WEBVTT - Griffin Dunne & Dr. Marcus Anthony Hunt 0:00:00.680 --> 0:00:04.200 Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics, 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:07.200 where we discussed the top political headlines with some of 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:08.600 today's best minds. 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.760 Happy Independence Day. We're on vacation with that doesn't mean 0:00:11.800 --> 0:00:13.800 we don't have a great show for you today. Doctor 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:16.800 Marcus Anthony Hunt Stopspy to talk to us about the Tulsa, 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.479 Oklahoma massacre and the quest honor it. But first we 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:23.079 have actor Griffin Dunn on his new book The Friday 0:00:23.079 --> 0:00:25.079 Afternoon Club, a family Memoir. 0:00:25.360 --> 0:00:28.000 Welcome to Fast Politics, Griffin Don. 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:29.800 Thank you for having me. Molly. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:32.800 I really wanted to talk to you about this book 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:37.080 because it's not really politics, and Jesse. 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:39.880 Is always like it's Fast Politics, Molly. 0:00:39.720 --> 0:00:42.120 But I felt like we should talk about it because 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:45.720 your story is in the intersection of all of these 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.559 different important political moments. It can you talk to us 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.559 about just growing up in LA and a little bit 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:54.040 about what that looked. 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.960 Like bagging up than just La and the book does 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.760 intersect with many moments and really in history. In order 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:06.320 to get to my childhood and growing up in Los 0:01:06.319 --> 0:01:10.160 Angeles in my teen years, I had to as this 0:01:10.319 --> 0:01:13.760 was always subtitle in my mind, a family memoir, I 0:01:13.800 --> 0:01:15.840 had to go all the way back to Pancho Villa 0:01:15.959 --> 0:01:19.160 in the Mexican Revolution that you know, drove my mother's 0:01:19.200 --> 0:01:23.240 family to No Gallas, the border town in Mexico and Arizona, 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.880 and the Irish famine. And I was always conscious as 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.400 I was approaching Hollywood, you know, I would be passing 0:01:30.520 --> 0:01:34.120 you know, World War two, how that intersected and my 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.959 mother's side of the family and my father's side of 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.360 the family, my father in particular, who was in fact 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:42.839 a war hero and fought in Battle of the Bulge. 0:01:42.959 --> 0:01:45.319 So when I was growing up first in New York, 0:01:45.520 --> 0:01:48.840 where my father was in live television and that occupation 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:54.160 brought him to to Hollywood in nineteen sixty where television 0:01:54.320 --> 0:01:57.640 was you know, still black and white and about to 0:01:58.160 --> 0:02:01.320 maybe go into color. We were in this house that 0:02:01.480 --> 0:02:04.960 my probably my mother bought. She was from a family 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:08.680 in Chicago. Her father was a Griffin and there was 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:11.920 a Griffin wheel company and they it was really an empire, 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:14.880 and all the wheels in America, on train on pullman 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:19.280 train cars were with Griffin wheels. So my parents were 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:23.240 very social, my father in particular, and they were married 0:02:23.600 --> 0:02:26.200 and gave parties with you know, some of the greatest 0:02:26.320 --> 0:02:30.840 movie stars, most elegant, glamorous, David Nivid and you know, 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:34.480 Joseph Cotton, and also great directors of that time. But 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:36.120 they were all you know, this is now in the 0:02:36.240 --> 0:02:39.200 early sixties about to approach, you know, up to the 0:02:39.240 --> 0:02:43.480 mid sixties, their best films probably were behind them. Dennis Hopper, 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:46.360 who was also a guest in her home, would in 0:02:46.760 --> 0:02:49.520 just a few years be making easy writer and and 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.440 sort of render these great old stars and directors, you know, 0:02:52.800 --> 0:02:55.440 out of touch, very difficult to get work now. Of course, 0:02:55.520 --> 0:02:58.280 as a child growing up in this house, surrounded by 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.520 all this elegance and extravagance, you know, I didn't know 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.200 these people were as much as you know. They were 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:06.920 funnier and charming and made me laugh as a kid, 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.360 but I wouldn't know who they were until I looked 0:03:09.360 --> 0:03:11.920 at my father's scrap books, and he'd been divorced, and 0:03:12.280 --> 0:03:16.680 he luckily kept a record of these amazing years and 0:03:16.800 --> 0:03:19.720 in our house and in his life as he traveled, 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.000 you know, to Europe with these people and would visit 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:26.600 royal families, and social interaction, particularly with you know, wealthy 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.320 and powerful and famous people was at that time his priority. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:32.840 So one of the things I think about when I 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:36.480 think about Dominic was that he had this very interesting 0:03:37.080 --> 0:03:42.080 second act where the murder of your sister ended up 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:47.040 being the kind of galvanizing force where he became a 0:03:47.200 --> 0:03:51.320 kind of you know, a chronicle of society crime, but also, 0:03:52.040 --> 0:03:54.720 you know, in his own way, a sort of someone 0:03:54.760 --> 0:03:58.320 who was really a person who was trying to change 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:04.360 how domestic violence and trying to stop that and shine 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.760 a light on it, and also you know, changed the 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:11.160 way that men were punished for things like that. It 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.560 hasn't really changed, but there was really a quest there, 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:16.719 I think, a sort of quins oud a quest. So 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.480 can you talk about that, because that is such an 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:21.880 I always am struck by things like that. 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:25.320 Yeah, well, you're exactly right. I mean, in the years 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:29.440 prior to Dominique's murder, my father had gotten sober, he 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.640 had really reassessed his life. Everything had been stripped away 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:37.080 from him, money, all these social and powerful contacts he had, 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:39.880 you know, had abandoned him, and he was in exile, 0:04:40.000 --> 0:04:42.400 self exile in a little town in Oregon where it 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.760 was car broke down, and he tried very much to 0:04:44.800 --> 0:04:47.320 be writing. He wanted to write. That was the profession 0:04:47.360 --> 0:04:49.520 he envisioned for himself, and so he would write us 0:04:49.600 --> 0:04:53.080 these letters, Dominique, Alex and I, these single space letters, 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.360 and you could see he was working on his forum, 0:04:55.440 --> 0:04:58.599 trying to find his voice. And he came back to 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.640 New York, and then Dominie, as you said, was attacked 0:05:01.920 --> 0:05:05.760 and it changed at great cost. After the trial of 0:05:05.760 --> 0:05:09.520 her killer, in which we were as a family put 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:13.040 through the mill of having to listen to the defense. 0:05:13.640 --> 0:05:17.320 A man dragged my sister's name through the mud. It 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:21.240 was a dirty but common strategy, blaming the victim for 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.320 their own death. This was a textbook case of which 0:05:24.360 --> 0:05:28.200 the jury bought completely and was kept out of watching 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:32.800 the testimony of a previous girlfriend of the killer, who 0:05:32.839 --> 0:05:35.440 he had put in the hospital twice and hit her 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.000 so hard and just joined at her eye socket and 0:05:38.040 --> 0:05:42.120 her jaw. It beat her senseless twice and put her 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.599 in the hospital twice. The jury was kept out of 0:05:44.600 --> 0:05:47.599 this because it was prejudicial. I guess it's prejudicial to 0:05:47.680 --> 0:05:51.120 have a prior history of violence against women. It speaks 0:05:51.160 --> 0:05:53.440 I all of your character. So they were kept out. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:57.120 They were kept out of seeing a tantrum that the 0:05:57.200 --> 0:05:59.560 killer had and the Roman had to be dragged to 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:02.960 the ground by the bailiff, and then the killer has 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.839 to date served three and a half years for manslaughter. 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:09.320 They didn't even call it murder. So this changed all 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.640 of our lives. But this is where my father found 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.080 his voice and his cause and his purpose. And so 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:20.560 whenever he wrote about of which he became a reporter, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.800 a very high profile reporter for very high profile cases. 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:27.880 And so when he covered OJ he never lets you 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:31.039 forget about the Browns or Nicole, and he never lets 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:35.080 you forget about Lana Clarkson. When who Phil Specter killed 0:06:35.320 --> 0:06:39.080 media called a fourth rate actress's His daughter was an actress. 0:06:39.400 --> 0:06:42.480 My mother, who had MS, was in a wheelchair all 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:44.880 the way through. We wheeled her into court every day 0:06:45.080 --> 0:06:47.719 in our formation of my brother and I on either 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.360 side of her chair and my father pushing. We thought 0:06:50.400 --> 0:06:52.680 this trial would kill her. It did just the opposite. 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:55.800 She became an activist as well for victims rights, and 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.800 she started a group called Justice for Victims of Homicide 0:06:59.040 --> 0:07:03.080 in California, and she made laws Marcy's Law that protects 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.200 the right of victims of being notified when the killer 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:08.680 is out on bail, let out of jail, or prison. 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.720 You think that would be common practice to notify a family. 0:07:11.920 --> 0:07:14.400 You know, she has other jault laws and they're instituted 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.480 in twenty three or thirty other states. In California. So 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.000 my parents, who I never detected, really any political passion from. 0:07:22.320 --> 0:07:24.520 In fact, you know, while I was growing up in 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:28.160 idolizing Kennedy, they voted for Nixon. But you know, this 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.880 changed all so they became very political, which does make me, 0:07:31.960 --> 0:07:34.400 I think, an app guest for your podcast. 0:07:34.960 --> 0:07:39.680 Yeah, when people are able to turn terrible tragedies into 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.360 galvanizing moments. 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:43.920 You know, it really is. 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:49.120 And I remember how Dominic covered the Nicole Brown Simpson 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.640 murder and just it was a real sea change for 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.480 how we talk about victims. 0:07:56.760 --> 0:07:59.520 Yeah, it still happens though. When he was covering OJ 0:08:00.080 --> 0:08:04.520 he was so personally invested for obvious reasons. But what 0:08:04.600 --> 0:08:07.680 the Dream Team, I'm putting that in quotes, the tactics 0:08:07.760 --> 0:08:09.920 that they were using. I would see him because it 0:08:09.960 --> 0:08:13.360 was televised. I would see him in the spectator's office. 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:15.800 He always sat with the Browns. I could see the 0:08:15.840 --> 0:08:17.880 toll it was taking on him. I'm in New York 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:20.320 and I can see in television that I think He's 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:22.560 going to have an heart attack just having to go 0:08:22.640 --> 0:08:25.360 through this over and over again. He'd done trials like 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.440 this before, but this one really took a toll on him. 0:08:28.600 --> 0:08:30.920 Yeah, I mean, I think that it really is. 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:36.640 The way that Dominic covered the Nicohole Brown Simpson murder, 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:39.880 the OJ Simpson trial and a lot of these other 0:08:40.160 --> 0:08:44.040 trials really was a sort of sea change for standing 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:48.320 up for victims and you know the experience of the victims' 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:51.600 families in ways that we probably hadn't seen before. 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:56.679 Yes, however, I kind of relived our circumstance in nineteen 0:08:56.760 --> 0:09:02.360 eighty three when Harvey Weinstein's came was thrown out in 0:09:02.480 --> 0:09:05.920 the highest court in New York because in our case 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.000 I described to you, you know how the jury was 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.560 not allowed to watch the testimony of the killer's previous 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:16.920 victim in domestic violence. The reason that the judge said 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:20.040 he did this when the world came crashing down after 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:23.800 Dad stood up in the court room and called it unjust. 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:27.560 He said that he wasn't on trial for beating up 0:09:27.600 --> 0:09:31.440 and putting in the hospital twice the woman that was testifying. Therefore, 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:33.920 the jury should not hear it. When the New York 0:09:34.040 --> 0:09:37.360 courts threw out Harvey Weinstein's case. It was for the 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:41.600 exact reason. When other women who testified about their experience 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:45.839 of abuse with Harvey Weinstein and testified very effectively, the 0:09:46.520 --> 0:09:49.160 New York courts ruled that's not what Harvey was being 0:09:49.200 --> 0:09:51.760 tried for, so they threw that out and there for 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.160 the whole case. So it hasn't really quite changed. Judges 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.480 still get to choose whether a history of domestic violence 0:09:59.559 --> 0:10:01.600 is relev UNDERDT. Incredibly enough. 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:06.720 Yeah, but the idea of the victim's family being injected 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.720 into the coverage is new and important, or was at 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:13.440 the time very new and important. I'm wondering if you 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.880 could talk just for a minute about what the sort 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:22.079 of lessons of this literary family. I mean, we all 0:10:22.120 --> 0:10:26.600 have them, the sort of broader lessons that you learned 0:10:26.640 --> 0:10:27.640 writing this book. 0:10:27.720 --> 0:10:29.280 I always thought I would write a book. It was 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:31.120 on a bucket list of mine. I'm from a long 0:10:31.200 --> 0:10:34.640 line of storytellers, and I envisioned writing a mostly humorous 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:38.319 book that would be along the lines of David Sedaris's 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:41.559 Me Talk Pretty of it being sort of different chapters 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.800 that were both funny and touching about my family and 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.679 having them intersect over the years, and when I started 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.199 to write chronologically, in order to do that, I kind 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:53.560 of had to wait a few years, not to get 0:10:53.559 --> 0:10:56.960 out of the yoke of being from a literary family, 0:10:57.000 --> 0:10:59.079 and what would they think or that I was going 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.320 to do a tell all of anything. As time went by, 0:11:02.720 --> 0:11:04.920 when I looked at my loved ones and then, you know, 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.400 in my family who were no longer with me, their arcs, 0:11:08.480 --> 0:11:12.320 the arcs of their character really became clear to me. 0:11:12.559 --> 0:11:17.040 When I was writing chronologically, I could see the incredible 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.319 transformation of my father. So I was able to write 0:11:20.320 --> 0:11:23.960 about his weaknesses as a young father and a young 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.480 husband and see that, you know, the shame that he 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:29.760 was he was burying and you know, was struggling with 0:11:29.800 --> 0:11:33.320 alcohol and his closeted life. And I could see the 0:11:33.320 --> 0:11:35.960 loneliness of my mother. I knew where they were going 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:38.360 to end up. I knew that they you know, I 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:41.440 used as an epitaph of my father that he once 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:43.880 said to me when I was criticizing him for something, 0:11:44.200 --> 0:11:46.400 and he said, what could I say, kiddo, I'm a 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.680 work in progress. And I looked at all these characters 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:52.959 and I knew and I thought of them I mean, 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.400 as much as I produce, I make movies, I think 0:11:55.520 --> 0:11:57.959 they were characters who I loved very much, and I 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:00.360 knew where they were going to end up. I walked away. 0:12:00.679 --> 0:12:02.880 You know, when I finished this book, the hard part 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.000 was not writing about Dominique and being attacked and on 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:08.280 life support and going through what we went through in 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:10.760 the trial. Because I was in company while I was 0:12:10.800 --> 0:12:13.240 writing it. They were all so vivid, right, you know. 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:15.439 The hard part was finishing it. I kind of went 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.320 into a state of mourning when I was finishing it, 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.840 and quite honestly, now I'm in this next chapter, you know, 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.120 promoting and talking about these these people in my family. 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:27.079 I feel them all over again and it's quite emotional. 0:12:27.280 --> 0:12:27.480 You know. 0:12:27.559 --> 0:12:29.800 My job is to be sort of in service of 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.200 their memory at this point, which was not as clear 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:34.199 a thought when I was writing it. I just wanted 0:12:34.200 --> 0:12:37.000 to tell their story. That was my original intent, and 0:12:37.040 --> 0:12:39.040 then I just kept on doing it. When I was finished, 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.400 I went, wow, look at these people. Wow, and I'm 0:12:41.440 --> 0:12:42.360 related to them. 0:12:42.440 --> 0:12:45.880 Yeah. Oh, Griffin, thank you so much for joining us. 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:48.320 You're very welcome. Thank you, Mollie, good to talk to you. 0:12:52.800 --> 0:12:54.960 Spring is here, and I bet you are trying to 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:58.560 look fashionable, so why not pick up some fashionable all 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:03.280 new Fast Politics merchandise. We just opened a news store 0:13:03.400 --> 0:13:07.880 with all new designs just for you. Get t shirts, hoodies, hats, 0:13:08.200 --> 0:13:13.600 and toe bags. To grab some, head to fastpolitics dot com. 0:13:13.679 --> 0:13:16.880 Doctor Marcus Anthony Hunt is a UCLA professor and the 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.760 author of Radical Reparations. 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.760 Welcome to Fast Politics, doctor Marcus Hunter. 0:13:22.920 --> 0:13:24.960 Thank you so much. I appreciate you and the whole 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:25.760 team for having me. 0:13:26.160 --> 0:13:27.839 We're delighted to have you. 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:32.040 And it feels very much like something we should be 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.680 talking about right now, because the Supreme Court, in their 0:13:35.800 --> 0:13:40.400 infinite fucked upness as one of their first decisions, and 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:43.160 I feel like it flew under the radar, but when 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:45.400 I saw it, I was like, of course, those fuckers, 0:13:45.960 --> 0:13:50.240 So let's talk about the Tulsa massacre and also the 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:53.160 Supreme Court's just continual talk to me. 0:13:53.559 --> 0:13:56.840 Yeah, I think, you know, one of the intense things, 0:13:56.920 --> 0:14:00.000 especially around Tulsa. I was fortunate enough to be invited 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:03.160 by doctor Tiffany Krutcher and the Terrence Krutcher Foundation and 0:14:03.320 --> 0:14:06.680 Justice from Greenwood just earlier this month for their legacy 0:14:06.720 --> 0:14:10.520 festivals celebrating one hundred and three years since the Tulsa 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:14.720 race massacre, and they were really hopeful about the possibilities 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:18.920 of the Oklahoma Supreme Court doing right by the survivors 0:14:19.080 --> 0:14:21.920 and the descendants. And so I was in DC when 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:24.960 the decision came down that they won't even get their 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:28.800 day in court, which is wild and it's even wilder 0:14:28.840 --> 0:14:33.200 because now there is a mountain or mountains of evidence 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.640 that demonstrate that this did actually happen. And I also 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:39.880 think a lot about the fact that when we hear 0:14:40.080 --> 0:14:43.720 about descendants, when you meet them, like Mother Randall, who 0:14:43.720 --> 0:14:45.720 I had the opportunity to meet while I was there, 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.280 she's a descendant, she's one hundred plus now, but it's 0:14:49.320 --> 0:14:52.520 because she was a child when this happened. So the 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:57.120 children who witnessed, experienced and survived this never got a 0:14:57.240 --> 0:15:01.840 chance to go before authorities and legal authorities and testify 0:15:01.960 --> 0:15:06.280 and share that this crime happened to them and their community. 0:15:06.480 --> 0:15:08.960 And the fact that they won't even get an opportunity 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:12.960 to present that before a jury of their peers is 0:15:13.000 --> 0:15:17.040 really really disheartening and just a reflection of how deeply 0:15:17.080 --> 0:15:20.440 important the issue of reparations of reparative justice is. 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.800 Yeah, I know that everyone who listens this podcast is 0:15:23.920 --> 0:15:28.560 educated enough to know about the Tulsa massacre, but would 0:15:28.600 --> 0:15:31.600 love it if you would just give us like a 0:15:31.680 --> 0:15:34.640 little bit of background on it, for just the people 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:36.400 who are not completely read in on it. 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.560 The Tulsa race massacre, which, by the way, I think 0:15:39.640 --> 0:15:43.280 is still an adequate term to describe what happened. There 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.240 was a thriving black community in Greenwood, a neighborhood in 0:15:47.240 --> 0:15:52.000 Tulsa that had actually arrived as formally enslaved people who 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:56.000 were enslaved by many of what are called the civilized tribes, 0:15:56.160 --> 0:15:58.640 the Native Americans, who were made to participate in a 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.720 trail of tears. Folks don't know is that as they 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.520 were participating in a trail of tears, many of those 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:08.520 tribes brought along with them enslaved Black Africans. And so 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:12.400 those folks then later become the founders of a community 0:16:12.480 --> 0:16:14.560 and a city named Tulsa, but the founders of a 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.440 community that blossoms in to what affectionately becomes called Black 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.360 Wall Street. And in nineteen twenty one, over two days 0:16:22.360 --> 0:16:25.560 May thirtieth and thirty first, one of the most horrific 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:31.000 acts of domestic terrorism occurs whereby there are rapes, there 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:36.280 are bombings, burnings, hangings, shootings, and death of all of 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:39.440 those black residents who were in that community just because 0:16:39.440 --> 0:16:42.680 they had become so successful. And so part of what's 0:16:42.720 --> 0:16:46.240 happened over the years is one it's lived as a mythology, 0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:49.600 only really held together in some ways. Shout out to 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.760 the great sociologist Charlie Wilson and a GAP band because 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:54.560 they keep it. 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:55.120 In their name. 0:16:55.400 --> 0:16:58.560 Greenwood, Archer and Pine is what GAP stands for for 0:16:58.600 --> 0:17:00.480 people who know the Gap Band, and one of the 0:17:00.840 --> 0:17:03.200 most famous songs is called You Dropped a Bomb on Me. 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:06.800 They codify it in music as a way to say 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.160 and keep the memory alive that this happened to the community. 0:17:10.280 --> 0:17:13.840 Charlie Wilson and that band are descendants of the Greenwood 0:17:13.920 --> 0:17:17.240 massacre and the Tulsa Race massacre. And so part of 0:17:17.280 --> 0:17:21.120 what's happened in recent time is that once Miss Breonna 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:25.680 Taylor and mister Floyd lost their lives, there became renewed 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:29.600 attention to this issue. As the one hundred year anniversary 0:17:29.920 --> 0:17:32.520 was approaching, and so there's been a lot of action 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:34.520 around it. But in the last four years it was 0:17:34.560 --> 0:17:37.760 getting some forward momentum for the very first time, and 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.320 the Oklahoma Supreme Court has decided that there's not enough 0:17:41.359 --> 0:17:44.000 of a case from their judgment that it warrants them 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:45.760 having an actual day in court. 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:50.200 Yeah, it's just heartbreaking. And there aren't that many survivors 0:17:50.320 --> 0:17:51.440 right exactly. 0:17:51.560 --> 0:17:56.040 There are only right now three living survivors. And then 0:17:56.160 --> 0:17:58.640 when you go to the community, which is really deep, 0:17:58.680 --> 0:18:00.840 and I encourage all of the folks who are listening 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.159 to us to, you know, take some time and go 0:18:03.280 --> 0:18:07.320 visit Tulsa, because most all of the people who survived 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.760 it stayed, they didn't leave, and so there was also 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:13.359 like you go into the museum that they have there, 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.920 and there's, for example, a letter that a friend who's 0:18:16.960 --> 0:18:21.119 living in Detroit writes to a survivor in Tulsa says, 0:18:21.480 --> 0:18:24.200 you know, I read in the Chicago Defender about how 0:18:24.280 --> 0:18:28.000 this happened down there, and here's forty dollars for a 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:29.840 bus ticket that I'll get you to Detroit. Come on 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:32.680 up here. And he writes back and he says, thank 0:18:32.720 --> 0:18:35.240 you so much. I really appreciate that you care enough 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:37.399 about me, But I'm sending the money back to you 0:18:37.440 --> 0:18:40.439 because I'm staying in Tulsa. So that's also just to 0:18:40.480 --> 0:18:43.919 say that people stayed. So most all of the folks 0:18:43.920 --> 0:18:47.080 who are native to Tulsa, the black natives of Tulsa, 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:49.920 not only are many of them Creak Indian, but also 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.800 they never left, so they're still there. So there's a 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:56.000 community of repair that is still there that has been 0:18:56.040 --> 0:18:58.639 waiting for over now one hundred and three years. 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:03.720 This Supreme Court terrible, is not anything new. But is 0:19:03.760 --> 0:19:06.879 there any way to go around them? Is there anything 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:12.800 that these survivors can do? Is there any other legal recourse? 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.440 Yeah, one of the recourses that we have, and this 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:19.119 is part of what happens in this country, is that 0:19:19.160 --> 0:19:22.080 we no longer have government and there is not necessarily 0:19:22.359 --> 0:19:25.600 public education around civic engagement. But we know, as you know, 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:28.440 there are three branches of government. Only one of them 0:19:28.640 --> 0:19:31.920 is the judicial. The other one is the legislative, which, 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:34.960 of course, we can think about our elected officials passing, 0:19:35.000 --> 0:19:38.919 for example, the Tolsa Race Massacred Descendants Fund. 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:41.400 That could be an act that is passed in Congress. 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:43.720 Okay. The other thing that we know is that there's 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:47.280 the executive branch where you have the president, the White House, 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:50.520 the Vice president, and their entire staff that can execute 0:19:50.640 --> 0:19:54.000 either orders or actions on behalf of this community. And 0:19:54.040 --> 0:19:55.720 so one of the things that I've been up to 0:19:55.880 --> 0:19:58.639 for the last four or five years, working with Congressoman 0:19:58.720 --> 0:20:02.040 Barbara Lee, is trying to encourage the bid To Harris 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.800 administration to more publicly use the bully paulpit to bring 0:20:05.880 --> 0:20:09.800 more attention and public awareness to these issues, because underneath 0:20:09.880 --> 0:20:12.960 the horror and the terror is a very positive story 0:20:13.000 --> 0:20:16.080 because these folks, like Mother Randall have kept the faith. 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.159 They still believe that America can do right. Can you 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:22.720 imagine you watch your whole community be bombed and terrorized 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.840 for two entire days, then many of them were put 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:30.360 in internment camps afterwards, which many folks don't know. And 0:20:30.440 --> 0:20:33.560 fast forward after being over one hundred years old, you 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.760 still believe in the American justice system, You still believe 0:20:37.160 --> 0:20:40.480 in the American legislative system. They still vote, you know 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.000 what I mean. And so it's really about getting the 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:46.160 right light shed on this issue because when you find 0:20:46.200 --> 0:20:49.080 out most Americans find out about this, and their hearts 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:51.880 go out to these folks, their hearts break for them. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:53.920 And the question is why. 0:20:53.760 --> 0:20:57.960 Has the Bida Harris administration not shined an appropriate light 0:20:58.119 --> 0:21:01.639 or reparative justice across the nation where so many communities 0:21:01.680 --> 0:21:05.240 are activating based on the idea of democracy, working and 0:21:05.280 --> 0:21:07.400 trying to protect and defend that democracy. 0:21:07.800 --> 0:21:09.240 Why have we not seen the. 0:21:09.200 --> 0:21:13.200 President travel down after this announcement, came out and sit 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:15.720 with mother Randall and just comfort her. That is it 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.080 taking a position that's just recognizing the compassionate humanity, and 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:23.320 then it in charges the media to follow the story, 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:23.920 you know. 0:21:24.200 --> 0:21:25.200 Right right? 0:21:25.359 --> 0:21:28.000 And also, I mean I think the position that they 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:31.440 should have their day in court is not a controversial position. 0:21:31.920 --> 0:21:34.480 It's a very you know, it's a very American belief, 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:36.560 you know, like we're not saying that the court is 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:39.800 going to be in your favor, but you, after knowing 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:42.800 what happened, you should be entitled to your day in court. 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.840