,840 --> 00:40:48,799
Speaker 2: And then of course also the fact that like Black

808
00:40:48,880 --> 00:40:51,279
Speaker 2: history has been like largely buried. I think people have

809
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:54,040
Speaker 2: been doing an incredible amount of work unburying it. Don't

810
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,160
Speaker 2: get me wrong, Like the articles I'm referencing for this

811
00:40:57,440 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 2: are like a lot of them are written in the seventies,

812
00:40:59,200 --> 00:41:01,799
Speaker 2: some of them written the eighteen nineties, like people were

813
00:41:01,800 --> 00:41:04,200
Speaker 2: trying to write about some of this history. But yeah,

814
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 2: like the Cotton Pickers League. God, I would love to

815
00:41:07,440 --> 00:41:11,040
Speaker 2: talk to someone because this was probably at least the

816
00:41:11,080 --> 00:41:13,480
Speaker 2: Cotton Pickers League might have been fully exaggerated in numbers,

817
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:15,279
Speaker 2: but you're still probably talking about thousands or tens of

818
00:41:15,280 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 2: thousands of people who are like preparing for a mass

819
00:41:18,920 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 2: action to fundamentally change society and then instead it just

820
00:41:21,600 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 2: like doesn't work. But what happens to those people? What

821
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: do they go on to do? Like, I'm certain it's

822
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff. And that's the other thing too, right,

823
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 2: It's like when you participate in these movements, you're better

824
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,360
Speaker 2: able to participate in other movements and you do create.

825
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:40,440
Speaker 3: I don't know whatever. I just oh, yeah, you're right.

826
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 2: I'm so interested in this invisible history stuff. And there

827
00:41:43,040 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 2: is like keeping like no one knows this stuff. I

828
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:50,360
Speaker 2: didn't read all of the hundreds of pages of some

829
00:41:50,440 --> 00:41:53,279
Speaker 2: of the stuff from the eighteen hundreds about how this

830
00:41:53,640 --> 00:41:56,120
Speaker 2: did or didn't tie into this other group. You know,

831
00:41:56,520 --> 00:41:59,040
Speaker 2: Like there is stuff like, I am not the world's

832
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 2: fucking expert on the shit. I researched for a week,

833
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 2: but there is still so much that's fully invisible. Yeah,

834
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 2: but do you know what's not invisible The information that

835
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,280
Speaker 2: you're able to provide about your life in your memoir.

836
00:42:12,760 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I was like another ad.

837
00:42:16,520 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 2: But it's an ad for girl Gone Wild.

838
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:22,319
Speaker 5: That's right, Listen, I made a lot of mistakes in

839
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,759
Speaker 5: my life. Also, society is not friendly towards.

840
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:29,240
Speaker 1: Women, and my memoir is really.

841
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:33,920
Speaker 5: About abortion, sexual assault, trying to make it in Hollywood

842
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 5: and being fucking under the thumb of the patriarchy, and

843
00:42:38,880 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 5: my dabbling in sex work and squirting. I just have

844
00:42:42,320 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 5: to add that because I forgot it was part of

845
00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 5: the memoir and now I'm like, oh, I should be.

846
00:42:46,520 --> 00:42:47,319
Speaker 5: That's so selling for.

847
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:50,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah.

848
00:42:50,760 --> 00:42:53,400
Speaker 1: Anyway, it's a good read, So get your copy.

849
00:42:54,239 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 4: Hell, yeah, you fucking better get your copy.

850
00:42:57,800 --> 00:42:59,520
Speaker 1: Listeners, Yeah, it's like that.

851
00:42:59,520 --> 00:43:01,680
Speaker 3: I'm getting my copy. Although I'm getting into gally.

852
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,560
Speaker 5: There's a couple of mistakes in there, so that'll be perfect.

853
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:08,200
Speaker 5: You'll have the ekog version.

854
00:43:08,360 --> 00:43:10,799
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll make sure to quote only the mistakes. At

855
00:43:10,800 --> 00:43:11,160
Speaker 3: some point.

856
00:43:11,560 --> 00:43:13,920
Speaker 5: It's just like an extra comma in a couple of

857
00:43:13,960 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 5: places anyway, whatever, personally love an extra comma, you gotta

858
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:20,160
Speaker 5: be thorough.

859
00:43:20,600 --> 00:43:24,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, we'll be back next week with

860
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:27,279
Speaker 2: more Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff and fuck ice

861
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:28,719
Speaker 2: and take care of each other.

862
00:43:29,360 --> 00:43:29,640
Speaker 3: Yep.

863
00:43:29,880 --> 00:43:30,240
Speaker 1: Amen.

864
00:43:35,719 --> 00:43:38,160
Speaker 5: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

865
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:39,200
Speaker 5: cool Zone Media.

866
00:43:39,520 --> 00:43:42,400
Speaker 4: For more podcasts and cool Zone Media, visit our website

867
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,200
Speaker 4: Coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

868
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 4: app a Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.