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Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. I don't think we've done an installment of

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Speaker 1: six impossible episodes as a Saturday Classic before. Maybe we have,

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Speaker 1: but I think today is a first. This classic is

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Speaker 1: inspired by a lawsuit that has been filed by seventeen

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Speaker 1: states regarding section five oh four of the Rehabilitation Act

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Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy three. This filing is initially focused on

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Speaker 1: the Biden administration's inclusion of gender dysphoria as a protected

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Speaker 1: disability under this Act, but the lawsuit also argues that

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Speaker 1: section five oh four itself is unconstitutional, so with today's language,

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Speaker 1: Section five oh four begins quote, no otherwise qualified individual

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Speaker 1: with a disability in the United States shall, solely by

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Speaker 1: reason of his or her disability, be excluded from the

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Speaker 1: participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected

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Speaker 1: to discrimination, under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance,

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Speaker 1: or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive

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Speaker 1: agency or by the United States Postal Service.

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Speaker 2: We have talked about Section five oh four and how

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Speaker 2: disabled people, supported by a broad coalition of allies, successfully

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Speaker 2: demonstrated for the US government to actually write the regulations

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Speaker 2: needed to implement and enforce this law four years after

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Speaker 2: it had been passed. That was in our episode Six

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Speaker 2: Impossible Episodes Other INDs. As a note, Judy Human, who

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Speaker 2: we talked about in this episode, died on March fourth,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty three. This episode originally came out February fifth,

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty so enjoy Welcome to Stuff You Missed in

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Speaker 2: History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.

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Speaker 2: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.

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Speaker 1: I started talking immediately as I could see that Holly

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Speaker 1: was taking a.

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Speaker 2: Drink of water.

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Speaker 1: So not long ago on the podcast, we talked about

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Speaker 1: the sit in movement in the United States of the

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, and today we're kind of coming back to

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Speaker 1: that theme with an addition of six Impossible Episodes. For

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Speaker 1: listeners who are new to our show, this is when

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Speaker 1: we take a shorter look at six topics that, for

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Speaker 1: one reason or another, we can't quite tackle as a

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Speaker 1: standalone episode. That can be for all kinds of reasons,

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Speaker 1: including how much information is available and how broad the

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Speaker 1: topic itself is. This time we are looking at what

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Speaker 1: I'm just calling other ins, so other direct action demonstrations

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Speaker 1: and similar protests that have some similarities to that sit

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Speaker 1: in movement that we talked about earlier. A couple of

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Speaker 1: today's topics might have worked as whole episodes, but I

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Speaker 1: really like having them as part of this collection because

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Speaker 1: together they illustrate a wide variety of ways that these

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Speaker 1: kinds of demonstrations have worked in the United States. They

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Speaker 1: point out some similarities and differences in these movements, so

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Speaker 1: we're keeping them all together today.

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Speaker 2: And our first event took place in Alexandria, Virginia. A

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Speaker 2: lot of articles about it today call it the Alexandria

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Speaker 2: Library sit in, but accounts and newspaper reports from the

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Speaker 2: time described it as a sit down strike. On August

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Speaker 2: twenty first, nineteen thirty nine, a group of young black

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Speaker 2: men tried to get library cards at the whites only

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Speaker 2: library on Queen Street in Alexandria, Virginia, which is the

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Speaker 2: Kate Waller Barrett Branch Library today. Their names were William Evans,

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Speaker 2: Otto L. Tucker, Edward Gattis, Morris Murray, and Clarence Strange,

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Speaker 2: and they were all between the ages of nineteen and

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Speaker 2: twenty two. So they each came into the library one

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Speaker 2: at a time and asked Alice Green, who was the

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Speaker 2: assistant librarian on duty, if they could register for a

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Speaker 2: library card. She told each of them know that the

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Speaker 2: library was for whites only, and then from there each

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Speaker 2: of them would pick a book from the stacks and

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Speaker 2: then sit down at a table to read it, or

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Speaker 2: at least to try to read. Later on, some of

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Speaker 2: them gave interviews where they talked about being way too

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Speaker 2: nervous to actually concentrate on what was on the page,

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Speaker 2: so once one person had gotten a book and sat down,

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Speaker 2: the next person would come in and do the same thing.

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Speaker 2: With five black men sitting at five different tables in

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Speaker 2: the library and refusing to leave, Green wasn't sure what

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Speaker 2: to do. She sent the library's page, William Adam, to

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Speaker 2: the home of the head librarian, Catherine Scoggin to tell

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Speaker 2: her what was going on. Skagin went to city hall

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Speaker 2: to discuss what was happening with the city planner and

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Speaker 2: the chief of police.

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Speaker 1: Soon police were on the scene of the library, and

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Speaker 1: a sixth participant in this, who was fourteen year old

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Speaker 1: Bobby Strange, had been tasked with keeping watch over the

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Speaker 1: library and then going to get Attorney Samuel Wilbert Tucker,

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Speaker 1: known as sw four his law office, which was nearby

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Speaker 1: when the police got there. S W.

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Speaker 2: Tucker had graduated from Howard University in nineteen thirty three,

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Speaker 2: studied law on his own, and passed the Virginia Bar

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Speaker 2: exam at the age of only twenty, a year too

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Speaker 2: young to actually be sworn in. He had arranged the

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Speaker 2: sit downstrike at the library, and his brother Otto, was

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Speaker 2: one of the people sitting in. Back in nineteen twenty seven,

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Speaker 2: sw and Otto had been arrested after refusing to give

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Speaker 2: up their seat on a trolley to a white passenger,

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Speaker 2: so they already had some experience in civil disobedience. Sw

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Speaker 2: and a friend had also been denied library cards shortly

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Speaker 2: after the library opened. He was hoping to use that

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Speaker 2: as part of a court case to force the library

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Speaker 2: to integrate. The sit in was part of that plan

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Speaker 2: as well.

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Speaker 1: SW Tucker had also gotten a photographer to document the scene,

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Speaker 1: and that photographer captured a picture of the demonstrators being

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Speaker 1: escorted out of the building by police. What you won't

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Speaker 1: see if you look at this photo online is that

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Speaker 1: by the time that happened, a crowd of about three

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Speaker 1: hundred angry spectators, along with some other reporters had also

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Speaker 1: gathered around the building. The demonstrators were charged with disorderly conduct,

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Speaker 1: and Tucker arranged for their release from jail. In terms

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Speaker 1: of Tucker's legal action, the library was taxpayer funded and

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Speaker 1: black residents paid taxes but weren't allowed to use it,

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Speaker 1: so his hope was that the courts would force the

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Speaker 1: library to allow equal access to black residents. But rather

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Speaker 1: than integrate the library, the city of Alexandria rushed through

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Speaker 1: approvals for a new library for black patrons, the Robert H.

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Speaker 1: Robinson Library, which opened on February fourteenth, nineteen forty. When SW.

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Speaker 1: Tucker got a letter inviting him to register for a

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Speaker 1: library card at that branch, he answered with a refusal,

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Speaker 1: insisting that he reissued the card he had already applied

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Speaker 1: for at the library that had already existed. He went

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Speaker 1: on to write, quote, continued delay beyond the close of

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Speaker 1: this month in issuing me a card for use the

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Speaker 1: library on Queen Street will be taken as refusal to

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Speaker 1: do so, whereupon I feel justified in seeking aid of

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Speaker 1: court to enforce my right.

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Speaker 2: Tucker went on to become the lead lawyer for the

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Speaker 2: NAACP in Virginia, During his legal career, he argued before

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Speaker 2: the US Supreme Court several times, including in the attempts

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Speaker 2: to overturn public school segregation in Virginia. Today, an elementary

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Speaker 2: school in Alexandria is named in his honor, and the

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Speaker 2: former Robinson Library is the Alexandria Black History Museum. In

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Speaker 2: October twenty nineteen, a judge dismissed the disorderly conduct charges

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Speaker 2: against the young men who sat in, which had never

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Speaker 2: come to trial.

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Speaker 1: So one of the really interesting things about this sit

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Speaker 1: in is that it used the same strategy that the

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Speaker 1: NAACP and other civil rights organizations were using really extensively

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Speaker 1: later on. It's not like nobody had ever thought to

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Speaker 1: do this, but he was sort of doing something that

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Speaker 1: would become a really huge part of the movement later,

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Speaker 1: and that was pairing d wrecked action with legal action.

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Speaker 1: The Alexandria sit in predated the parts that we really

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Speaker 1: think of as the most active parts of the civil

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Speaker 1: rights movement, but this strategy was really similar to a

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Speaker 1: lot of what was going on later on.

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Speaker 2: Next up, we have a relatively early moment in the

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Speaker 2: movement for LGBTQ rights in the US, back when it

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Speaker 2: was more commonly known as the homophile movement. The Mattachine

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Speaker 2: Society was one of the earliest gay rights organizations in

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Speaker 2: the United States. One documented as being older is Chicago

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Speaker 2: Society for Human Rights, which was founded in nineteen twenty four.

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Speaker 2: We covered that on the Show in twenty fifteen.

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Speaker 1: The Mattachine Society was first founded in Los Angeles in

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Speaker 1: nineteen fifty one, and then other chapters formed in other

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Speaker 1: cities around the US after that. And in nineteen sixty six,

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Speaker 1: members of New York City's Matachine Society challenged regulations that

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Speaker 1: prohibited gay men from being served alcohol in New York's bars.

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Speaker 2: Those regulations came from the New York State Liquor Authority

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Speaker 2: in the form of an acquirement that bar patrons had

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Speaker 2: to display quote orderly conduct. In the liquor authorities view,

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Speaker 2: homosexuality was inherently disorderly, although the policy didn't specifically mention

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Speaker 2: sexual orientation. Police frequently rated bars that were believed to

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Speaker 2: have a gay clientele, and bars posted signs saying that

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Speaker 2: men had to be facing the bar while drinking. This

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Speaker 2: was part of an overall climate of homophobia, stigmatization, and harassment,

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Speaker 2: and it was not unique to New York. Other states

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Speaker 2: had similar policies, some of which specifically referenced homosexuality.

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Speaker 1: On April twenty first, nineteen sixty six, three Matachine Society

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Speaker 1: members went to bars in New York City with the

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Speaker 1: hope of being denied service so that then they could

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Speaker 1: file suit and try to get that policy overturned. They

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Speaker 1: included Dick Leisch, who was the head of the New

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Speaker 1: York chapter of the Matachine Society, as well as Craig

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Speaker 1: Rodwell and John Timmins. A fourth man, Randy Wicker, also

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Speaker 1: joined them. As they went on, they had informed reporters

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Speaker 1: of what they were doing ahead time, and they called

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Speaker 1: it a sip in.

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Speaker 2: This turned out to be a little easier said than done, though.

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Speaker 2: The men's first choice had been a bar that had

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Speaker 2: a sign posted in the window that said if you're gay,

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Speaker 2: go away, But as soon as the staff there realized

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Speaker 2: that there were reporters on the premises, they closed down

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Speaker 2: for the day. At their next stop, the men told

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Speaker 2: the bartender that they were homosexual, but that they would

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Speaker 2: not be disorderly, and they asked to be served, and

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Speaker 2: in that case, the bartender served them, which is what happened.

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Speaker 2: At their next stop, as well.

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Speaker 1: There are interviews I think it was with Dick Leish

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Speaker 1: where he was talking about at this point, they were like,

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Speaker 1: we've we've got to get turned down at the next bar,

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Speaker 1: or we're going to have to table this for later

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Speaker 1: because we're going to be like too inebriated to make

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Speaker 1: the argument that were not disorderly. So they finally wound

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Speaker 1: up at a bar called Julius's in Greenwich Village, which

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Speaker 1: they thought would be hyper sensitive to their presence there

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Speaker 1: because it had recently been raided by police the same

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Speaker 1: as before. They sat down at the bar, they told

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Speaker 1: the bartender that they were gay, but they were going

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Speaker 1: to remain orderly, and they said that they wanted to

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Speaker 1: be served.

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Speaker 2: The bartender had already put glasses in front of them

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Speaker 2: and covered them with his hands, saying I can't serve you.

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Speaker 2: Then this led to a dramatic photo captured by Fred

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Speaker 2: macdera of the Village Voice, with a three man in

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Speaker 2: coats and ties facing the bartender and the bartender covering

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Speaker 2: their glasses.

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Speaker 1: With the help of the ACLU, the men filed legal

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Speaker 1: action against the State Liquor Board and the bar. New

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Speaker 1: York City's Commission on Human Rights got involved with it

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Speaker 1: as well, so under the threat of a lawsuit, the

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Speaker 1: liquor Board changed the policy. Then in nineteen sixty seven,

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Speaker 1: which was just a few years later, a New York

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Speaker 1: Court of Appeals issued a ruling in the case Kerma

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Speaker 1: Restaurant Corporation versus State Liquor Authority, and that court ruling

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Speaker 1: specifically said that homosexuality was not inherently disorderly. That ruling

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Speaker 1: did not end discrimination at New York's bars, though the

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Speaker 1: Stonewall riots started after a police raid on June twenty eighth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, that was another two more years after

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Speaker 1: that Appeal's go or ruling had happened. We are going

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Speaker 1: to take a quick sponsor break before we go on

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Speaker 1: to some more actions. The Matachine Society sipin we talked

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Speaker 1: about a moment ago was inspired by the nineteen sixties

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Speaker 1: civil rights sit ins that we just covered on a podcast,

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Speaker 1: and that was also true of our next active protest,

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Speaker 1: which is the fish ins that took place in the

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Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest in the nineteen fifties and sixties and beyond.

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Speaker 1: But the context for that protest stretches all the way

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Speaker 1: back to the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 2: Isaac Ingele Stevens became governor of what was then Washington

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Speaker 2: Territory in eighteen fifty three. One of his objectives as

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Speaker 2: governor was to secure as much land as possible from

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Speaker 2: the indigenous tribes and nations who were living in the

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Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest. As we discussed in our recent two parter

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Speaker 2: on the occupation of Alcatraz. He did this through treaties,

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Speaker 2: and these treaties detailed the terms under which Native nations

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Speaker 2: ceded land to the United States. These treaties ultimately assigned

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Speaker 2: more than ninety percent of the total land to the

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Speaker 2: United States, with the rest being established as reservation land.

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Speaker 1: At least thirteen tribes and nations were signatories to these treaties,

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Speaker 1: including then a Squally, the Pewallup, and the Muckleshoot, although

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Speaker 1: the exact number is a little complicated because Stevens treated

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Speaker 1: individual villages as separate tribes when he was negotiating these treaties,

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Speaker 1: under the idea that a smaller group would have less

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Speaker 1: negotiating power.

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Speaker 2: These treaties covered a lot of points in the relationship

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Speaker 2: between the Indigenous nations and the United States, but one

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Speaker 2: important point was fishing rights. While there were multiple treaties

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Speaker 2: at work. They all had similar language. Here the quote

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Speaker 2: right of taking fish at all usual and accustomed grounds

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Speaker 2: and stations is further secured to said Indians in common

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Speaker 2: with all citizens.

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Speaker 1: Of the territory, So the Native nations, I mean, this

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Speaker 1: has been the case with all all of the Native

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Speaker 1: American history that we've talked about on the showy. A

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Speaker 1: lot of these treaties were heavily skewed in favor of

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Speaker 1: the United States versus the indigenous tribe or nation. In

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Speaker 1: this case, though, all of the nations involved refused to

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Speaker 1: sign the treaties without that point about fishing rights, because

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Speaker 1: not only was fishing a major source of food, but

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Speaker 1: the fish and the act of fishing also held religious

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Speaker 1: and spiritual significance. And from Stevens point of view, he

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Speaker 1: was totally willing to make that concession for very pragmatic reasons,

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Speaker 1: because if the indigenous people did not retain their fishing rights,

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Speaker 1: then the government was going to be obligated to provide

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Speaker 1: them with some other kind of food source. At first,

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Speaker 1: the indigenous nations were able to exercise their rights to

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Speaker 1: fish in the waterways around the Pacific Northwest using their

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Speaker 1: traditional methods which included using gillnets, which are like underwater

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Speaker 1: walls made of netting. There just weren't that many non

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Speaker 1: Indigenous people in the Pacific Northwest yet, and at first

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Speaker 1: those who were there were more interested in other industries.

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Speaker 1: But as the non indigenous population started to grow, Indigenous

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Speaker 1: people started having more trouble exercising those rights. And that

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Speaker 1: also was true as federal policy toward Indigenous people went

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Speaker 1: through all of those shifts that we talked about in

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Speaker 1: the Occupation of Alcatraz episodes. The state of Washington started

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Speaker 1: to interpret that treaty language as meaning that the Indigenous

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Speaker 1: people had fishing rights only on their reservations, and that

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Speaker 1: was in defiance of some federal court rulings, which weren't

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Speaker 1: always totally clear and decisive, but they generally upheld the

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Speaker 1: Native people's rights to fish in other waterways as well.

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Speaker 2: These restrictions made it increasingly difficult for Indigenous people in

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Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest to fish. The best runs for salmon

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Speaker 2: and steelhead trout were outside of the reservation's boundaries. On

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Speaker 2: top of that, during the period of allotment, the reservations

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Speaker 2: themselves got smaller. Then, when the federal government implemented its

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Speaker 2: termination policies, which were posted to get rid of the

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Speaker 2: reservations and make Native people quote subject to the same

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Speaker 2: laws and entitled to the same privileges and responsibilities as

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Speaker 2: are applicable to other citizens of the United States. The

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Speaker 2: state of Washington and to a lesser extent, Oregon became

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Speaker 2: increasingly focused on enforcing fishing and conservation laws, specifically when

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Speaker 2: violated by Native people, even though those treaties were still

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Speaker 2: in place.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like the state laws were contrary to the

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Speaker 1: treaty language, but the treaties had not been abolished in

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Speaker 1: any way. They were still in effect. Running alongside all

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Speaker 1: of this was a perception among predominantly white sport fishers

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Speaker 1: that the indigenous people were what was to blame for

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Speaker 1: declining populations of salmon and steelhead trout, and this was

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Speaker 1: in defiance of actual data. Between nineteen fifty eight and

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, Indigenous people caught six and a half

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Speaker 1: percent of the catch in the Pacific Northwest, White sport

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Speaker 1: fishers caught twelve point two percent, and then commercial fishing

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Speaker 1: operations took all the rest. More than eighty percent of

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Speaker 1: the catch was through commercial fishing operations, not through indigenous

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Speaker 1: people or sport fishers doing their own thing. I can

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Speaker 1: tell you firsthand that that belief persisted into the seventies

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Speaker 1: when I lived there as a kid. That does not

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Speaker 1: surprise me at all.

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Speaker 2: I remember hearing neighbors, adult neighbors discuss how they wanted

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Speaker 2: to go fishing, but then said very disparaging things about

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Speaker 2: the native population and how they had ruined it for everyone. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: we talked in our behind the scenes after the Greensboro

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Speaker 2: Lunch Counter sit Ins episode about how like we'll be

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Speaker 2: doing research on something and the whole topic is angering,

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Speaker 2: but then there will be one element that just is

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Speaker 2: particularly viscerally angering, and the things that were said about

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Speaker 2: like the indigenous people are trying to get something for nothing,

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Speaker 2: Like I got so angry over and over in this

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Speaker 2: part of it. And eventually the only safe place for

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Speaker 2: an Indigenous person to fish in the Pacific Northwest was

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Speaker 2: on a reservation. Outside a reservation, Indigenous fishers were being harassed, arrested,

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Speaker 2: and jailed and having their equipment confiscated by police, including

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Speaker 2: their boats. Plus outside of the reservations, nets and traps,

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Speaker 2: which were part of traditional indigenous fishing practices were outlawed.

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Speaker 1: So this was still a few years away from the

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Speaker 1: occupation of Alcatraz and the rise of an intertribal movement

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Speaker 1: for Indigenous rights that we just discussed back in November.

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Speaker 1: In the Pacific Northwest and the nineteen fifties and early sixties,

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Speaker 1: most tribal leaders were taking a more conciliatory approach to things.

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Speaker 1: The National Congress of American Indians was explicitly not in

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Speaker 1: favor of the direct action methods that the civil rights

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Speaker 1: movement was using, finding them really to be too aggressive

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Speaker 1: and contradictory to Indigenous culture. So like there was a

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Speaker 1: banner hanging from their headquarters at one point that said

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Speaker 1: something along the lines of like, Indigenous people don't demonstrate, like.

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Speaker 1: They were not in favor of sit ins or marches

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Speaker 1: or earth or any of those kinds of things at

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Speaker 1: this point as a trend among leadership.

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Speaker 2: But not everyone agreed, and in nineteen sixty four, the

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Speaker 2: Survival of the American Indian Association SAIA was established, with

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Speaker 2: a focus on direct action and civil disobedience. One of

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Speaker 2: the organization's demonstrations was a series of fish ins around

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Speaker 2: the Pacific Northwest. They were not the first people to

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Speaker 2: do this. For example, Robert Satayakum was arrested while fishing

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Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty four, and he hoped that his arrest

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Speaker 2: would lead to a court ruling that would clarify the

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Speaker 2: Indigenous Nations treaty rights. Unfortunately, his criminal record went well

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Speaker 2: beyond this act of civil disobedience. That whole story is

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Speaker 2: outside the scope of this episode.

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Speaker 1: So these fishians arranged by the SAIA started on February

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Speaker 1: twenty seventh of nineteen sixty four, and they continued well

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Speaker 1: into the nineteen seventies, sometimes as individual fishing events and

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Speaker 1: sometimes as prolonged demonstrations that established encampments with fishing going

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Speaker 1: on throughout that whole time. The demonstrators had legal and

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Speaker 1: strategic advice from Jack Tanner, who was the director of

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Speaker 1: the Tacoma, Washington chapter of the NAACP. They also had

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Speaker 1: the attention of celebrity supporters, including Marlon Brando, who was

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Speaker 1: arrested at a fish in on March second of nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four, but wasn't ultimately charged with a crime.

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Speaker 2: These fish ins attracted a lot of criticism, at least

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Speaker 2: at first. Many indigenous leaders disagreed with the strategy entirely

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Speaker 2: preferring to focus on compromise. Jack Tanner's colleagues in the

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Speaker 2: civil rights movement criticized his involvement, saying it was taking

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Speaker 2: his focus away from Black Americans. The Washington State Sportsman's Club,

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Speaker 2: which was a lobbying organization that had a lot of

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Speaker 2: influence over the state Game Department, described Native people as

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Speaker 2: trying to flaunt the rules and get special privileges. On

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Speaker 2: December sixth, nineteen sixty four, they issued a statement encouraging

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Speaker 2: the state to get rid of all fishing regulations quote

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Speaker 2: to allow such waters to become barren until such time

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Speaker 2: as the Congress of the United States or the courts

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Speaker 2: of our Land sets up enforceable regulations that will allow

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Speaker 2: the state to carry on a reasonable fisheries management program.

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Speaker 2: This was kind of a burn it all down mentality. Overall,

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Speaker 2: the white media portrayed the Indigenous protesters as backward and lawless.

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Speaker 1: So nonviolence was a core part of the strategy for

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Speaker 1: the civil rights movement in the United States for a

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Speaker 1: lot of the time, but that wasn't really entirely the

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Speaker 1: case in the fish in movement. The demonstrators were repeatedly

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Speaker 1: targeted by Game wardens and by police, including being beaten

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Speaker 1: with clubs and sprayed with tear gas. On December seventh,

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Speaker 1: police making an arrest rammed demonstrators canoe with their boat,

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Speaker 1: which jumped to the demonstrators into the water. It is

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Speaker 1: not entirely clear whether that was an accident or intentional.

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Speaker 1: At some encampments, native people carried firearms to defend themselves,

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Speaker 1: and at others they fought back with things like stones

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Speaker 1: and paddles. After a brawl on October thirteenth of nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty four, the ACLU agreed to defend some of the demonstrators.

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Speaker 1: At first, the ACLU really focused on people who had

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Speaker 1: been charged with interfering with police, and then they later

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Speaker 1: expanded it to include defending people who were arrested for fishing.

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Speaker 2: As was the case with the occupation of Alcatraz. This

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Speaker 2: turned into an inter tribal movement, with supporters from other

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Speaker 2: Native nations traveling to the Pacific Northwest from other parts

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Speaker 2: of North America to support the demonstrators. The movement also

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Speaker 2: gradually gained more support among non indigenous people, including members

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Speaker 2: of the American Friends Services Committee and the Black Panther Party.

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Speaker 2: In September of nineteen sixty eight, a massive protest was

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Speaker 2: planned that pulled together all these populations. It was supposed

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Speaker 2: to involve five days of fishing, but it went on

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Speaker 2: for more than forty.

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Speaker 1: This movement continued into the nineteen seventies. On June seventeenth

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Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy, the Washington State Sportsmen's Club, which was

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Speaker 1: still insisting that Indigenous people were trying to get undeserved

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Speaker 1: special privle that the expensive white sport fishers, filed a lawsuit,

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Speaker 1: but the judge did not find in their favor. The

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Speaker 1: judge found in favor of the Indigenous Nations, granting a

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Speaker 1: fifteen day window in which net fishing would be allowed

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Speaker 1: in the Pwallup River. By that point, more tribal leadership

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Speaker 1: had started to support these protests.

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Speaker 2: On February twenty eighth, nineteen seventy one, the SAIA asked

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Speaker 2: the US Attorney General to file suit against the State

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Speaker 2: of Washington for violating the treaties that the Native nations

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Speaker 2: had signed all the way back in the nineteenth century.

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Speaker 2: Judge George Bolt issued his decision on February twelfth, nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy four. This came to be known as the Bolt Decision.

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Speaker 2: And it was one of a series of court cases

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Speaker 2: that were all part of this. It ruled that the

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Speaker 2: native tribes that were party to those treaties were entitled

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Speaker 2: to fifty percent of the available catch, including fishing outside

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Speaker 2: their reservations. That was way better than the six and

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Speaker 2: a half percent that they'd actually and fishing according to

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Speaker 2: that earlier data. This was regarded as a huge wind

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Speaker 2: for the indigenous people, but of course it did not

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Speaker 2: fix everything. Non Indigenous fishers were outraged and tried to

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Speaker 2: stage their own fish ins as like a counter demonstration.

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Speaker 2: The ruling also didn't apply to landless indigenous nations or

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Speaker 2: ones that had not been partied to those earlier treaties,

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Speaker 2: and that included the Duwamish, Chinook, and Snowhomish peoples. Native

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Speaker 2: nations in the Pacific Northwest are also still reliant on

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Speaker 2: fishing for food, and the populations of those fish has

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Speaker 2: continued to decline through the effects of commercial fishing, habitat loss,

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Speaker 2: increasing ocean temperatures, all kinds of other factors. Back in

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Speaker 2: twenty seventeen, we did an episode on Ed Roberts and

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Speaker 2: the independent living movement which evolved in Berkeley, California In

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Speaker 2: the nineteen sixties and seventies. Before this point, a lot

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Speaker 2: of disability advocacy had really been focused on parents and

438
00:24:57,680 --> 00:25:01,360
Speaker 2: caregivers of disabled people rather than onn disabled people's own

439
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:06,360
Speaker 2: self advocacy. The independent living movement really shifted that focus

440
00:25:06,760 --> 00:25:10,560
Speaker 2: more towards self determination and self advocacy. So this kind

441
00:25:10,560 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 2: of language about independence has been evolving in more recent

442
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:18,000
Speaker 2: years to include the idea of interdependence, because really all

443
00:25:18,040 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 2: of us depend on other people in some ways, and

444
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:22,919
Speaker 2: when it comes to disability, a lot of times that

445
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:27,760
Speaker 2: interdependence is really stigmatized. Obviously, that's a brief sum up,

446
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:31,040
Speaker 2: not the entirety of the philosophy at this point, but

447
00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:34,080
Speaker 2: in terms of the nineteen sixties and seventies, this move

448
00:25:34,200 --> 00:25:39,240
Speaker 2: toward independence and away from pity and paternalism was just huge.

449
00:25:39,760 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 2: One of the moments that came up in that episode

450
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,520
Speaker 2: is the passage of section five oh four of the

451
00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:48,040
Speaker 2: Rehabilitation Act in nineteen seventy three and the sit in

452
00:25:48,119 --> 00:25:50,240
Speaker 2: that followed it, But we didn't really spend much time

453
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:53,399
Speaker 2: on that at all. So Section five oh four was

454
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:56,920
Speaker 2: the first federal law regarding civil rights for people with disabilities.

455
00:25:57,480 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 2: It read quote no otherwise qualified handicapped individual in the

456
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 2: United States shall, solely on the basis of his handicap,

457
00:26:05,480 --> 00:26:09,040
Speaker 2: be excluded from the participation, be denied the benefits of,

458
00:26:09,480 --> 00:26:13,080
Speaker 2: or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity

459
00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:15,399
Speaker 2: receiving federal financial assistance.

460
00:26:16,000 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: So that sounds pretty great, But this law was just

461
00:26:18,640 --> 00:26:22,160
Speaker 1: the starting point, like, how do you define, to use

462
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:26,000
Speaker 1: the language of the law, what handicapped means, what did

463
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:31,040
Speaker 1: or didn't classify as discrimination. Federal agencies needed to create

464
00:26:31,080 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: their own regulations regarding how Section five h four would

465
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 1: actually be implemented and enforced. And this applied to every

466
00:26:39,040 --> 00:26:43,200
Speaker 1: federal agency but the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare

467
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:46,080
Speaker 1: or HW. I don't know if maybe people say that

468
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:50,359
Speaker 1: HUGH that was selected as the lead agency. They were

469
00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: to set their regulations first and then the other agencies

470
00:26:54,240 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: would follow.

471
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:59,920
Speaker 2: But between nineteen seventy three and nineteen seventy seven nothing happened.

472
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:03,679
Speaker 2: Attorneys from the Office for Civil Rights drafted regulations and

473
00:27:03,760 --> 00:27:07,159
Speaker 2: sent them to HW but rather than publishing them for

474
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 2: public comment, the Department sent them to Congress, and then

475
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,200
Speaker 2: Congress sent them back. It went on for so long

476
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,240
Speaker 2: that in the meantime President Richard Nixon, who had signed

477
00:27:16,240 --> 00:27:19,679
Speaker 2: it into law, was impeached, and then his successor, Gerald Ford,

478
00:27:19,720 --> 00:27:21,160
Speaker 2: had been replaced by Jimmy Carter.

479
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,879
Speaker 1: By that point, disability rights activists were demanding for the

480
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:28,560
Speaker 1: regulations that the Office for Civil Rights had be put

481
00:27:28,560 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: into place. Instead, the Carter administration set up a task

482
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,960
Speaker 1: force to study and revise them, and that task force

483
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,240
Speaker 1: did not include any disabled members.

484
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,919
Speaker 2: It became clear that this study and revision process was

485
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:44,639
Speaker 2: going to weaken the proposed regulations that the Office for

486
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:48,600
Speaker 2: Civil Rights had recommended back in nineteen seventy three, so

487
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 2: the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities decided to take action.

488
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 2: They gave the HW an ultimatum either HW Secretary Joseph

489
00:27:57,720 --> 00:28:01,480
Speaker 2: Klifano would sign the regulations as written by April fourth,

490
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy seven, or activists would start sitting in at

491
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 2: HW offices on April fifth.

492
00:28:08,440 --> 00:28:11,880
Speaker 1: April fourth came and went, and on April fifth, demonstrators

493
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: took over the federal buildings that housed eight different regional offices.

494
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 1: Most of these sit ins lasted for a day or two,

495
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: but in San Francisco, more than one hundred people sat

496
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 1: in for twenty six days.

497
00:28:24,520 --> 00:28:26,800
Speaker 2: Unlike some of the other sit ins that we've talked about,

498
00:28:26,840 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 2: they didn't show up during business hours and leave when

499
00:28:29,560 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 2: HW closed for the day. Activists took over the building

500
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:36,879
Speaker 2: and stayed, which was really possible thanks to the involvement

501
00:28:36,920 --> 00:28:40,520
Speaker 2: of lots of other organizations, including civil rights and gay

502
00:28:40,600 --> 00:28:44,640
Speaker 2: rights groups, church organizations, and politicians who were on the

503
00:28:44,680 --> 00:28:49,400
Speaker 2: demonstrator's side. In San Francisco, Glide Memorial Church and the

504
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,720
Speaker 2: Black Panther Party provided meals.

505
00:28:52,520 --> 00:28:54,480
Speaker 1: Over the course of the sit in in San Francisco,

506
00:28:54,600 --> 00:28:59,040
Speaker 1: conditions in the building became increasingly difficult. Supporters had donated

507
00:28:59,040 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: things like mattress and a shower attachment that could be

508
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:04,840
Speaker 1: used with a sink faucet, but people had to sleep

509
00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:07,960
Speaker 1: in shifts because there were not enough sleeping spaces. The

510
00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: building's restrooms overall were not accessible. Nobody had any privacy,

511
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:15,719
Speaker 1: and in some cases it wasn't just uncomfortable, it was

512
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:19,800
Speaker 1: potentially life threatening. For example, people who used catheters or

513
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:23,760
Speaker 1: ventilators didn't necessarily have caregivers or other people on hand

514
00:29:23,760 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: who knew how to operate and care for these devices.

515
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 2: Eventually, a delegation from the San Francisco cit in was

516
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 2: selected to travel to Washington, d C. To meet with legislators.

517
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 2: People donated funds for plane tickets for people who could

518
00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 2: travel by air. The International Association of Machinists rented a

519
00:29:41,040 --> 00:29:44,000
Speaker 2: moving truck with a lift and used it to transport

520
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:48,000
Speaker 2: people who used wheelchairs. Once in Washington, they met with

521
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:51,640
Speaker 2: senators to go over the original regulations point by point,

522
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,280
Speaker 2: answering senators' objections one by one. I cannot imagine how

523
00:29:56,360 --> 00:29:59,960
Speaker 2: uncomfortable this trip was, especially for the people who were little,

524
00:30:00,120 --> 00:30:03,840
Speaker 2: really in a moving van. Yeah, Like, my mom uses

525
00:30:03,840 --> 00:30:06,240
Speaker 2: a wheelchair that she can't really transfer out of to

526
00:30:06,320 --> 00:30:09,200
Speaker 2: get into a vehicle, So like there's a special vehicle

527
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 2: with a ramp and it's high downs for her chair, like,

528
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:14,840
Speaker 2: and that is not a comfortable trip. A lot of

529
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:18,720
Speaker 2: the time, this was literally a moving van with no windows,

530
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:20,760
Speaker 2: driving people across the country.

531
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 1: Yeah. Secretary Kalifano finally signed these regulations on April twenty

532
00:30:25,360 --> 00:30:29,720
Speaker 1: eighth of nineteen seventy seven. They included general provisions along

533
00:30:29,760 --> 00:30:35,400
Speaker 1: with regulations on employment practices, program accessibility, primary and secondary education,

534
00:30:36,040 --> 00:30:41,760
Speaker 1: post secondary education, health welfare and social services, and government procedures.

535
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,640
Speaker 2: Overall, this was a major success for the disability rights movement,

536
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:49,680
Speaker 2: but at the same time, enforcement was a huge issue.

537
00:30:49,720 --> 00:30:52,720
Speaker 2: Opponents argued that the work and expense involved made the

538
00:30:52,760 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 2: regulations impractical or impossible to implement. The regulations also served

539
00:30:57,840 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 2: as a template for the Americans with Disabilities Act, which

540
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 2: became law in nineteen ninety, but actually implementing that has

541
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 2: been a struggle as well, even now decades later.

542
00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:10,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember there being headlines. I feel like it

543
00:31:10,800 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: was late last year about maybe we don't need to

544
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,520
Speaker 1: implement this because it's just too expensive, and people were like,

545
00:31:17,640 --> 00:31:21,960
Speaker 1: you have had thirty years. I have feelings about this.

546
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:26,920
Speaker 1: I do too. We should also note that, as is

547
00:31:26,960 --> 00:31:30,000
Speaker 1: the case with any group, disabled people are not a monolith,

548
00:31:30,160 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: and accessibility looks really different for different disabilities. Different parts

549
00:31:34,800 --> 00:31:38,120
Speaker 1: of the community have different perspectives depending on all kinds

550
00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: of issues. During the five zero four sit in, for example,

551
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,320
Speaker 1: some members of the deaf community felt like they were excluded,

552
00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:47,440
Speaker 1: and the deaf community also thought that some of the regulations,

553
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: like a requirement for educating disabled children and classrooms with

554
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:55,200
Speaker 1: their non disabled peers whenever possible, could threaten deaf culture.

555
00:31:55,720 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 2: That said, though beyond the regulations, activists who were part

556
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:01,280
Speaker 2: of these sit ins. I've also talked about their role

557
00:32:01,720 --> 00:32:05,960
Speaker 2: in shifting non disabled people's perceptions of disability. In the

558
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:08,360
Speaker 2: words of Judith Human, who is part of the sit

559
00:32:08,400 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 2: in and is an international disability rights advocate today, quote

560
00:32:12,040 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 2: through the sit in, we turned ourselves from being oppressed

561
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 2: individuals into being empowered people. We demonstrated to the entire

562
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 2: nation that disabled people could take control over our own

563
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 2: lives and take leadership in the struggle for equality. She

564
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,840
Speaker 2: went on to say, quote, we overcame years of parochialism.

565
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 1: If you're curious, there was an episode of Drunk History

566
00:32:34,680 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: on this that cast disabled people in the roles of

567
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:40,600
Speaker 1: all the five or four protesters, which shouldn't sound like

568
00:32:40,640 --> 00:32:44,280
Speaker 1: some kind of accomplishment, but it is. Sadly.

569
00:32:44,680 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, there was a lot in this middle act

570
00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 2: of the show. So we're going to take a quick

571
00:32:50,880 --> 00:33:00,680
Speaker 2: sponsor break to.

572
00:33:00,720 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: Return to our six Impossible episodes. The idea of respectability

573
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:07,080
Speaker 1: has come up in a lot of our episodes on

574
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: the civil rights movement in the United States. It came

575
00:33:10,320 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 1: up in our recent episode on the Greensboro sit ins

576
00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:15,720
Speaker 1: and the other sit ins. It's come up in today's

577
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: shows so far, even when we haven't called it out specifically.

578
00:33:19,440 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: A lot of these demonstrations that we have talked about

579
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 1: have involved people who took a lot of care to

580
00:33:24,720 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 1: always be very polite and very well dressed. And this

581
00:33:28,360 --> 00:33:31,240
Speaker 1: has been a strategy and a lot of social movements,

582
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:35,320
Speaker 1: but it's definitely not the only strategy, which is really

583
00:33:35,360 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 1: illustrated by what we're about to talk about.

584
00:33:37,440 --> 00:33:40,160
Speaker 2: The first official reporting of what came to be known

585
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 2: as acquired immune deficiency syndrome came in the Morbidity and

586
00:33:44,160 --> 00:33:47,280
Speaker 2: Mortality Weekly Report, which is a publication of the US

587
00:33:47,280 --> 00:33:51,240
Speaker 2: Centers for Disease Control. It described an unusual outbreak of

588
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:55,800
Speaker 2: NUMOSISDS pneumonia in five previously healthy gay men in Los Angeles,

589
00:33:56,360 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 2: and that was on June fifth in nineteen eighty one.

590
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:04,000
Speaker 1: In years following that, more than twenty eight thousand cases

591
00:34:04,040 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 1: of AIDS were reported in the United States and more

592
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:09,920
Speaker 1: than twenty four thousan five hundred people had died. By

593
00:34:09,920 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: the end of nineteen eighty six, there was no approved

594
00:34:13,640 --> 00:34:16,600
Speaker 1: treatment for HIV, which is the virus that causes AIDS

595
00:34:16,640 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 1: in the United States. The US federal government had been

596
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,120
Speaker 1: incredibly slow to respond, and at that point President Ronald

597
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:26,320
Speaker 1: Reagan had not made any public statements on the crisis

598
00:34:26,360 --> 00:34:30,399
Speaker 1: at all. A really lengthy drug approval process also meant

599
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:33,080
Speaker 1: that people with HIV were dying while they waited for

600
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,120
Speaker 1: access to drugs that were already extending people's lives in

601
00:34:36,160 --> 00:34:36,920
Speaker 1: other countries.

602
00:34:37,480 --> 00:34:40,040
Speaker 2: People who were affected by this, who had either contracted

603
00:34:40,200 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 2: HIV or who knew and loved people who did, were outraged.

604
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:47,880
Speaker 2: This was particularly true among gay men, who were disproportionately affected.

605
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,439
Speaker 2: In response to all of this, Larry Kramer and other

606
00:34:51,480 --> 00:34:55,799
Speaker 2: activists formed the Aid's Coalition to Unleash Power, or act UP,

607
00:34:55,840 --> 00:34:58,840
Speaker 2: on March twelfth, nineteen eighty seven, in New York City.

608
00:34:59,440 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 2: It's purpose was to use direct action to force the government,

609
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 2: drug companies, public health agencies, insurance companies, everyone involved in

610
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 2: the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of HIV and AIDS to

611
00:35:12,360 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 2: get moving immediately.

612
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,800
Speaker 1: So act UP still exists today and is still directly

613
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:21,400
Speaker 1: involved in AIDS advocacy because this is not over. Throughout

614
00:35:21,400 --> 00:35:25,000
Speaker 1: its existence, the organization has become known for demonstrations that

615
00:35:25,040 --> 00:35:29,200
Speaker 1: are angry and aggressive and militant and just viscerally affecting.

616
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:33,400
Speaker 1: As one example, act UP has organized marches to Washington,

617
00:35:33,480 --> 00:35:36,560
Speaker 1: DC in which people have scattered the ashes of loved

618
00:35:36,560 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: ones who died from AIDS related diseases on the White

619
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:43,000
Speaker 1: House lawn. Some who have participated in these marches have

620
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 1: said that if that is not enough to prompt the

621
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:47,920
Speaker 1: government to act, that they would start using bodies.

622
00:35:48,440 --> 00:35:51,200
Speaker 2: One of actup's tactics has been the die in, in

623
00:35:51,239 --> 00:35:55,200
Speaker 2: which demonstrators lie down unmoving, usually in a public space,

624
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:59,480
Speaker 2: sometimes in roadways, blocking traffic. This is part of actup's

625
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,600
Speaker 2: very first protest on March twenty fourth, nineteen eighty seven,

626
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 2: when seventeen people lay down in the intersection of Broadway

627
00:36:06,080 --> 00:36:09,360
Speaker 2: and Wall Street in New York City outside Trinity Church.

628
00:36:09,920 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 2: At this demonstration, the protesters had a very clear set

629
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:15,200
Speaker 2: of demands that they had written up ahead of time.

630
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 2: They wanted the FDA to immediately release potentially life saving drugs,

631
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 2: to eliminate double blind studies in which HIV positive patients

632
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:27,440
Speaker 2: were given placebos, and to make these drugs affordable. They

633
00:36:27,480 --> 00:36:32,719
Speaker 2: also demanded a massive public education campaign, protections against discrimination

634
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,520
Speaker 2: for people who are being treated for AIDS, and quote

635
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 2: immediate establishment of a coordinated, comprehensive and compassionate national policy

636
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:44,840
Speaker 2: on AIDS. Okay, when it comes to those drug standards.

637
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:48,520
Speaker 2: In general, people think of controlled studies and double blind

638
00:36:48,560 --> 00:36:51,480
Speaker 2: trials as helpful in making sure that the drugs that

639
00:36:51,520 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 2: make it to market are safe and effective. We talked

640
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,280
Speaker 2: about some of that in our two part episode on thlidamide.

641
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:00,560
Speaker 2: But in the early nineteen eighties, the FDA approval took

642
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 2: up to nine years. That was much longer than people

643
00:37:04,160 --> 00:37:08,000
Speaker 2: lived after being diagnosed with HIV, especially before the test

644
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:11,800
Speaker 2: for the disease was approved in nineteen eighty five. Since

645
00:37:11,840 --> 00:37:14,440
Speaker 2: there had been very little public education on the disease,

646
00:37:14,920 --> 00:37:19,360
Speaker 2: most people were diagnosed after contracting an opportunistic infection, at

647
00:37:19,400 --> 00:37:21,600
Speaker 2: which point they just did not have long to live.

648
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like, people couldn't wait that long. And then also

649
00:37:24,880 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: the idea that somebody could be in a study, like

650
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:29,319
Speaker 1: somebody who was HIV positive could be in a study

651
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,959
Speaker 1: where they would be given a placebo, like, they didn't

652
00:37:32,000 --> 00:37:34,400
Speaker 1: have time to wait until that study was over to

653
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: find out whether they could get the actual drug or not.

654
00:37:37,719 --> 00:37:40,719
Speaker 1: So on September fourteenth, nineteen eighty nine, act UP held

655
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:42,960
Speaker 1: a rally and die in outside of the New York

656
00:37:43,040 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange to protest pharmaceutical company Burrows Welcome, which manufactured AZT,

657
00:37:48,760 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: which by that point was the only drug in the

658
00:37:51,120 --> 00:37:54,719
Speaker 1: United States that was approved to treat HIV. Demonstrators had

659
00:37:54,760 --> 00:37:56,880
Speaker 1: also made their way into the building and dropped a

660
00:37:56,920 --> 00:38:00,839
Speaker 1: banner from a balcony that said sell welcome. So one

661
00:38:00,880 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 1: of the things they were protesting was how expensive Burro's

662
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: Welcome had made AZT, so not long after the demonstration,

663
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:10,320
Speaker 1: they lowered the price for a year of AZT treatment,

664
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:14,399
Speaker 1: which had originally been ten thousand dollars per patient per year,

665
00:38:14,920 --> 00:38:20,000
Speaker 1: to six four hundred dollars. Actup's very aggressive advocacy on

666
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:23,160
Speaker 1: this has often been credited with prompting the change, although

667
00:38:23,200 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 1: Burrow's Welcome has maintained that they had already been planning

668
00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:26,400
Speaker 1: to do it.

669
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:30,760
Speaker 2: Because of their tactics and the stigma surrounding both homosexuality

670
00:38:30,800 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 2: and AIDS, actup's actions have been inherently controversial. One particular

671
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:40,560
Speaker 2: die in was particularly divisive. In December of nineteen eighty nine,

672
00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:45,320
Speaker 2: act UP and Women's Health Action Mobilization demonstrated inside Saint

673
00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 2: Patrick's Cathedral during High Mass. They were both there to

674
00:38:49,160 --> 00:38:52,960
Speaker 2: protest John Cardinal O'Connor, Archbishop of New York, who was

675
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:58,840
Speaker 2: influential in city politics and who opposed things like sex education, abortion, access,

676
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:01,280
Speaker 2: AIDS education, and condom distribution.

677
00:39:02,040 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of that also applied to the Catholic

678
00:39:04,480 --> 00:39:08,160
Speaker 1: Church in general. So this demonstration included a die in

679
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 1: in the cathedral's aisles. More than forty people were arrested,

680
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: with some of the demonstrators being carried out of the

681
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:19,120
Speaker 1: cathedral on stretchers. Act UP had initially intended this demonstration

682
00:39:19,200 --> 00:39:21,880
Speaker 1: to be somewhat quiet, to sort of go into the

683
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:24,960
Speaker 1: church have their die in in the aisles without otherwise

684
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,720
Speaker 1: causing a lot of disruption. But as it developed, Michael

685
00:39:28,719 --> 00:39:32,520
Speaker 1: Petrellis loudly blew a whistle and shouted, you're killing us,

686
00:39:32,560 --> 00:39:35,080
Speaker 1: and that tipped the protest into something that became a

687
00:39:35,080 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 1: lot more chaotic.

688
00:39:36,920 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 2: People were offended not only at the disruption of the

689
00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 2: church services, but also because one of the demonstrators, Thomas Keene,

690
00:39:43,960 --> 00:39:47,000
Speaker 2: threw a host wafer from the Communion service on the floor.

691
00:39:47,719 --> 00:39:50,280
Speaker 2: He later said that he did not realize how offensive

692
00:39:50,320 --> 00:39:53,000
Speaker 2: that would be to Catholics who believed that the communion

693
00:39:53,040 --> 00:39:56,440
Speaker 2: host was the body of Christ. Even within act UP,

694
00:39:56,480 --> 00:39:58,560
Speaker 2: some people began to argue that the tone of these

695
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:04,239
Speaker 2: demonstrations was turning off potential supporters. So overall, these demonstrations

696
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 2: have been credited with like getting more effective AIDS policy

697
00:40:09,600 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 2: happening more quickly, and as we said earlier, act UP

698
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:17,400
Speaker 2: is still using Dian's as a protest tool like today.

699
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:20,080
Speaker 2: On October fourth of twenty thirteen, there was a Dian

700
00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 2: at the New York Public Library after they put up

701
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:27,200
Speaker 2: an exhibit titled why We Fight Remembering AIDS Activism. One

702
00:40:27,200 --> 00:40:31,320
Speaker 2: of Actup's slogans at that event was AIDS is not History,

703
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:35,080
Speaker 2: because this idea that we were remembering activism sort of

704
00:40:35,080 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 2: suggests that we are done with it now and it

705
00:40:38,040 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 2: were not. Another took place on January first of twenty fourteen,

706
00:40:42,120 --> 00:40:45,280
Speaker 2: after the inauguration of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio,

707
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:47,719
Speaker 2: because at that point act UP had been trying to

708
00:40:47,880 --> 00:40:51,360
Speaker 2: meet with him about his AIDS platform for months without success.

709
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:54,960
Speaker 2: Act UP repeated the AIDS is Not History theme at

710
00:40:54,960 --> 00:40:58,360
Speaker 2: the Whitney Museum in twenty eighteen, after the museum arranged

711
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 2: a retrospective of the world of David Boynovitch, who was

712
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,879
Speaker 2: an act UP member before his death in nineteen ninety two.

713
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:09,440
Speaker 1: Act UP again felt that the Whitney's presentation made it

714
00:41:09,480 --> 00:41:12,080
Speaker 1: seem as though the AIDS epidemic was in the past

715
00:41:12,320 --> 00:41:15,120
Speaker 1: rather than being a critical current issue.

716
00:41:16,360 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 2: Okay, So the last one the teaching movement during the

717
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:21,880
Speaker 2: Vietnam War. This one is a little bit different. It

718
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 2: wasn't exactly a direct action meant to force the US

719
00:41:24,600 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 2: government to end its military involvement in Vietnam. Instead, it

720
00:41:28,880 --> 00:41:31,400
Speaker 2: was an educational tool that inspired people to take on

721
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 2: direct actions of their own. So for contexts, during the

722
00:41:34,760 --> 00:41:38,880
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty four presidential election, part of Lyndon Bains Johnson's

723
00:41:38,920 --> 00:41:42,120
Speaker 2: campaign was a peace platform, so people thought he was

724
00:41:42,160 --> 00:41:46,080
Speaker 2: going to end American involvement in Vietnam. But on February

725
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,759
Speaker 2: thirteenth of nineteen sixty five, which was less than a

726
00:41:48,840 --> 00:41:53,160
Speaker 2: month after being inaugurated, Johnson authorized a bombing campaign that

727
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:56,680
Speaker 2: was known as Operation Rolling Thunder, as well as combat

728
00:41:56,719 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 2: troop deployments to Vietnam. There had been American personnel and

729
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,280
Speaker 2: Vietnam before that, but not in a combat capacity. People

730
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:05,399
Speaker 2: who had voted for him, thinking that he was going

731
00:42:05,440 --> 00:42:08,280
Speaker 2: to end American involvement in the war, felt really betrayed.

732
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 2: That spring, the Faculty Committee to Stop the War in

733
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:15,239
Speaker 2: Vietnam at the University of Michigan was discussing ways to

734
00:42:15,320 --> 00:42:18,839
Speaker 2: demonstrate against the war and against what they saw as

735
00:42:18,880 --> 00:42:23,720
Speaker 2: the militarization of their academic disciplines. As one example, social

736
00:42:23,760 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 2: scientists had been recruited to work on a military funded

737
00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:31,040
Speaker 2: counterinsurgency program called Project Camelot, which was meant to study

738
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 2: cultures primarily in Latin America. And of course, people in

739
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:37,880
Speaker 2: hard science fields had seen the development of weapons like

740
00:42:37,920 --> 00:42:41,800
Speaker 2: the atomic bomb. Academics had also seen their work branded

741
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,400
Speaker 2: as a communist threat during the Cold War, with accusations

742
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,040
Speaker 2: that they were indoctrinating students against the United States. There

743
00:42:49,080 --> 00:42:53,920
Speaker 2: was a lot going on with the education community.

744
00:42:54,000 --> 00:42:58,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, and at first these particular professors and other educators

745
00:42:58,560 --> 00:43:01,560
Speaker 1: were focused on a walkout in which classes would be

746
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 1: canceled and faculty would instead give anti war lectures somewhere

747
00:43:05,480 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: off campus. But people raised some concerns about whether that

748
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,000
Speaker 1: was in the best interests of students and whether people

749
00:43:12,040 --> 00:43:15,080
Speaker 1: would perceive it as the professors not being committed to

750
00:43:15,120 --> 00:43:18,600
Speaker 1: their work. And a staff meeting on March seventeenth, after

751
00:43:18,680 --> 00:43:21,960
Speaker 1: a lot of debate about this whole walkout and strike idea,

752
00:43:22,360 --> 00:43:26,919
Speaker 1: anthropologist Marshall sallins said, I've got it. They say, we're

753
00:43:26,960 --> 00:43:30,680
Speaker 1: neglecting our responsibilities as teachers. Let's show them how responsible

754
00:43:30,719 --> 00:43:33,640
Speaker 1: we feel. Instead of teaching out, we will teach in

755
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:34,799
Speaker 1: all night.

756
00:43:35,360 --> 00:43:37,399
Speaker 2: This led to the first teach in and held from

757
00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:40,760
Speaker 2: eight pm on March twenty fourth, nineteen sixty five, until

758
00:43:40,760 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 2: eight am the following morning. It was held in Angel

759
00:43:44,080 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 2: Hall Auditorium, although the crowd was so larged that it

760
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 2: spilled out to other parts of the campus, including the

761
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:53,960
Speaker 2: library steps. More than two thousand people attended, with about

762
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:58,320
Speaker 2: five hundred still there when the last lecture started. Women

763
00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:01,279
Speaker 2: enrolled at the university had a at the time, but

764
00:44:01,320 --> 00:44:04,280
Speaker 2: it was waived so that they could attend. In addition

765
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:07,960
Speaker 2: to the faculty involvement, students for a Democratic Society were

766
00:44:08,000 --> 00:44:09,160
Speaker 2: also part of the event.

767
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,680
Speaker 1: This event included lectures and discussions that were meant to

768
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: educate attendees on things like the military industrial complex and

769
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: Cold War rhetoric and US foreign policy, the effects of

770
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:24,320
Speaker 1: weapons like napalm and phosphorus bombs. There were at least

771
00:44:24,440 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 1: two different bomb threats during the event, with police clearing

772
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,399
Speaker 1: the building after one of them, and counter demonstrators were

773
00:44:31,440 --> 00:44:35,160
Speaker 1: inside and outside the building shouting pro war slogans like

774
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 1: better dead than Red.

775
00:44:37,040 --> 00:44:39,880
Speaker 2: Two days later, another teach in was held at Columbia

776
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:44,040
Speaker 2: University in New York City. More teachins followed, and on

777
00:44:44,080 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 2: April seventeenth, nineteen sixty five, an inter university committee for

778
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 2: a public Hearing on Vietnam was established. Participating schools included

779
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:58,400
Speaker 2: the University of Chicago, MIT, University of Wisconsin, Wayne State University,

780
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:00,880
Speaker 2: and Washington University in Saint Louis.

781
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:04,239
Speaker 1: The committee published a pamphlet called The Meaning of the

782
00:45:04,320 --> 00:45:07,640
Speaker 1: National teach In. It began quote the teach ins were

783
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:11,600
Speaker 1: born in protest against United States policy in Vietnam. However,

784
00:45:11,640 --> 00:45:14,480
Speaker 1: they are vehicles for a larger purpose. They are a

785
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:19,160
Speaker 1: means of discussion and debate, without which democracy lacks significance.

786
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:23,440
Speaker 2: On May fifteenth, that National teach In was held in Washington,

787
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:25,960
Speaker 2: d C. This was an all day event that was

788
00:45:26,000 --> 00:45:29,319
Speaker 2: also broadcast on more than two hundred radio stations. It

789
00:45:29,360 --> 00:45:33,080
Speaker 2: included discussions about US policies and context of the war,

790
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:36,880
Speaker 2: along with debates between supporters and opponents of US policy

791
00:45:36,920 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 2: toward Vietnam. National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy was supposed to

792
00:45:41,920 --> 00:45:44,319
Speaker 2: be at the National teach In, but he canceled at

793
00:45:44,360 --> 00:45:47,000
Speaker 2: the last minute for a trip to the Dominican Republic

794
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:48,360
Speaker 2: that was described as urgent.

795
00:45:48,840 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, there are people who wondered if that

796
00:45:50,640 --> 00:45:54,359
Speaker 1: was a convenient excuse or an actual urgency. On May

797
00:45:54,360 --> 00:45:57,319
Speaker 1: twenty first and twenty second, the largest teach in in

798
00:45:57,360 --> 00:46:00,440
Speaker 1: this movement was held at the University of California at Berkeley,

799
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: with thirty thousand people in attendance.

800
00:46:03,760 --> 00:46:06,959
Speaker 2: The committee had followed up with McGeorge Bundy repeatedly after

801
00:46:07,000 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 2: his cancelation at the National teach In. The committee's hope

802
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:13,000
Speaker 2: was that they would schedule some kind of opportunity for

803
00:46:13,040 --> 00:46:15,480
Speaker 2: the debate and discussion that he was supposed to have

804
00:46:15,560 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 2: been a part of, and that did finally happen with

805
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,400
Speaker 2: a televised event in July. The teach in movement didn't

806
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:25,520
Speaker 2: really last beyond nineteen sixty five. Over time, people started

807
00:46:25,520 --> 00:46:28,160
Speaker 2: to become concerned that it had shifted from being an

808
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:32,680
Speaker 2: explicitly anti war movement about educating people to one that

809
00:46:32,760 --> 00:46:36,160
Speaker 2: was more focused on a debate between two sides. As

810
00:46:36,160 --> 00:46:39,959
Speaker 2: the anti war movement became more radical, activists started seeing

811
00:46:40,040 --> 00:46:43,240
Speaker 2: the teach ins as too conservative. At the same time,

812
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,360
Speaker 2: the teaching movement is marked as a critical moment in

813
00:46:46,400 --> 00:46:50,560
Speaker 2: the early anti Vietnam War movement. Carl Oglesby of Students

814
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,280
Speaker 2: for a Democratic Society called it a stroke of genius.

815
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 2: That quote put the debate on the map for the

816
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:58,920
Speaker 2: whole academic community. And you could not be an intellectual

817
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 2: after those teach ins and not think a lot and

818
00:47:01,600 --> 00:47:06,400
Speaker 2: express yourself and defend your ideas about Vietnam. According to

819
00:47:06,440 --> 00:47:09,520
Speaker 2: Marshall Salnds, it also shifted some of the counterculture movement

820
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:13,200
Speaker 2: from one that was ideologically pacifist and pro civil rights

821
00:47:13,560 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 2: to one that was overtly political and more likely to

822
00:47:16,440 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 2: take direct action.

823
00:47:18,400 --> 00:47:21,680
Speaker 1: I think this is I mean, there's so much discussion

824
00:47:21,880 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 1: of the anti war movement during Vietnam, which could be

825
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:30,560
Speaker 1: really divisive, and I don't know if could be was

826
00:47:30,600 --> 00:47:33,400
Speaker 1: even a strong enough word, Like it was really divisive

827
00:47:33,480 --> 00:47:37,080
Speaker 1: and became really militant in a lot of places. And

828
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 1: so this to me feels like this kind of nice

829
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:44,520
Speaker 1: precursor that was about basically educating people about all of

830
00:47:44,560 --> 00:47:47,000
Speaker 1: the context, like all the context for what was happening

831
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,839
Speaker 1: in Vietnam, all the context for what it could mean

832
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:54,160
Speaker 1: in like the world of global history, all of that

833
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:59,000
Speaker 1: that then went on to inspire people to take direct actions.

834
00:48:03,239 --> 00:48:06,239
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If

835
00:48:06,239 --> 00:48:08,400
Speaker 1: you'd like to send us a note, our email addresses

836
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 1: History Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe

837
00:48:13,200 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 1: to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

838
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:18,320
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.