WEBVTT - Cops & Klan 0:00:01.680 --> 0:00:02.880 Wo Zone media. 0:00:07.720 --> 0:00:10.480 Before her children even knew their mother had been killed, 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.280 the federal government was already busy rewriting the story of 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:18.640 her death. She had lived a good life. 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:20.400 Though not a long one. 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:23.919 She was happily remarried after a divorce, and despite the 0:00:23.960 --> 0:00:27.240 demands of motherhood, she went back to school in her thirties. 0:00:29.000 --> 0:00:31.960 People who loved her described her as a Christian woman, 0:00:32.640 --> 0:00:38.320 a devoted mother, and someone who believed passionately in loving everyone, 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:41.000 so much so that she put that belief into action. 0:00:42.600 --> 0:00:45.720 And as the FBI commandeered the investigation into her death, 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:49.319 her grieving spouse was left trying to explain what had 0:00:49.320 --> 0:00:55.520 happened to her children. Her youngest was just six years old. 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:59.200 She had both hands on the steering wheel when she was. 0:00:59.200 --> 0:00:59.840 Shot in the head. 0:01:01.240 --> 0:01:03.360 She was dead before her car came to a stop, 0:01:04.120 --> 0:01:06.320 crashing not far from the spot where her killer had 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:10.039 fired at her. The person she was traveling with that 0:01:10.200 --> 0:01:15.360 day was miraculously not hit. There should have been no 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:19.080 way to spin it. The investigation revealed the shooter and 0:01:19.120 --> 0:01:24.920 his motive almost immediately, but federal officials seated doubt, planning 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:28.160 stories in the media that she was sexually immoral that 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:31.080 she neglected her children, that her spouse was a person 0:01:31.120 --> 0:01:36.680 with questionable associates, she was an extremist, an outside agitator, 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:40.080 she had dangerous left wing politics, and she might even 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:45.360 be a communist. She was sick, degenerate, and she brought 0:01:45.360 --> 0:01:50.560 this on herself. Of course, the FBI director spreading these 0:01:50.600 --> 0:01:54.040 lies about her knew they weren't true. But in March 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:58.040 of nineteen sixty five, Jay Edgar Hoover was desperate to 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.280 distract from the fact that one of the clans man 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:03.360 who killed Viola the USO, was on his pay room. 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:25.240 I'm Molly Conger, and this is We're gude of guys. 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:30.880 This is not the story I promised you last week. 0:02:31.760 --> 0:02:37.000 I'm so sorry. I'm sure you already guessed that. I know. 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.200 I ended last week's episode with a teaser for something 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:43.639 fairly specific, and I will write that episode. 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:44.880 I will. 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:48.400 It's poor form to complain about a job I do 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.880 in my pajamas, but it's not easy writing what is 0:02:51.960 --> 0:02:54.720 essentially a twenty five page research paper on a new 0:02:54.760 --> 0:02:58.239 topic every week. The only way it works is to 0:02:58.280 --> 0:02:59.040 write about something. 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:00.080 I'm genuinely. 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:03.520 And I'm so lucky that I get to do that, 0:03:05.400 --> 0:03:08.440 but my heart's got to be in it, and this 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:15.919 week my heart was troubled. I usually finished writing pretty 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:19.359 late on a Monday night Tuesday morning, if we're being 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:23.880 specific about it. My editor Rory really only gets about 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:25.920 a day and a half with the file to clean 0:03:25.960 --> 0:03:27.640 it up, put the music in it, and bed the 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:30.560 audio clips and work whatever magic that he does that. 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:31.880 Makes it sound good. 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:35.320 And the edit I listened to on Wednesday afternoon is 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:39.040 the one you hear Thursday morning. It's a tight timeline, 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:41.160 so I really have to lock in on what I'm 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.600 going to research and write about pretty early in the week. 0:03:45.760 --> 0:03:47.480 And obviously I knew what I was going to be 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.400 working on for this week's episode because it was a 0:03:50.400 --> 0:03:53.160 continuation of the story from last week's. 0:03:52.880 --> 0:03:59.720 Episode until it wasn't On Tuesdays, I've usually been up 0:03:59.760 --> 0:04:03.440 most of the night, so I don't get a lot done. 0:04:03.560 --> 0:04:05.119 I try to run all my errands for the week 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.839 on Wednesdays, but by Thursday I'm already starting to feel 0:04:08.840 --> 0:04:11.240 like I'm running out of time and it's way too 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:14.040 late to change my plans. I've got to lock myself 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.520 in my office and focus on the topic I've chosen. 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:20.559 I was supposed to be writing about that Nazi serial killer. 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:26.320 I promised you, But this past week we all watched 0:04:26.360 --> 0:04:30.480 a woman die on Wednesday, and I still ran my errands. 0:04:31.320 --> 0:04:34.240 It's the only day I have time for it. But 0:04:34.279 --> 0:04:36.160 I went about my business in kind of a daze, 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:42.120 and I wept for her, for her wife, for her children, 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:44.320 for all of us, for the world we have to 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:47.760 live in. But we all still had to get up 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:50.640 and go to work the next day. So on Thursday 0:04:50.680 --> 0:04:52.719 and I sat at my computer and I kept taking 0:04:52.760 --> 0:04:58.240 notes for the episode I was trying to write. On Friday, 0:04:58.480 --> 0:05:00.000 more video of that murder came out. 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:02.160 I watched it. 0:05:03.680 --> 0:05:08.279 Maybe you did too. If you didn't, you don't have to. 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:12.000 There's no moral requirement for you to bear witness in 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:12.360 that way. 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:13.160 I promise you. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.240 But I did because I always do. And it hit 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.360 me pretty hard for the obvious reasons. Right, I was 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:27.080 watching a murder. I find myself doing that not infrequently 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:30.440 in this line of work, and it never gets easier, 0:05:31.800 --> 0:05:39.080 and if it does, I'll quit. But something in particular 0:05:39.240 --> 0:05:44.400 was stuck rattling around in my head. In the moments 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:48.719 before a federal agent shot and killed Renee Good, she 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:54.080 smiled at him, and she said, that's fine, dude, I'm. 0:05:53.920 --> 0:05:54.560 Not mad at you. 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.280 That's a striking moment, even just on its own. She 0:06:01.360 --> 0:06:06.440 really wasn't angry. You can see her face. She's brave, 0:06:07.360 --> 0:06:11.000 she's determined, but she's telling the truth. 0:06:12.520 --> 0:06:13.240 She isn't mad. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:21.520 Her presence there wasn't out of anger but love. She 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:26.200 isn't mad at this particular man. She's doing her part 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:31.160 against an injustice that's bigger than either of them. This 0:06:31.200 --> 0:06:34.800 isn't a show about current events. This isn't a show 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:38.599 about the news. This isn't an episode about Renee Good. 0:06:39.640 --> 0:06:41.560 That's not what I write about, and that's not what 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:45.520 you're here to listen to. But it isn't my fault 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:49.800 that history rhymes. I wish it didn't. I wish the 0:06:49.839 --> 0:06:54.680 decade I've spent writing about white supremacist violence wasn't increasingly 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:56.960 relevant in the way I think about current events. 0:06:58.839 --> 0:06:59.360 But it is. 0:07:01.440 --> 0:07:05.240 And when I watched that video, I didn't just see 0:07:05.240 --> 0:07:11.400 Renee Good. I saw Viola Luzo. And when I heard 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.560 Renee Good speak her last words, I didn't just hear her. 0:07:15.840 --> 0:07:21.080 I heard Michael Schwerner. Michael Schwerner, James Cheney, and Andrew 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:23.880 Goodman were field workers with the Congress of Racial Equality, 0:07:24.960 --> 0:07:27.240 and on June twenty first, nineteen sixty four, they were 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.440 murdered by a mob of klansmen that included members of 0:07:30.480 --> 0:07:37.320 the local sheriff's department. When Alton Wayne Roberts pulled Michael 0:07:37.320 --> 0:07:41.160 Schwerner from his car, he asked him, are you that 0:07:41.360 --> 0:07:45.240 N word lover? The two men were face to face, 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:49.400 just inches apart. The klansmen had both of his hands 0:07:49.400 --> 0:07:52.160 on Schwerner's shoulders, having spun him around to look him 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:56.320 in the eye, and Schwerner, a twenty four year old 0:07:56.360 --> 0:07:59.600 Jewish social worker from New York City, looked back at 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.360 that clan and he said, Sir, I know just how 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:10.400 you feel. He was calm, he wasn't angry. He was 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:11.840 trying to start a conversation. 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:12.920 I think. 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:16.400 I guess we can't really know what kind of dialogue 0:08:16.400 --> 0:08:18.200 he was trying to have, because that's as far as 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:22.040 he got. The klansman still had one hand on one 0:08:22.080 --> 0:08:25.320 of Schwerner's shoulders when he used his other hand to 0:08:25.400 --> 0:08:28.960 draw his gun, and he shot Michael Schwerner point blank 0:08:29.000 --> 0:08:33.800 in the chest, killing him instantly. And I thought, too 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:36.840 of Margaret Ann Nott, who was just sixteen years old 0:08:36.840 --> 0:08:41.480 when she was killed in Butler, Alabama, in nineteen seventy one. 0:08:41.559 --> 0:08:44.040 She was sitting on the ground with her eyes closed 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:46.240 in silent prayer when she was hit by the car 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:49.440 that rammed into the permitted protest she was participating in 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:54.000 that morning. As Margaret lay on the ground dying, she 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:59.520 repeated over and over again, I died for freedom. 0:09:00.320 --> 0:09:03.520 I died for freedom. 0:09:03.559 --> 0:09:06.679 And I thought too of Talisian non Kai Mech, who, 0:09:06.679 --> 0:09:08.800 along with Ricky John Best, was one of two men 0:09:08.840 --> 0:09:11.120 who died trying to protect two teenage girls on a 0:09:11.160 --> 0:09:15.520 train in Portland in twenty seventeen. A Somali immigrant, a 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:19.080 young black Muslim girl wearing her hyjab, was being threatened, 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.440 and those strangers gave their lives to stop a neo 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:29.160 Nazi from hurting her. And after Tualisian was stabbed, as 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:31.160 he lay there bleeding out in the lap of a 0:09:31.200 --> 0:09:34.920 stranger on the floor of the train, his last words were, 0:09:36.440 --> 0:09:44.240 tell everyone on this train, I love them. I'm not 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:49.440 mad at you. I know just how you feel. I 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:56.160 died for freedom. Tell everyone on this train, I love them. 0:09:56.559 --> 0:10:00.240 I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you. 0:10:01.960 --> 0:10:04.840 I know just how you feel. I'm not mad at you. 0:10:07.880 --> 0:10:12.160 Their words, all of them, the last words of people 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:15.760 killed by Nazis and klansmen and agents of the state 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:18.920 who served the same ends as those Nazis and those clansmen, 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.440 were drowning out my own thoughts. And I was reading 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.959 and writing and trying to do my silly little job, 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:29.040 trying to think my own thoughts. But I couldn't hear 0:10:29.280 --> 0:10:32.280 my own thoughts over the sound of the blood pounding 0:10:32.320 --> 0:10:37.240 in my head. And it sounded like Renee Good. It 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:38.680 sounded like Michael Schwerner. 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:40.160 It sounded like. 0:10:40.120 --> 0:10:44.440 Delesian and Margaret and Ricky and Viola and Heather Higher 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:48.079 and so many people who woke up on a day 0:10:48.080 --> 0:10:51.920 they didn't know as their last, and they did something brave, 0:10:53.600 --> 0:10:58.280 not because they were angry or violent, but because they 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.520 loved the very idea of love so much. 0:11:04.200 --> 0:11:05.680 And I didn't write a word that day. 0:11:09.440 --> 0:11:11.960 On Saturday night, I was sitting in my office with 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:14.240 a book in my lap and thirty eight browser tabs 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.120 open on my computer, still trying to figure out how 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:20.400 I'm going to write six thousand words about anything this week. 0:11:21.920 --> 0:11:24.280 And I saw a video of a vigil for Renee 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.319 Good held on a rainy Friday evening in New Hampshire. 0:11:29.920 --> 0:11:33.559 Rob Hirschfeld, the Bishop of the Episcopal Church of New Hampshire, 0:11:34.320 --> 0:11:37.200 must have spent the day hearing the same inescapable litany 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.520 of names that was pounding in my own head, because 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:44.600 he reminded the crowd in New Hampshire of Jonathan Daniels, 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.280 a New Hampshire native who died in a corner store 0:11:47.320 --> 0:11:50.560 in a tiny town outside Montgomery, Alabama, in August of 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:56.679 nineteen sixty five. Daniels was a seminarian, still a year 0:11:56.720 --> 0:11:59.480 away from finishing his studies before he could pursue ordination, 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:03.120 and he'd spent the spring semester of nineteen sixty five 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:07.439 working in Selma, Alabama. He returned to Alabama during his 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:12.200 summer break that year to register voters, tutor children, and 0:12:12.280 --> 0:12:16.320 help black families get to church. He went back to 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:19.120 Alabama that summer to do what he felt God had 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:24.600 called him to. When the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee staged 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.160 a protest outside of a whites only department store in 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.080 Fort Deposit, Alabama. He was one of thirty protesters who 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:35.560 were arrested. After six days in jail. The whole group 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.600 was released, but they were left stranded in the middle 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.760 of nowhere. While they were waiting there for the ride 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.240 back to town, the group decided to send a small delegation 0:12:46.360 --> 0:12:50.960 to a nearby corner store to buy some cold sodas 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:54.480 they'd all spent six days sweating in an Alabama jail 0:12:54.480 --> 0:12:56.040 and this was one of the only stores in the 0:12:56.080 --> 0:13:00.880 area that would serve black customers. Jonathan Daniels and father 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:03.600 Richard Morris Row walked to the store with Joyce Bailey 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:08.200 and Ruby Sales, two black teenage girls, both activists with 0:13:08.280 --> 0:13:14.320 the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Ruby Sales, just seventeen years 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:20.040 old that summer, reached the door first. She recalled that 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:23.480 afternoon in an interview for a PBS documentary two decades later. 0:13:26.520 --> 0:13:31.360 And so when we got to the store, as we 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:37.240 approached a store and began to go up the steps, 0:13:39.200 --> 0:13:43.960 suddenly standing there was Tom Coleman that at that time 0:13:44.000 --> 0:13:46.600 I didn't know his name. I found that out later, 0:13:47.960 --> 0:13:51.880 and I recognized that he had a shotgun, and I 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:56.720 recognized that he was yelling something about black bitches. But 0:13:57.160 --> 0:14:00.960 in some real ways, with that confrontation, my mind kind 0:14:01.000 --> 0:14:05.520 of blinked, and I wasn't processing all that was happening. 0:14:05.960 --> 0:14:08.760 And so as I was trying to process the meaning 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:12.560 of this, suddenly I fell a tug because I was 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.640 in front and Jonathan was behind me, and I fell 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.440 a tug and someone and the next thing I knew, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:24.160 there was this blast and I had fallen down, and 0:14:24.840 --> 0:14:28.840 I remember thinking, God, this is what it feels like 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:33.800 to be dead. I thought I was dead, And just 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:37.440 as I was trying to sort of deal with being dead, 0:14:39.320 --> 0:14:41.280 I heard another shot go off. 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:45.920 But she wasn't dead. 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:49.800 The shot Ruby heard as she was lying on the 0:14:49.840 --> 0:14:53.960 ground contemplating her own apparent death was meant for Joyce, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.280 but Father Morris Row had wrapped himself around her as 0:14:58.280 --> 0:14:59.040 he turned to run. 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:02.200 Only Joyce got away. 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:07.000 The priest was shot in the back, leaving him unable 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:11.440 to walk for several years. The first blast from the 0:15:11.440 --> 0:15:17.120 deputy's shotgun, the one aimed straight at Ruby, hadn't touched her. 0:15:17.920 --> 0:15:20.720 The tug, she felt. The force that knocked her to 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:24.200 the ground, where she now lay covered in blood, had 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.040 been Jonathan Daniels pushing her out of the way, and 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:33.640 the blood pooling around her was his. He'd taken the 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.640 full force of the shotgun blast point blank, killing him instantly. 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:42.320 In the video of that rainy vigil in New Hampshire, 0:15:43.040 --> 0:15:46.960 Bishop Hirschfeld shared the story of Jonathan Daniel's death to 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:52.960 make it inescapably clear how serious he was as a 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:56.480 man of the cloth. Thoughts and prayers are sort of 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.960 his stock in trade. At a vigil like that one, 0:16:00.080 --> 0:16:03.440 that's all anyone really expects of him. His thoughts and 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:07.560 his prayers, that's all anyone really has to offer after 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:12.800 a tragedy. But the Bishop opened his remarks by wondering 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:18.840 whether the time for eloquent words had passed. Thoughts and 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:24.560 prayers are beautiful, but they aren't moving the needle. Jonathan 0:16:24.640 --> 0:16:27.360 Daniels didn't fight for civil rights with a strongly worded 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:30.200 letter or a signature on a petition, or a beautiful 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:34.120 sermon from the pulpit. He pressed his body into the 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:35.320 barrel of a shotgun. 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:42.760 I have told the clergy of the Episcopal Dioceis of 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:49.440 New Hampshire that we may be entering into that same witness, 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:54.600 and I've asked them to get their affairs in order. 0:16:56.240 --> 0:17:01.240 To make sure they have their wills written, because it 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:05.320 may be that now is no longer the time for statements, 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:12.600 but for us, with our bodies, to stand between the 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.639 powers of this world and the most vulnerable. 0:17:23.359 --> 0:17:26.040 I watched that video on Saturday night, and I thought 0:17:26.080 --> 0:17:27.840 about what it means to live in a world where 0:17:27.880 --> 0:17:31.000 his words are frightening and comforting to me an equal measure. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.280 I hope the clergy of the Episcopal Diocese of New 0:17:35.280 --> 0:17:39.400 Hampshire don't die the way Jonathan Daniels died. But more 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.560 than that, I wish we did not live in a 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:43.600 world where a shotgun is pointed. 0:17:43.280 --> 0:17:46.520 At a child. But we do, and they might. 0:17:46.960 --> 0:17:49.280 And while we try to untangle the factors that led 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.760 to the loaded gun aimed the most vulnerable among us, 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:55.280 maybe the best we can hope for is the courage 0:17:55.320 --> 0:18:00.359 to absorb some of that pain. I woke up Sday 0:18:00.359 --> 0:18:02.160 morning and the first thing I saw on my phone 0:18:02.240 --> 0:18:04.600 was the news that a synagogue in Mississippi had burned. 0:18:06.280 --> 0:18:10.359 Terrible news, the kind of news I will definitely follow 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.239 up on eventually. Whoever would do something like that as 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.960 almost certainly the kind of guy I write about or 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:17.640 will one day. 0:18:19.840 --> 0:18:20.560 I wasn't quite. 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:25.439 Awake yet, but I recognized the name of the synagogue. Impossible. Really, 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.399 I'm not Jewish, and I've never been to Mississippi, but 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.080 beth Is Reel Congregation and Jackson, Mississippi, sounded so familiar 0:18:34.040 --> 0:18:36.800 because it was bombed by the Klan in nineteen sixty seven. 0:18:38.359 --> 0:18:40.560 Everything old is new again. There's nothing new. 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:41.160 Under the sun. 0:18:41.240 --> 0:18:43.479 And I was running out of time to write something 0:18:43.560 --> 0:18:46.520 for this week's episode, and it felt like history was 0:18:46.600 --> 0:18:51.480 demanding to be acknowledged. I stared at my computer for 0:18:51.520 --> 0:18:55.240 a while, and on Sunday afternoon, I went to a 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:59.160 vigil for Renee Good. It was held in a little 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:04.120 park downtown. Hundreds of people filled the park, spilling out 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:10.120 onto the sidewalks. I saw friends and neighbors and strangers, 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:15.360 babies and strollers and old women pushing walkers. I saw 0:19:15.359 --> 0:19:17.879 the pastor of a church in my neighborhood wearing a 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:21.840 rainbow scarf and a warm smile. I saw the man 0:19:21.920 --> 0:19:25.240 running to be my congressman, standing quietly in the crowd, 0:19:26.040 --> 0:19:32.720 not campaigning, just present. People had homemade signs. Some of 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:36.160 them were impressive works of art, and others were hastily 0:19:36.200 --> 0:19:40.359 repurposed from the last protest. I saw a child wearing 0:19:40.400 --> 0:19:44.560 a cardboard box painted white. It was a little ice 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:49.639 cube costume with third graders against ice scrawled on the 0:19:49.680 --> 0:19:53.440 back in pink marker. And I saw an older woman 0:19:54.280 --> 0:19:57.600 carrying a single sheet of plain printer paper with a 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:01.480 phrase written on it in a black marker. It said, 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:08.400 you can't kill us all. That's what one of Renee's 0:20:08.400 --> 0:20:11.440 neighbors shouted at the ice agents, trying to chase off 0:20:11.480 --> 0:20:13.520 the crowd that gathered at the scene after she was 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.680 shot and killed. Instead of running away from the sound 0:20:17.680 --> 0:20:23.000 of gunfire, a crowd formed, bearing witness and demanding justice. 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:28.080 Before her body was even cold. They had just witnessed 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:34.200 an execution, and their answer was you can't kill us All. 0:20:36.680 --> 0:20:41.960 Those words spoken by an ordinary person in an extraordinary circumstance, 0:20:42.640 --> 0:20:45.480 traveled halfway across the country to be there on that sign, 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:50.720 a sign carried by another entirely ordinary person, an ordinary 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:55.520 person who recognizes that she too, now finds herself in 0:20:55.560 --> 0:21:02.040 an extraordinary circumstance. Normally I make careful notes of what 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:07.240 was said and who spoke. But I just paced, walking 0:21:07.359 --> 0:21:10.000 laps around that two hundred square foot patch of grass, 0:21:10.240 --> 0:21:12.800 feeling like the weight of history would crush us all. 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:18.680 Walking home afterwards, I knew I wouldn't write another word 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:23.240 that day. I don't have to walk down Fourth Street 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:27.920 to get home, but I always do. It's been almost 0:21:28.000 --> 0:21:30.359 nine years since a woman I never met was killed there. 0:21:31.800 --> 0:21:34.239 There's a purple bow tied around the post holding up 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:37.280 a no parking sign. Closest to the spot where she died. 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.560 The brick wall of the neighboring office building is covered 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:46.119 in chalk messages. I guess it's mostly sheltered from the 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:51.520 rain somehow, because it isn't derotating changing set of messages. 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.159 It's a monument. Maybe it's never rained at an angle 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:59.119 in that narrow street. I don't understand it. There are 0:21:59.200 --> 0:22:01.439 thousands of little men messages scrawled on the walls on 0:22:01.480 --> 0:22:05.720 either side of Fourth Street, but the biggest one reads. 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.280 Gone but not forgotten. And I know that. 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:12.240 One's been untouched for at least eight years. 0:22:13.600 --> 0:22:14.560 Maybe it's older than that. 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:18.200 But the first time I remember seeing it was when 0:22:18.200 --> 0:22:22.320 I stopped by on her birthday, May twenty ninth, twenty eighteen. 0:22:24.359 --> 0:22:27.760 Heather Hier would have been thirty three that day if 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:43.439 she hadn't been dead for a year. So after the 0:22:43.520 --> 0:22:46.400 vigil for Renee Good, I stopped on the street where 0:22:46.400 --> 0:22:49.119 Heather Higher was killed, and I stood in the street 0:22:49.160 --> 0:22:51.440 where she died with tears in my eyes. 0:22:51.680 --> 0:22:52.520 Until a car came. 0:22:54.000 --> 0:22:55.760 And then I remembered that we all still have to 0:22:55.800 --> 0:23:01.159 live in the world and go about our business. So 0:23:01.200 --> 0:23:03.760 what I mean to say is, as I'm writing this, 0:23:04.880 --> 0:23:09.240 it's Monday. I do most of my writing on Mondays. 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:13.080 It's a bad habit, but usually when I'm writing on Monday, 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:16.119 I've spent all week researching and taking notes, and I 0:23:16.320 --> 0:23:18.240 kind of have an idea what the words will be. 0:23:20.560 --> 0:23:23.520 But I woke up this morning and I started over. 0:23:25.000 --> 0:23:27.560 Because every time I sat down to research and take 0:23:27.640 --> 0:23:30.080 notes and plot out the story I was supposed to 0:23:30.080 --> 0:23:35.399 write this week, I cried. I cried for Renee and 0:23:35.480 --> 0:23:38.479 for Heather, and for Michael Schwerner and James Cheney and 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:41.680 Andrew Goodman and Mayola Luso and Talisian and Ricky and 0:23:41.720 --> 0:23:44.520 Margaret and Jonathan, and for all the martyrs of the 0:23:44.520 --> 0:23:47.920 struggle for freedom whose stories we don't know, not yet. 0:23:49.560 --> 0:23:51.879 I couldn't write a regular episode of my show because 0:23:51.920 --> 0:23:57.159 my heart demanded something else. I know this isn't a 0:23:57.200 --> 0:24:02.639 serious job. I make an entertainment product. I'm a journalist 0:24:02.640 --> 0:24:05.280 and a researcher, and I take my work very seriously. 0:24:06.680 --> 0:24:10.720 But I'm not delusional. This is a podcast. It's in 0:24:10.760 --> 0:24:13.360 your ear on your way to work, while you wash dishes, 0:24:14.080 --> 0:24:19.080 walk your dog. But if I didn't believe just a 0:24:19.119 --> 0:24:23.520 little bit this was important, I would have given up 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:26.879 by now. I wouldn't work this hard to write these 0:24:26.920 --> 0:24:30.080 stories if I didn't think there was some value in 0:24:30.240 --> 0:24:34.240 understanding the history of writing political violence, in fitting those 0:24:34.280 --> 0:24:37.959 pieces together to show the connections between these allegedly isolated, 0:24:38.040 --> 0:24:42.920 random acts of violence. As bewildering and terrifying and overwhelming 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:46.000 as things seem right now, I want to help you 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:49.080 see that these are not unprecedented times. 0:24:50.320 --> 0:24:52.320 They are, in fact, very. 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:58.200 Precedented, and the precedents are pretty dark, but there are 0:24:58.200 --> 0:25:02.359 things we can learn from the past, and there's comfort 0:25:02.440 --> 0:25:04.560 in knowing we aren't the first ones to walk into 0:25:04.560 --> 0:25:09.520 this darkness. So I didn't write the story I promised 0:25:09.520 --> 0:25:12.399 you last week. And I can't tell you anything you 0:25:12.440 --> 0:25:16.280 don't already know about what's in the news today. But 0:25:16.359 --> 0:25:19.760 I can tell you a little bit about a story 0:25:19.760 --> 0:25:23.600 that rhymes. I can tell you about the day Viola 0:25:23.640 --> 0:25:30.119 le Uso died. On March twenty fifth, nineteen sixty five, 0:25:30.880 --> 0:25:35.400 marchers poured into Montgomery, Alabama. The front of the march 0:25:35.440 --> 0:25:38.359 reached the capitol steps around noon, but the crowd of 0:25:38.400 --> 0:25:41.800 more than twenty five thousand stretched out over two miles long, 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:44.520 and the end of the march didn't arrive until more 0:25:44.560 --> 0:25:48.880 than an hour later. A program from the event lists 0:25:48.920 --> 0:25:52.119 more than a dozen speakers. There were speakers from the 0:25:52.160 --> 0:25:57.160 Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress for Racial Equality, the NAACP. 0:25:58.200 --> 0:26:01.879 John Lewis spoke on behalf of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. 0:26:02.800 --> 0:26:05.440 Nobel Peace Prize winner and New and Under Secretary General 0:26:05.520 --> 0:26:11.639 Ralph Bunch gave a speech. A Philip Randolph spoke the 0:26:11.720 --> 0:26:15.639 march from Selma to Montgomery had been hard fought. It 0:26:15.680 --> 0:26:20.359 took nineteen days to cross those fifty four miles. On 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:22.800 the first attempt, the march didn't even make it out 0:26:22.800 --> 0:26:26.760 of Selma. It ended the very day it began, a 0:26:26.840 --> 0:26:30.919 day that quickly became known as Bloody Sunday. Dozens of 0:26:30.960 --> 0:26:34.880 marchers were injured and seventeen were hospitalized after brutal beatings 0:26:34.880 --> 0:26:36.840 from the police waiting for them on the other side 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:41.320 of the Edmund Pettis Bridge. The second attempt was quickly 0:26:41.359 --> 0:26:45.199 foiled by a court injunction. Hours after the march was 0:26:45.240 --> 0:26:49.040 called off, a white mob attacked three Unitarian ministers who 0:26:49.040 --> 0:26:52.920 were in town for the march. James Reeb died from 0:26:52.960 --> 0:26:57.560