WEBVTT - Part One: The Black Panthers & Breakfast 0:00:00.880 --> 0:00:03.440 Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff. 0:00:03.480 --> 0:00:06.400 You're a weekly podcast that reminds you that there's people 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:10.560 who become cool by doing cool stuff. I think that 0:00:10.880 --> 0:00:13.600 people get the direction of it mixed up. It's not 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.720 that people are cool, so then they do cool stuff. 0:00:15.720 --> 0:00:20.560 People become cool by doing cool stuff. That's that sounds 0:00:20.640 --> 0:00:22.160 very dramatic because I have something in the back of 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:22.640 my throat. 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:24.240 Are you saying actions matter? 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:29.680 Yes? Cool? Yeah, it matters less what you believe in 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:35.280 more what you do cool. But what I have done 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:37.959 is have Joelle Monique on. 0:00:40.040 --> 0:00:40.680 What's up? 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:42.519 Ooray? 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:50.000 Oh man, I am here. I've been trying new things 0:00:50.120 --> 0:00:53.760 and they're going well. I'm probably the most hydrated and 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.480 well rested i've been in my adult life. So you know, 0:00:56.960 --> 0:00:57.680 happy things. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:01.480 Yeah. Your water bottle looks awesome. By the way, thank you. 0:01:01.680 --> 0:01:05.000 I got it for free. It is to drink my 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:08.040 daily recommended amount of water. I call it my emotional 0:01:08.040 --> 0:01:10.199 support water bottle. It is cleaned once a week. 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:13.800 I mean consistency. Love love to see it. 0:01:14.319 --> 0:01:18.960 Yeah, yeah, well I do. The rest of the intro 0:01:19.040 --> 0:01:22.640 credits the other voice. Oh yeah, Sophie, Sophie. 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:26.240 That's me. I am not well rested or hydrated. 0:01:28.000 --> 0:01:34.160 But I'm also here. Yes, I got really excited yesterday 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:36.000 I got these I've been hiking and so I got 0:01:36.040 --> 0:01:40.280 these like fancy electrolyte mixes that are not but I 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.160 tried it while I wasn't hiking yesterday and it's like 0:01:43.240 --> 0:01:47.080 the saltiest, craziest fucking thing. I don't know how I 0:01:47.080 --> 0:01:47.960 feel about it. 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:49.960 It's like when you drink a gatorade you absolutely don't 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.560 need one. You're like, what is It's like sugary sweet 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:56.080 but also kind of salty, and your body is like, 0:01:56.280 --> 0:01:57.920 we don't need it. It's too much. 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:00.400 It's just like, let's get through you as as quickly 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:00.920 as possible. 0:02:01.320 --> 0:02:04.440 That's one leftover gatory that you had when you were 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.040 like sick, and then you drink it and when you're 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.280 not sick and you're like, this is not it. 0:02:09.840 --> 0:02:10.600 I did not want this. 0:02:12.240 --> 0:02:14.240 Oh I like this intro. Wait, we have to do 0:02:14.280 --> 0:02:14.959 the rest of it. 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:20.040 Well, okay. So Ian is our audio engineer, and our 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:23.520 theme music was written for us by someone who is 0:02:24.320 --> 0:02:25.840 actually I was gonna say someone who's not a woman, 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:27.360 but she actually is a woman, but her name is 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:29.960 on woman. Yeah, that's who that's who. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:31.560 You just confuse this shit out of everybody. 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.360 And that's okay, I know, I know, but I'm going 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:37.160 to confuse everyone every even more. Joelle, you ever heard 0:02:37.160 --> 0:02:38.680 of breakfast? 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:41.680 I fucking love breakfast. 0:02:42.080 --> 0:02:46.800 Hell yeah, the day it's best. 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:49.600 It's like, it's so goddamn good. And I have lots 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:52.520 of thoughts on breakfast randomly. Oh listen, you don't know 0:02:52.520 --> 0:02:53.320 what you just got yourself. 0:02:54.440 --> 0:02:59.280 Okay, Today we're going to tell a story about breakfast, 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:03.959 about why it's important, especially to students. Are cool people 0:03:03.960 --> 0:03:06.120 today took a long, hard look at what was standing 0:03:06.200 --> 0:03:08.639 in the way of access to healthy breakfast for their community, 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:11.800 and they did something about it directly, feeding tens of 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:14.400 thousands of kids every day. I could see Joelle's face. 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:19.400 I know it is. And of course what was standing 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:21.760 in the way of these kids having a healthy breakfast 0:03:22.120 --> 0:03:28.919 were those classic problems capitalism and racism. Because today we're 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.040 going to talk about the Black Panther Party and we're 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:34.080 going to talk about their survival programs, the most famous 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.960 of which is their free breakfast program and how this 0:03:38.080 --> 0:03:42.360 pressured the US government into forcing into feeding free breakfast 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:42.760 to kids. 0:03:44.760 --> 0:03:49.040 But a great organization, Yeah, love us some black panthers. Yeah, 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:50.680 elite radicals. 0:03:52.240 --> 0:03:54.560 They h well, I want to hear somebody. Well, I'm 0:03:54.560 --> 0:03:56.440 going to do I actually wrote up a bunch about 0:03:56.480 --> 0:04:02.160 breakfast so we can talk about Yes, So there's a 0:04:02.280 --> 0:04:04.960 slogan breakfast is the most important meal of the day. 0:04:05.120 --> 0:04:06.840 I was like googling it and I was like, is 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:10.320 this true, and a not deep dives into the subject 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:12.760 tells me that it was a marketing slogan developed by 0:04:12.800 --> 0:04:15.720 John Harvey Kellogg in order to move breakfast Cereal, that 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:20.000 demon that I know, Yeah, fucker, you want to know 0:04:20.000 --> 0:04:22.120 more about him. There's a whole opposite of Cool People 0:04:22.240 --> 0:04:26.039 episode about him from behind the Bastards. So then people 0:04:26.080 --> 0:04:28.599 on the internet were like, see, since that's marketing slogan, 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.719 breakfast doesn't matter, we can all skip it. This is 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:36.320 not true. There's been a ton of studies and I 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:37.920 don't know how compares to lunch or dinner. So I'm 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:39.560 not gonna be like most important meal of the day, 0:04:40.040 --> 0:04:42.560 but it is one of the important meals of the day. 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:43.920 There are three. 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.840 Yeah, this is It's a pretty classic setup. Not going 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:53.800 for a long time. Skipping breakfast fucks with your circadian rhythm. 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:56.440 It increases your risk of heart disease, type tube diabetes, 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:59.640 and a bunch of other shit. But most important to 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.719 our what used to be anecdotal and is now preliminarily 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:08.799 proven eating breakfast provides short term cognition and memory benefits. 0:05:09.480 --> 0:05:11.960 So if you eat a healthy breakfast, you do better 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:17.600 in school. There's noticeable, like trackable changes improvements in math, spelling, reading, attention, 0:05:18.120 --> 0:05:21.880 and memory, as well as reduced frustration, increased attention. Kids 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.200 aren't falling asleep in class as much. So I hate 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:28.400 to say Kellogg was right, was wrong. 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.000 He was on He knew two things that you need 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.400 breakfast and that masturbation leads to evil. Yeah he was 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:40.200 right about one. 0:05:40.680 --> 0:05:48.120 Yeah, you take what you can get. No, no, yeah, 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:48.880 he would be. 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.920 So disappointed with our serial selections. He made to be 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:55.000 able to be the most bland thing. And then people 0:05:55.000 --> 0:05:56.800 were like, that is not it. What if we just 0:05:56.839 --> 0:05:59.159 made it out of sugar and corn. Sugar and corn, 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.520 everybody go for it, And now the cereal is just 0:06:02.600 --> 0:06:06.200 diabetes waiting to happen. It is a crazy wonderful trip. 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.800 If you have you gone back down the cereal aisle recently, 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:10.240 do you eat cereal for breakfast. 0:06:10.520 --> 0:06:12.680 I do. I eat cereal for breakfast, and I like, 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.080 I usually pick. I have like a really not impressive 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.400 grocery store available to me in West Virginia, and so 0:06:20.440 --> 0:06:25.680 I pick the like least the like least sugary, but 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.000 still like a major brand thing that I can find, 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:29.440 you know. 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:32.560 Okay, okay, are we talking like a great nuts? 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:35.919 I usually eat like Life or Crispecs. 0:06:37.160 --> 0:06:39.440 Okay, all right, classics. 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.080 Classics, Yeah, what about you. 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.920 I don't eat cereal for breakfast anymore. I was becoming 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.960 in eggs and toast girl when I do the calculations 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.760 on the calories and I said, my god, it's so delicious. 0:06:51.800 --> 0:06:54.240 It's such a classic breakfast. I didn't realize I needed 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:55.760 to be a farmer working in a field all day 0:06:55.800 --> 0:06:59.880 to eat it. It's really annoying because it's so fucking good. 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:05.039 So now I do, uh either have like fresh fruit 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:07.160 or I'll do like a green smoothie. 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:07.839 Nice. 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:12.240 But before I became the person I am today, I 0:07:12.280 --> 0:07:15.080 was just a stoner who was poor, and oh my god, 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:16.840 cereal is so great because you could eat it for 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:21.320 any meal. It's also like five dollars max, right, Or 0:07:21.680 --> 0:07:22.920 it was when I was buying cereal. I don't know 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:26.240 what the prices are now, but so if you accidentally 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:27.920 ate too much, you were like, not a big deal. 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:29.280 Now I'm gonna go buy no. 0:07:29.760 --> 0:07:33.080 Dollar box c Cereal is actually like a gluten free 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:36.000 as well, which is good for people who can't eat gluten. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:40.280 Yeah, absolutely nice. Love that I think of cereal as 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:40.840 a dessert. 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:46.960 So where I was going was, oh, Oreos is my 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:48.000 supreme cereal. 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:50.920 I've never heard of this. 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:55.080 Oh my, Margaret, it is so divine. 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:59.120 It's like it's just like eating ice cream for breakfast. 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:02.560 I scared myself healthier. 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:07.520 One time when I had no money, but I had 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.400 these leftover cakes from a like event that no one 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:12.240 came to. It was a very not happy period of 0:08:12.240 --> 0:08:13.840 my life. I like didn't have enough money for food, 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.160 but I like through this like anniversary event for this 0:08:17.200 --> 0:08:19.720 publisher I worked with, and like no one came, and 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:22.280 so I had these two fucking cakes. And I had 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.000 a science experiment called how many consecutive meals can I 0:08:25.040 --> 0:08:28.800 replace with cake? Oh no, Margaret, the answer was five. 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:33.400 That is you know about that? That feels right? I 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:36.240 bet at four you were you were like, this fifth 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:39.080 meal is probably a bad eye. Yeah, yeah, but I 0:08:39.160 --> 0:08:41.920 absolutely must. When I was in a very similar situation, 0:08:41.960 --> 0:08:44.280 I was living in a two bedroom with at one 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:49.040 point thirteen people. It was a lovely, wild experience in 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:52.240 the early twenties. Many of them were, you know, like 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:54.640 sex workers, punks. I worked at a pizza place. 0:08:55.040 --> 0:08:57.480 Yeah, so you bring home the pizza and everyone loves 0:08:57.480 --> 0:08:58.240 you every night. 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:00.360 And it was the best. It was taken baysic organic, 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:01.160 taking baked pizza. 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.679 It was like the nicest things together. 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:07.920 Okay, okay, Marker, Honestly, it was right. It was just 0:09:08.160 --> 0:09:10.160 queer Kans as far as I could see, all of 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.679 us poor. We got one guy's dad who was a 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:14.800 sweet old farmer who did not understand his gay son 0:09:14.840 --> 0:09:17.560 but loved him regardless. And he was like, yes, I 0:09:17.600 --> 0:09:19.520 will sign this lease with these two kids you met 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:23.079 from in college six months ago. How did it happen, 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:24.760 I don't know, but it was magical. It was a 0:09:24.760 --> 0:09:28.840 great apartment while it lasted. But yeah, we would like 0:09:29.360 --> 0:09:32.400 make pizzas at night. Someone would get a handle of 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.600 vodka because it costs nineteen ninety nine and we could 0:09:34.600 --> 0:09:36.000 definitely get that much money together. 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:39.440 Yeah, and then we would always money for vodka. 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:41.880 The definitely was always ready for vodka. It's cold in 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:45.160 the Midwest, and this morning we would eat left over 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.839 cold pizza. And it's also a great breakfast. 0:09:49.040 --> 0:09:52.320 It truly is. I think that the breakfast we're going 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:54.160 to talk about are going to be healthier than what 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:55.560 you and I have. Just so glad. 0:09:55.960 --> 0:09:59.120 But you mentioned children needing to be educated, so I'm 0:09:59.120 --> 0:09:59.839 glad that they're brea. 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:06.280 Yeah. So, if there's one thing that black activists have 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:08.560 learned over the centuries in the US, it's that learning 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:11.960 and education can be weapons in the fight against racism 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.800 if they're wielded intentionally and not just part of recuperation 0:10:15.920 --> 0:10:20.240 into the existing system. Right, And we see that again 0:10:20.280 --> 0:10:23.960 and again, which is to say, sometimes people look at 0:10:23.960 --> 0:10:26.199 the survival programs of the Black Panther Party and they 0:10:26.200 --> 0:10:28.839 write them off as like sort of charity or propaganda, 0:10:29.000 --> 0:10:31.439 kind of like a like a side thing to make 0:10:31.480 --> 0:10:34.679 them puzzles popular, compared to the real work of running 0:10:34.679 --> 0:10:38.840 around with guns but providing food for black children, preparing 0:10:38.880 --> 0:10:40.960 them for education that they could wield the better themselves 0:10:41.000 --> 0:10:45.480 in their community, empower people to confront capitalism directly. It 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.959 also took an armed militant movement to set up that infrastructure, 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.600 so I don't want to. I mostly get mad at 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:53.640 the fake people keep trying to come up with these 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.200 dichotomies where they're like, oh, you're either like down with 0:10:56.240 --> 0:10:59.120 the militant struggle or you're like doing charity or whatever. 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.240 It's like it took one to make the other happen. 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:08.120 Yes, yeah, they're completely merged you. The last month on 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.960 he recommended such a lovely book that I have cherished 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:15.640 called this Nonviolent Shit Will Get You Killed, Yeah, which 0:11:15.679 --> 0:11:19.840 is everything to me, and it's been because it's definitely 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:22.599 you're kind of taught. I mean especially I don't know 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:24.920 what children are taught in schools now, but growing up 0:11:25.080 --> 0:11:29.120 in like the early aughts, specifically during Black History Months, 0:11:29.120 --> 0:11:31.520 when you got to learn about Martin Luther King Junior 0:11:31.559 --> 0:11:33.439 and what he was doing and Malcolm X and the 0:11:33.480 --> 0:11:35.720 bad shit he was doing. Yeah, they're like that guy 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:39.000 was dangerous and that's definitely how you don't want to 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:42.080 do it. This guy literally loved the Lord and that 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:44.880 is why we like him every and when he died, 0:11:44.960 --> 0:11:47.120 everyone thought he was a Saintan's so great, Like really, 0:11:47.120 --> 0:11:50.559 what this was? The lesson I learned from like zero 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.520 to twenty two. It was crazy how long that narrative 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:56.439 was dictated to me. And you really, or at least 0:11:56.440 --> 0:11:59.520 I'll speak for myself, I really felt like, Okay, if 0:11:59.559 --> 0:12:03.520 you are non violent for a long enough, attitudes will change. 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.080 And especially you know, in the nineties you've got Bill Clinton, 0:12:07.120 --> 0:12:09.360 who people used to very seriously say it was the 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.880 first black president, a mind blowing time. Yeah, but they 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.600 like the thought was, well, we're doing a lot better 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.440 because of the non violent stuff. But of course that 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.320 completely ignored the drug war that was happening. It ignored 0:12:22.320 --> 0:12:24.440 the censorship that was happening across a lot of black arts, 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.600 but very specifically rap. It was a crazy time where 0:12:28.600 --> 0:12:32.120 people were constantly lying to us. And it's interesting now 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:36.720 I sort of can't shake knowing what I know. Violence 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:42.079 is necessary. It's not corded, it's not invited, but it 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:45.800 is necessary to defend ourselves because you know, if we 0:12:45.840 --> 0:12:48.880 look at the two heroes we started with, both ended 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:54.760 up dead. Didn't matter how peaceful or you know, prepared 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.320 they were to incite violence if necessary, they were both murdered. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:13:00.840 And so yeah, to your point, you eat both. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:03.280 Yeah, and like and there's a lot of and this 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.520 gets into something that I'm a little bit just going 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.280 from what I've heard people talking about. It's not part 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:09.520 of the script, but like there's a lot of talk 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:14.520 about how as Martin Luther King became more and more 0:13:14.960 --> 0:13:18.320 like aware and in connection with militant movements, and Malcolm 0:13:18.559 --> 0:13:22.000 X was also moving like more towards in some ways 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.200 a moderate position, not an unarmed position, but a like 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.319 he moved away from the Nation of Islam and towards 0:13:26.320 --> 0:13:29.959 actual Islam, and like you know, and he's he stopped 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:35.320 being as explicitly whatever anyway. So this is possibly also 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.120 why they like had to die, right, is because this 0:13:38.280 --> 0:13:40.880 stopped being a dichotomy to some degree. This is a 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.040 little bit off the cuff. There's probably people who know 0:13:43.040 --> 0:13:43.839 more about that, but. 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:46.040 No, no, but you're one hundred percent right. I mean, 0:13:46.160 --> 0:13:48.000 I'm not a scholar in it either. But if you 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:50.040 look at some of the especially the very late like 0:13:50.320 --> 0:13:54.280 MLK days, Like there's a video where he's walking through 0:13:54.880 --> 0:13:58.520 the streets of Chicago and he's struck as a dude 0:13:58.559 --> 0:14:00.920 from the South about how sag he called Chicago the 0:14:00.960 --> 0:14:04.200 most segregated city in America, and it was and in 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.319 many ways still is. And while he's walking through, a 0:14:07.320 --> 0:14:09.160 bunch of white people come out the start throwing things 0:14:09.200 --> 0:14:13.160 at him, and you can I mean, he's he's like enraged, 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:15.440 he's so angry. This is like he's been fighting for 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:18.000 so long, he's been peacefuls for so long, and you 0:14:18.720 --> 0:14:22.560 can't help but understand, like, my god, it's not working. 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:24.600 It's the vibe you get, you know, like it is 0:14:24.760 --> 0:14:27.880 just peacely marching is not going to change these people's minds. 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:30.960 And yeah, they didn't let either of them get to 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.960 start vocalizing that very much where they were taken out. 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:34.720 It's just crazy. 0:14:35.120 --> 0:14:43.040 Yeah, well that that goes well into well, go okay 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:47.360 to talk about panthers really quick. So you know, the panthers, 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:49.360 they're about both of these things, right, They're about the 0:14:49.360 --> 0:14:52.400 survival programs and they're about militancy. And it took what 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:55.680 might have been the largest coordinated effort of law enforcement, federal, state, 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.400 and local in the history of the United States to 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.800 bring them down. It took infiltrators, it took dirty tricks. 0:15:01.800 --> 0:15:04.440 It took rumor mills and slander and libel and drugs 0:15:04.480 --> 0:15:07.520 and frame ups and police violence and outright assassination to 0:15:07.520 --> 0:15:10.480 stop them. There's also, and we're gonna talk about this 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:12.120 kind of near the end, there's a bit of a 0:15:12.200 --> 0:15:14.320 like they forgot to throw the ring of power into 0:15:14.400 --> 0:15:19.200 the fires of Mount Doom. Stuff going on that plagues them. 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:22.600 But they got so much done along the way that 0:15:22.680 --> 0:15:28.880 even though they did end up repressed successfully, it was 0:15:28.960 --> 0:15:31.960 cool as shit. They didn't appear whole cloth out of 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:38.000 nowhere to vitalize the civil rights movement as in my scripts. 0:15:38.000 --> 0:15:39.360 Now we're going to talk about some of the things 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:42.040 that you were just talking about, but you know, there 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:44.280 were armed components of the non violence civil rights movement 0:15:44.320 --> 0:15:46.400 in the US South. For anyone who hasn't heard, I 0:15:46.400 --> 0:15:48.840 would recommend listening to me and Joel talking about this 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:52.280 last fall. But nonviolence is a tactical choice that lots 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:54.200 of people made in the fifties and early sixties. For 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:56.360 some people is a moral choice, but not all of them. 0:15:56.840 --> 0:15:59.360 And there was movement after movement that paired voter registration 0:15:59.400 --> 0:16:02.600 and busting a great with armed self and community defense. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.720 The Deacons for Defense and Justice of Jonesborough, Louisiana a 0:16:05.800 --> 0:16:10.840 particularly prominent example of this. Then, just to lay out 0:16:10.840 --> 0:16:13.920 where the Panthers are coming from. In around nineteen sixty six, 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.040 the era of civil rights moves into the era of 0:16:16.080 --> 0:16:19.560 black power. The clearest turning point might have been on 0:16:19.760 --> 0:16:23.520 June sixteenth, nineteen sixty six, when Stokely Carmichael, who is 0:16:23.560 --> 0:16:26.760 an organizer with SNICK, the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, 0:16:27.480 --> 0:16:30.640 he gave a speech that included the following bit, this 0:16:30.680 --> 0:16:32.600 is the twenty seventh time I have been arrested, and 0:16:32.640 --> 0:16:34.880 I ain't going to jail no more. The only way 0:16:34.880 --> 0:16:36.880 we're going to stop them white men from whooping us 0:16:36.920 --> 0:16:39.320 is to take over. What we're going to start saying 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:43.280 now is black power. And black power is another one 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:45.640 of those things that like the way it gets talked 0:16:45.640 --> 0:16:50.160 about in mainstream education, at least my education, was not 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:53.880 a useful way to talk about black power. All black 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.080 power means a lot of different things, depending on who 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:57.960 says it and what the context they're saying it in, 0:16:58.680 --> 0:17:01.600 but the core of it is self determination for black people. 0:17:02.200 --> 0:17:05.000 At its more extreme end, it's been used to advocate 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:07.480 for black separatism or black supremacy. I don't want to 0:17:07.600 --> 0:17:10.600 conflate the two. Those are different ideas. Right at its 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:13.040 least radical end, it's been used to advocate for like 0:17:13.080 --> 0:17:15.600 black control of existing infrastructure, like what if we had 0:17:15.640 --> 0:17:18.080 all black mayors and black cops and stuff like that. Right, 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:22.240 most people, at least in my reading, didn't mean either 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:27.000 end of this. The Panthers had a saying all power 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:31.320 to the people, and they specifically meant that interracially and 0:17:32.000 --> 0:17:34.919 black self determination wasn't going to come at the expense 0:17:34.960 --> 0:17:37.800 of non black people. And that's like the the thing 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:40.399 that I keep running across, like as I read this 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.960 and then I think back to my own own childhood 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:45.120 and being told certain things or whatever. Right is that, 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:51.040 like it wasn't black power means, like, I don't know, 0:17:51.160 --> 0:17:52.440 kill all the white people or whatever. 0:17:52.480 --> 0:17:55.400 Right, it may not the equivalent of the white power 0:17:55.800 --> 0:17:57.240 that the KKK does now. 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:02.760 Yeah, exactly. And an awful lot of the civil rights 0:18:02.800 --> 0:18:04.800 leaders and organizations that we usually think about is not 0:18:04.840 --> 0:18:08.200 particularly militant, came along with this transition into the black 0:18:08.240 --> 0:18:10.000 power movement. And this is another part that sort of 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:12.760 gets forget about it. I went to a I went 0:18:12.800 --> 0:18:16.720 to a middle school called Rosa Parks, Okay in this 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:21.160 and my neighborhood was actually like bust to integrate this 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:25.040 school because it was a rich, upper middle class white neighborhood. 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:27.840 And I mean, I'm I'm a white middle class kid. 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:31.640 I'm not that's how anyway, whatever, I hear you. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:32.840 And I'm not surprised. 0:18:33.280 --> 0:18:37.400 Yeah, And what we learned about Rosa Parks, at least 0:18:37.400 --> 0:18:39.840 what I remember learning about Rosa Parks in the middle 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.640 school named after her, was she was a nice lady 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:44.320 who didn't give up her seat. 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:48.439 Yes, that's what I learned too, and always old like 0:18:48.600 --> 0:18:54.160 the there's a level of feebleness and a respect that 0:18:54.520 --> 0:18:56.760 white people could understand because you would not do this 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.719 to an old white lady. And a lot of times 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:03.440 I think when I use white is a very pejorative term. 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.920 But like if we if we look at I think 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:11.800 when they think about black liberation, right, because that that's 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:16.080 typically the goal is just liberation, They're like, oh, it 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:20.760 will it can only be radical, and if it's radical, 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.439 it must be violent to me, because if our powers 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:28.960 are equal, then the lack of power should also be equal. 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:31.520 I really think that's the through line for a lot 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.639 of folks. Yeah, And therefore they can only they can 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:38.080 only give liberation to the folks that they have given 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:43.080 some form of liberation to right. So Granny's grannies are fine, 0:19:43.119 --> 0:19:43.880 they can ride the bus. 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:46.520 There was a kindergarten teacher at my elementary school who 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:49.000 was friends with Rosa Parks and some kid was like. 0:19:49.240 --> 0:19:54.320 She's not dead. What did they say? 0:19:55.359 --> 0:20:00.080 They're like, she's not dead? Because wow, she was like 0:20:00.600 --> 0:20:04.800 she was ancient, ancient. I went to Rosa Parks Middle 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:07.119 School while Rosa Parks was alive, and I did not 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:10.240 know that Rosa Parks wasn't a live person exactly. 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.760 That is insane, that's crazy. 0:20:15.080 --> 0:20:19.159 Yeah, what people don't mention is I mean one and 0:20:19.280 --> 0:20:21.560 I kind of maybe one day so I'll actually get 0:20:21.840 --> 0:20:25.560 her own episode because she's really fucking cool, including the 0:20:25.600 --> 0:20:29.080 bus thing. And it was a like conscious strategic thing, 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:30.920 kind of like how people are like, oh John Brown 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:32.800 was like a lone wing now to attack things. He's like, No, 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:36.199 he was part of a major movement to try and 0:20:36.320 --> 0:20:38.320 accomplish a certain thing and he actually succeeded. 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:40.600 But how blown was your mind when you learned Rosa 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:43.000 Parks was part of a movement? Yeah, I active part 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:47.080 and an amazing human being. Yeah, I was like, why, 0:20:47.440 --> 0:20:50.040 well we didn't this story from us? And why? 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:50.760 Yeah? 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.920 Mine my mind was blown. Oh man, diving into black 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.280