WEBVTT - How the March on Washington Worked 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to you stuff you should know from House Stuff 0:00:04.320 --> 0:00:12.399 Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast on 0:00:12.560 --> 0:00:15.680 Josh Clark. There's Charles w Chuck Bryant, Jerry's over there, 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:20.160 so it's stuff you should know. Hey, Hey, how's it going. 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:23.079 It's going good. It's not going so good for me. 0:00:23.160 --> 0:00:27.320 I'm having trouble loading up important pages here, important tabs 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.120 on my computer. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what the 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:34.519 deal is in that riveting podcast. It's like Serial the 0:00:34.560 --> 0:00:39.320 second season. Yeah, well Josh's tabs opened. What's the deal 0:00:39.360 --> 0:00:43.839 with Josh's computer? Uh? The tabs loaded everybody, by the way, 0:00:43.880 --> 0:00:47.519 So thank you for your concern. So you feel good 0:00:47.520 --> 0:00:50.280 about this one? Yeah, I do. There's a It was 0:00:50.440 --> 0:00:53.840 yet again one of those topics that I knew somewhat 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.680 about probably is us the average person, But digging into it, 0:00:57.000 --> 0:01:02.760 you really forget how polished and glossy history can become, 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.920 and how not necessarily like grittier or anything, but just 0:01:07.040 --> 0:01:11.200 definitely more complex and complicated an interkate than the final 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:17.639 story ends up being. Yeah, details matter, Um, no person 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:23.200 exists in a vacuum basically, Yeah, and coincidentally or maybe kismately, 0:01:24.480 --> 0:01:26.120 we asked Jerry were like, hey, can we have this 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.279 released right around uh the King Holiday? And she said, dude, 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:33.880 it is happens to be scheduled before she even knew 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:36.040 what it was going to be, Like, this episode fell 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:38.280 into that slot. It's the spirit of Doctor King. How 0:01:38.280 --> 0:01:40.840 about that? Like it's sort of like our marijuana episode 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:45.360 being the four release, which was a complete accident, completely 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:49.480 happens then, So this is like that, but cooler, right, 0:01:49.680 --> 0:01:54.120 you know, because it's historical and it's important. Yes, this 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:57.400 is important history. You know what I'm saying. The invention 0:01:57.440 --> 0:02:00.520 a silly putty. Well, I've been really been getting into 0:02:00.800 --> 0:02:04.240 uh here in my middle age, the civil rights movement 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.880 in history and learning about that stuff. I think maybe 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:12.239 to make up for my uh ancestry in the Deep South, 0:02:13.040 --> 0:02:15.560 you know, man. You know what's weird is like I 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.160 I hear that like more than ever, just the last 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.600 just the events of two thousand and fourteen. Like really 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:25.360 it's not like my eyes were shut or anything or 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.679 I was just unaware, but I've become more and more, 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:35.000 um disenchanted and dispirited by the heritage that I have 0:02:35.160 --> 0:02:40.480 as well. It's just just that kind of studied obliviousness 0:02:40.960 --> 0:02:44.680 that the powers that be have about the plights of 0:02:44.720 --> 0:02:47.720 the people who aren't in power has really started to 0:02:47.760 --> 0:02:50.040 get to me more and more. Yeah, And I've I've 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:52.000 had talks about this with a bunch of people, and 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:54.320 the consensus I've come to is, I can't be ashamed 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:58.040 of anything here in mean, you didn't do anything, person, 0:02:58.120 --> 0:02:59.960 I didn't do anything. And I don't know anything spece 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.480 ccific about my family other than they we're you know, 0:03:04.200 --> 0:03:08.000 white people living in rural Mississippi since the dawn of 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:11.840 time and miss I don't think they were the ones 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:15.920 knocking on doors trying to uh, you know, encourage black 0:03:15.960 --> 0:03:20.239 people to vote. I don't think they were the standouts. Uh. 0:03:20.480 --> 0:03:22.600 And so what can you do but just try and 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:25.839 be a good person, to educate yourself and learn from it. Yeah, 0:03:25.880 --> 0:03:29.799 and make the Bryant uh name move forward in a 0:03:29.840 --> 0:03:33.000 different direction. I think that's great. Yeah, good job. So 0:03:33.040 --> 0:03:34.600 anyway I've been getting into I've been reading a lot 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:36.560 of stuff about it, and uh, I saw that play 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:38.840 in New York. I think I mentioned with Brian Cranston, 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:42.240 oh the Lbjay, Yeah, which really kind of got me 0:03:42.440 --> 0:03:44.560 reading a bunch of because a lot of stuff I 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:46.960 didn't learn in school at all. They don't teach you 0:03:47.000 --> 0:03:48.800 that much in school, not as much as you think 0:03:49.840 --> 0:03:53.000 good touring of information. It's a trickle at best. Yeah, 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:55.200 or like you said, it's like a very kind of 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:59.440 one day glossy affair, which we were about to do 0:03:59.560 --> 0:04:01.520 right now, right, Well, we're gonna flush it out a 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:03.560 little more. And I have to say this article, for 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:06.280 being a three three page article on how stuff works, 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.240 was pretty good. Recognize the author, But lot of beef 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:12.480 in here. Yeah there there, yeah, some good detail. So, um, 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:15.440 we're talking today about the March on Washington, which took 0:04:15.440 --> 0:04:21.279 place on August I believe nine three. Yeah, the March 0:04:21.400 --> 0:04:25.400 on Washington for Jobs and Freedom is the official full name, yeah, 0:04:25.400 --> 0:04:28.159 which a lot of people don't realize that. And that's 0:04:28.279 --> 0:04:30.360 kind of a big deal that it has jobs and 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:36.360 Freedom because that title actually represents the marriage of two 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:43.400 separate um Black civil rights movements, Yeah, agendas married together, 0:04:44.000 --> 0:04:47.160 um under this common banner, which was at the time 0:04:47.279 --> 0:04:49.039 kind of a big deal because there was a lot 0:04:49.120 --> 0:04:52.360 of rivalry amongst different the different civil rights groups and 0:04:52.400 --> 0:04:55.599 their agendas and to be able to come together that 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.120 was kind of huge. Yeah, And you know, when I 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:00.880 first hear about rivalries among the as groups, I get 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:03.360 a little disenchanted. But then when you start thinking about 0:05:03.480 --> 0:05:06.800 the task in front of them. Uh, if you assemble 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:09.200 a group of suppressed people, everyone's gonna have their own 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:11.560 idea about the best way to move forward and to 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.360 get something done. And so of course there were gonna 0:05:14.360 --> 0:05:18.440 be rivalries between these groups because they all felt their 0:05:18.520 --> 0:05:20.919 path forward was the righteous one. Yeah, and this was 0:05:21.560 --> 0:05:24.520 and and not even necessarily righteous, but right, you know, 0:05:24.600 --> 0:05:27.839 like effective. On the one hand, you have say, um, 0:05:27.920 --> 0:05:31.640 a Philip um Randolph, yeah man who was the head 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:35.640 of the Brotherhood of Sleeping car Porters. Yeah, I went 0:05:35.680 --> 0:05:38.760 into that little bit. H well, well tell me about it. Well, 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.039 I didn't even uh know what a Pullman porter was, 0:05:42.200 --> 0:05:46.320 because you know, I'm a modern kind of guy. But um, 0:05:46.360 --> 0:05:50.920 these were the the people, the essentially butlers and maids 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:55.560 who worked on sleeping trains, sleeping cars and uh George 0:05:55.560 --> 0:05:58.839 Pullman in Chicago of the Pullman Company invented the sleeping 0:05:59.200 --> 0:06:02.440 train in the eight and eighties. And a Philip Randoff 0:06:02.520 --> 0:06:04.719 he was born in eighteen eighty nine, like he was 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:07.360 seventy four years old when the march on Washington took place. 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:09.560 He was not a young guy, but he'd been at 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.680 it for decades already, for decades as a civil rights crusader. Uh. 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.240 And so basically what the deal was was George Pullman 0:06:16.440 --> 0:06:21.440 hired uh Black Americans to work as maids and butlers 0:06:21.480 --> 0:06:23.240 on these trains, and it really sort of kind of 0:06:23.480 --> 0:06:29.000 entrenched that master servant relationship even further. And uh, even 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.000 though the black community said, these are really pretty good 0:06:31.040 --> 0:06:34.160 jobs actually, because even though the pay wasn't that great, 0:06:34.200 --> 0:06:35.919 it was a steady job. He got to travel. So 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.520 it was sort of looked upon as an elite job 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:41.479 until they started to sort of look at the details, 0:06:41.480 --> 0:06:43.799 who were like, wait a minute, we don't have job security. 0:06:44.120 --> 0:06:45.919 Our salary kind of stinks. We have to pay for 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:49.560 our own uniforms and food and lodging. And so they 0:06:49.600 --> 0:06:54.120 got in touch with a Philip Randoff in he organized 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.000 the union, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, and eventually, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:00.800 even though they refused to go shate with them, they 0:07:00.839 --> 0:07:04.080 were able to get that union. In the nineteen thirty seven, 0:07:04.120 --> 0:07:06.839 they the Pullman company signed a labor agreement with them, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.240 got them a lot more rights as workers. But that's 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:12.560 just one of the many, many things that he did. 0:07:12.600 --> 0:07:19.160 He was big into unions and organizing things and especially 0:07:19.840 --> 0:07:23.640 seeing to it that the that the black population got 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.720 the same kind of fair treatment as the white population. 0:07:27.160 --> 0:07:29.800 And you said that, he became president of the Brotherhood 0:07:29.840 --> 0:07:34.400 of Sleeping car Porters in so think about fighting. First 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:37.240 of all, you're a unionizer, which back in that day 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:41.440 you could be gunned down by the state militia. He 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.720 was a socialist, he definitely was. He was definitely like 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:49.080 this is all basically of left movement. All of this, 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:53.480 the March on Washington was UM. And he also if 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.560 you if you consider at the times as the Jim 0:07:56.560 --> 0:08:00.360 Crow era, so he's fighting for workers rights and even 0:08:00.400 --> 0:08:04.240 more difficulty, he's fighting for black workers rights. So this 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:07.520 guy was a tough cookie and a smart one too. Yeah. 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:10.440 Martin Luther King called him the Dean of Negro leaders. 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.320 And he was forty years older than Kings. So he 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:16.920 was really revered, uh in the black community for sure, 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.480 but rightly so. I mean like he'd earned his chops right. 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.000 And the March on Washington that that Um came about 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:26.360 in nineteen sixty three was actually the second one that 0:08:26.480 --> 0:08:29.239 Randolph proposed. He was the one that said we should 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.640 have this march on Washington. We'll we'll get to that. 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:36.560 But in ninety one he also started to organize the 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:41.680 same march UM and it was for crusading for jobs 0:08:41.760 --> 0:08:46.680 for Black workers UM to end discrimination among federal hiring 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:52.480 government in defense hiring and UH federal agencies. Yeah, basically, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.480 FDRs new deal was not I mean so favorable for 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.880 Black Americans, like it did a lot for the country, 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.840 but they were still sort of ignored and pretty much 0:09:01.920 --> 0:09:06.520 barred from getting jobs federal jobs and defense jobs. So 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:10.040 FDR saw the writing on the wall basically with the 0:09:10.960 --> 0:09:12.839 you don't want to call the threat of a march, 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:16.560 but because it just sounds like militaristic, it was the 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:20.160 threat of a march and UM. So he signed issued 0:09:20.200 --> 0:09:23.439 Executive Order a D eight. Oh too, the Fair Employment 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:27.960 Practices Committee was created and two million Black Americans were 0:09:27.960 --> 0:09:32.439 employed by the defense industry by which is great. But 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:37.960 nine the FTPC was disbanded and dissolved. So the temporary win, 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.240 the temporary win, UM, but a win nonetheless, and they 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:44.920 did not have that march because of that executive order, 0:09:45.480 --> 0:09:49.760 which down I mean, imagine the credibility that UM Randolph 0:09:49.800 --> 0:09:52.800 got just immediately from that, like he got the President 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:57.239 to create an executive order based on something he was organizing, 0:09:57.280 --> 0:10:01.839 so that definitely catapulted his status. But he also learned like, oh, 0:10:01.880 --> 0:10:04.520 this is a pretty effective tool. Like this isn't the 0:10:04.880 --> 0:10:07.080 big gun you want to bring out every time somebody 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:10.320 pulls a pie shoot around you. But like when stuff 0:10:10.400 --> 0:10:13.880 really becomes intractable, march on Washington is not such a 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:16.560 bad idea. Not a bad idea, you don't even necessarily 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:18.920 have to do it. Yeah, he was kind of recruited 0:10:19.679 --> 0:10:23.240 UM to head this up by the Negro American Labor Council, 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.320 of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, 0:10:27.440 --> 0:10:30.800 and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, and so he wrote 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:35.080 a letter to Secretary Stuart Udal in May of nineteen 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:39.319 sixty two. He was the Department of Interior, and UM 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.720 basically said can we get our permits like the official request? 0:10:43.360 --> 0:10:45.800 And they got nervous immediately because he said we want 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:48.760 to stop at the Lincoln Memorial and finish it up there. 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:52.520 They're like, well, rerounding traffic is gonna be tough. Why 0:10:52.559 --> 0:10:55.800 don't we send you here instead? And they were pretty 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:59.080 adamant about sticking to that route, and so they granted 0:10:59.160 --> 0:11:02.480 him the permit, which was the first signed to Kennedy, 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:05.559 like because Kennedy wasn't like, great, let's do this, he 0:11:05.720 --> 0:11:07.960 was nervous about it too. And it was I mean, 0:11:08.000 --> 0:11:10.040 it was a big deal. You mentioned that what's called 0:11:10.080 --> 0:11:13.600 the Big Six, the Brotherhood of Sleeping car Porters, Southern 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.240 Christian Leadership Conference, that was Martin Luther King's UM Atlanta 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.319 based group UM, the Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, which 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:23.520 was led at the time by Representative John Lewis, our 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:27.839 Representative Lewis, who was still a firebrand in Congress, who 0:11:27.960 --> 0:11:29.960 was twenty three at the time, and gave a speech 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:34.160 at the march UM the Conference on Racial Equality which 0:11:34.200 --> 0:11:36.880 is known as CORE, the National Urban League, and the 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:40.240 um N double a CP. All of these groups got together, 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:43.079 and we already said like their arrivalries among them, but 0:11:43.520 --> 0:11:47.160 not only were these these was it a big deal 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:50.719 that these groups that were fighting for civil rights, like 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:56.000 voting rights and the end of segregation and like civil rights, 0:11:56.720 --> 0:12:00.480 but they got together with a Philip Randolph's UM movement 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:06.240 for economic justice and rather than become confused or muddled 0:12:06.360 --> 0:12:08.839 or whatever, like remember Occupy Wallster. Everybody's like they have 0:12:08.920 --> 0:12:11.360 like ten million different demands. A lot of people were 0:12:11.400 --> 0:12:14.440 worried that joining these things together would do the same thing. 0:12:14.600 --> 0:12:17.480 It didn't. It actually broadened it, and it brought a 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:19.960 lot of strength to the whole thing. And it all 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.320 came down to a black feminist named Anna Arnold Hedgeman, 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:27.040 and she brought Um, King and Randolph together and said, 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:29.280 you guys need to make this happen. It'll make this 0:12:29.400 --> 0:12:32.720 march a million times better. I don't think that's a quote, 0:12:32.800 --> 0:12:35.280 but basically that's that's what she said. And as a result, 0:12:35.360 --> 0:12:39.559 the March on Washington for UM, jobs and freedom was 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.880 what the result was. Yeah, and bringing Martin Luther King 0:12:42.960 --> 0:12:46.360 on was certainly a master stroke because, um, this article 0:12:46.440 --> 0:12:51.320 describes the proposition as tepid to begin with, but um, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:56.200 the stage was set for August then, uh, right after 0:12:56.280 --> 0:12:58.240 this message break, we'll get to a little bit of 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:01.480 how mainstream media feared at this march. Right if it 0:13:01.640 --> 0:13:18.000 is so, mainstream media probably thought this was a great idea, 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:20.720 and all of Washington probably rallied around this. Right, they 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:25.480 couldn't wait. Everybody, Um made those needle point samplers that said, 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:30.320 welcome marching black people to our streets. They rolled out 0:13:30.360 --> 0:13:33.080 the red carpet. That is not true. This is our 0:13:33.160 --> 0:13:38.079 facetious voice. Mainstream media actually was in fear, and they 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:43.079 ran stories about this devolving into a riot. And Kennedy said, 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:46.480 let's let's call this off. And they said no, and 0:13:46.640 --> 0:13:51.240 liquor stores closed and bars closed and stores boarded up 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.480 their windows, and in the end none of that happened. 0:13:55.520 --> 0:13:58.760 Of course, it was very peaceful and amazingly really well organized, 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:02.920 like a quotes where the organizers themselves said that, like 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:07.440 the peacefulness and and dignity of the whole thing seeded 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:12.199 even their expectations. Yeah, it was a colossally successful thing. 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:15.080 And one of the reasons why there was such an 0:14:15.080 --> 0:14:18.480 amount of nervousness was not necessarily just because there were 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.160 a quarter of a million people marching in Washington all 0:14:22.240 --> 0:14:25.240 at once for civil rights. But this thing took place, 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:29.000 and it's considered the pinnacle, the high water mark of 0:14:29.080 --> 0:14:33.880 nineteen three, which was an enormous year. The Birmingham Campaign 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:37.640 was going on um down in Alabama. Children were marching 0:14:37.760 --> 0:14:41.320 in the streets of Birmingham and police dogs were attacking 0:14:41.440 --> 0:14:44.040 them and they were being hit with fire hoses, people 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.680 were being clubbed in the streets by Bull Connor and 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:49.880 his police force, and it was being captured on TV. 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:54.960 So like the American psyche was really being affected by 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:57.320 the civil rights movement right now, And there was a 0:14:57.600 --> 0:15:00.040 lot of momentum behind the people who were leading the 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:03.280 civil rights movement, especially Martin Luther King, who you know 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.720 proved his own chops by being jailed in Birmingham for 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:13.280 protesting um. And he was kept in uh isolation for 0:15:13.440 --> 0:15:16.360 like eight days. I think it wasn't able to talk 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:20.040 to anybody, I think, including his lawyer. Finally, his um wife, 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:22.600 Kreta Scott King, got in touch with Jfkin and said, 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:24.560 you've got to do something because I don't know what 0:15:24.680 --> 0:15:27.520 they're gonna do to my husband in jail. He's lucky 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:29.440 he survived that, to be honest, right, Well, it took 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.800 the President to order the city of Birmingham to free 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.240 him for him to get out, yea, um, but it 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:37.160 was it was a big deal by the time this 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.760 thing came about, by the time it was even announced, 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:43.720 like nineteen three was a huge watershed year already. Yeah, 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:45.640 and uh, I think I don't think we pointed out 0:15:45.720 --> 0:15:49.800 like ten the estimate were white folks joining in for 0:15:49.880 --> 0:15:53.160 the rally, and um, I don't know about percentages, but 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:54.920 I do know that a lot of Jewish people were 0:15:54.920 --> 0:15:58.520 really involved in the civil rights movement as volunteers, helping 0:15:58.600 --> 0:16:01.520 to push that forward because they knew a thing or 0:16:01.560 --> 0:16:04.520 two about persecution, So I think they identified with the 0:16:04.640 --> 0:16:08.960 plight of the American black people and so um like 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:12.840 Jewish folks from the Northeast, basically a lot of them 0:16:12.960 --> 0:16:15.280 came down south, a lot of students to volunteer for 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:19.920 not only this but just the voter rights, going door 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.200 to door. I mean those will will do a more 0:16:22.240 --> 0:16:24.360 in depth went about voters rights maybe one day. But 0:16:24.440 --> 0:16:26.920 I know the two. I think two of the guys 0:16:27.800 --> 0:16:30.880 basically were murdered because they were going door to door 0:16:31.000 --> 0:16:33.360 trying to help black people registered to vote. Yeah, I 0:16:33.440 --> 0:16:35.960 don't know their names, but I've heard about them. I 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.120 mean they murdered by the local police. Yea, they just 0:16:39.160 --> 0:16:41.640 shot him on the side of the road. Basically, there 0:16:41.720 --> 0:16:45.040 was I think in nineteen sixty three there was um 0:16:46.000 --> 0:16:49.920 a group of students that were going to Birmingham, which 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:53.160 was like the center of the universe as far as 0:16:53.200 --> 0:16:55.720 the civil rights struggle in the US is going Um 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.720 and again, Bull Connor, the head of the police department, 0:16:59.360 --> 0:17:02.880 gave his his police department the whole thing the day off, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.600 so that there was nobody to protect these students that 0:17:06.680 --> 0:17:10.639 were going to protest in Birmingham. It's like, I have 0:17:10.680 --> 0:17:12.399 a hard time talking about this stuff. So but but 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:14.960 consider this is the this is the stage that we're setting, 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:16.960 Like this is the state of the country. There's like 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:19.800 on television you can see black kids being attacked by 0:17:19.840 --> 0:17:23.960 police dogs in your country. Um, in Washington, d C. 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:26.639 If you live there, you're worried that the same stuff 0:17:26.640 --> 0:17:28.600 is gonna go on on your streets. There's like a 0:17:28.720 --> 0:17:32.400 lot of turmoil going on. Two months, two months before 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:36.200 this happened, Medgar Evers was shot in his driveway and 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:41.240 killed in Jackson, Mississippi, after coming home from uh going 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:44.399 door to door and encouraging poor African Americans to register 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.119 vote and a white supremacist name I don't feel like 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:52.320 reading his name, um uh day La beckwith Byron Della 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.920 Beckworth basically pulled up and shot him in the back 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.520 with a rifle, got equipment, not acquitted, but there were 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:02.119 two hung juries by all male jurors, and he remained 0:18:02.200 --> 0:18:07.640 free until when they finally came back and retried him 0:18:07.960 --> 0:18:10.879 as an old man. Remember that found him guilty and 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:12.800 he spent like the last six years of his life 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:17.280 in prison before he died. But he was just human 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:22.119 trash because he remained steadfastly white supremacists till the end. 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:25.639 Was not sorry. His son followed in his footsteps, and 0:18:25.760 --> 0:18:28.960 it was just a ugly human being. And uh, I 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:32.240 think James Woods played him in a movie. Was that 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:35.240 was that who he played? I'm pretty sure it was 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:40.000 James Woods. Yeah, he's pretty slimy. He can not real life, 0:18:40.080 --> 0:18:43.360 but he can do he can do slimy. But yeah, 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:46.680 so this is two months previous at Medaga Evers was killed, 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:52.359 so it was supercharged time and people were nervous for 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:55.560 good reason. Yeah. And to our white supremacist listeners, if 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.760 you're at all offended by Chuck's characters too, don't even 0:18:58.840 --> 0:19:02.120 bother emailing. I don't think we have We don't care 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:04.720 at all what you have to say. We have enlightened listeners, 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:09.400 I think so too. Um So nineteen sixty three, huge dear. 0:19:09.640 --> 0:19:12.920 They announced in June that they're going to carry out 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:17.720 this march in August, and like you said, JFK was like, no, please, 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:20.560 don't do that. And they said, you know what, Mr President, 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:24.840 you have proven yourself is not very reliable trying to 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:27.480 get the Civil Rights Act through Congress. It was just 0:19:27.640 --> 0:19:31.760 languishing there um, and the the black civil rights leaders 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:35.720 were like the Brown versus Board of Education happened in 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:42.400 nineteen fifty five, I believe desegregated schools in nineteen sixty three. 0:19:42.560 --> 0:19:45.640 There were plenty of schools that still weren't desegregated. All 0:19:45.720 --> 0:19:49.040 of these things that that they have been fighting for incrementally, 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.240 bit by bit, every battle um that they'd won was 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.359 still not necessarily being fulfilled. And Kennedy didn't really seem 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.240 to care that much. So when he asked them as 0:19:57.320 --> 0:20:00.159 president not to do the march, they basically said, you 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.000 don't really have any clout with us right now, so 0:20:03.119 --> 0:20:05.919 we're gonna do this. Yeah, And they did, and they 0:20:05.960 --> 0:20:09.359 announced it in June and they marched in August. And 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:11.800 the reason they were able to do that was thanks 0:20:11.920 --> 0:20:16.080 almost entirely to a guy named Bayard Rustin. He's my 0:20:16.200 --> 0:20:18.720 new hero. I love this guy. There's a documentary on him. 0:20:18.720 --> 0:20:21.720 Actually it's called Brother Outsider. Yeah. I was gonna watch 0:20:21.760 --> 0:20:24.080 it today, but at that time. Is it on the internet. 0:20:24.119 --> 0:20:26.480 I only saw it on DVD. I don't know. Yeah, 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:28.480 I look for it. You could probably get clips. I 0:20:28.560 --> 0:20:33.199 bet piece it together on Uh. Yeah. This guy man, 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:37.080 you talk about outsiders, he and this is in nineteen 0:20:37.200 --> 0:20:41.280 sixty three, was openly gay. He was walked with the Kane, 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:43.879 walked with the Kane. He was black for fun. He 0:20:44.320 --> 0:20:47.000 Uh wasn't really, That's the impression I had from this, 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.240 Like he didn't have an injury. No, he just had kane. 0:20:50.240 --> 0:20:53.119 He had flair. Uh. He was Um. I don't know 0:20:53.200 --> 0:20:55.359 if he was an actual Quaker. His grandmother was a 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.040 Quaker and he followed in her footsteps or was at 0:20:59.119 --> 0:21:03.800 least informed by her religion. And uh was also I 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.960 think a socialist, and most of these people were, if 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:12.399 not like self identified socialists, carried out a lot of 0:21:13.000 --> 0:21:15.879 held onto a lot of socialist ideals like workers rights, 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:18.200 like the power of labor too and the right of 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:22.760 labor to unionize and organize in the basic um value 0:21:22.840 --> 0:21:25.479 of the of a human being. Yeah, I mean, as 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:27.639 far as outsiders go, though, you could have just stopped 0:21:27.720 --> 0:21:32.000 at openly gay in nineteen sixty three, much less everything else. 0:21:32.240 --> 0:21:34.919 Plus he apparently had a knack for art collecting attic 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.280 I for buying or finding art on the chief that 0:21:38.359 --> 0:21:40.119 turned out to be like really great. Well, he was 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.719 a renaissance man, used to quote poetry and like, uh 0:21:43.520 --> 0:21:46.120 he was he was the guy to organize this thing 0:21:46.320 --> 0:21:51.160 because apparently his just skills bringing people together were legendary 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:54.600 and also took Probably the thing that is most remarkable 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:57.960 about Bayard Rustin as far as the lasting legacy goes, 0:21:58.119 --> 0:22:02.080 was that he met um Martin Luther King in the 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:06.359 early fifties, the early to mid fifties, I think ninety six, 0:22:06.720 --> 0:22:11.200 and at the time MLK had not fully embraced the 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:16.800 idea of complete non violent protests and resistance. He was 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.040 still like guarded by armed guards and like that kind 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:23.480 of stuff. It was rust and Bayard who brought this 0:22:23.800 --> 0:22:29.760 um Gandhi gandhi is um Yeah, this thought of non 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:34.440 violent protests and and talk dr King into like really 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:39.760 embracing it. Was this guy. Well, he did a great job. 0:22:39.840 --> 0:22:43.640 In just two months. He was able to completely organize 0:22:43.680 --> 0:22:47.879 this thing from soup to nuts, um coach all the volunteers. Uh, 0:22:48.160 --> 0:22:51.800 teach everyone how to have a non violent you know, 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:56.240 protests basically of this size, because it's not just like, hey, 0:22:56.760 --> 0:23:00.680 don't be violent like they may have encountered or violence 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:02.920 and how to respond to that in a non violent 0:23:02.960 --> 0:23:06.480 way was super important. Uh. He created a twelve page 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:10.040 manual for bus captains apparently on uh I mean handled 0:23:10.080 --> 0:23:11.840 everything from where to park, to how to park, to 0:23:11.920 --> 0:23:17.800 where the bathrooms are and then maybe most importantly, he 0:23:18.240 --> 0:23:22.040 was responsible for putting together the run of show and 0:23:22.359 --> 0:23:28.439 getting these very large egos um enough time per person 0:23:28.520 --> 0:23:30.119 to where they all felt like they were cared for, 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:34.200 because even though they all had the same goal, these 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:36.440 were people who have big egos. You can't get in 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:38.120 a position like that if you don't have some sort 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.240