Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Inside Podcasting, the podcast where we
Speaker 1: give you all the tips and tricks you need to
Speaker 1: run a successful podcast. Our first tip, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: it to you for free, is don't try and come
Speaker 1: up with a clever podcast introduction for every single episode,
Speaker 1: because it gets old and boring and then you find
Speaker 1: yourself doing introductions like this instead of saying, is this cool?
Speaker 1: People did cool stuff? I'm your host, Mariya Kiljoy, which
Speaker 1: is much nicer and easier to say.
Speaker 2: You see.
Speaker 1: That's that's the first tip on this. Okay, so with
Speaker 1: me today is a Linda Segata Allow.
Speaker 3: I'm good, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 4: Yay.
Speaker 1: Usually I'm like, on this day, that's totally a different
Speaker 1: day than last time. But this time it is a
Speaker 1: different day than last It is.
Speaker 3: We're older, wiser, yeah, and last week.
Speaker 1: And I'm on more antibiotics than I was last week.
Speaker 1: But I have less tooth pain, so that.
Speaker 3: Is an advantage.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think I did the last recording with like
Speaker 1: wisdom tooth infection.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Psycho Alec.
Speaker 1: Yeah, our producer is back. We're no longer running Rudderless.
Speaker 1: We have Sophie Lichtman with us. Sophie, how are you doing?
Speaker 4: Is that what happens when I'm not here?
Speaker 3: We were lost? It was my first time, but I
Speaker 3: was lost about you.
Speaker 2: Oh thank you, Alnda, Magpie. That was not your first rodeo.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm glad to be back and excited excited to
Speaker 2: hear parts three and four.
Speaker 1: Yeah okay. Also, our audio engineers, Ian, thanks Ian for
Speaker 1: doing the thankless work. Our theme music was written for
Speaker 1: us by un Woman. This week we are picking up
Speaker 1: where we left off last week for our second ever
Speaker 1: four parter. Go back and listen to parts one and two.
Speaker 1: What's wrong with you? Why do you start on episode
Speaker 1: three of a four part You're probably the kind of
Speaker 1: person who can read comic books. I can't read common
Speaker 1: books because I don't know where to start.
Speaker 3: Wow, really you start wherever?
Speaker 2: I know?
Speaker 4: That's the word for me, to be fair, Magpie.
Speaker 2: We just made We just made an off Mike argument
Speaker 2: for why you would start at the end of something
Speaker 2: instead of at the beginning, Because you might find out
Speaker 2: somebody that you think is a hero is actually a really,
Speaker 2: really bad person in their personal life.
Speaker 1: Oh that's true. I actually, for research purposes, should probably
Speaker 1: start all biographies about three quarters of the way through
Speaker 1: the book and read through the ends. Yeah yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: fair enough, Well that's not what's happening in this particular episode.
Speaker 1: They you know, no one's perfect, no group is perfect.
Speaker 1: But we're focusing on the stuff that the Young Lords did,
Speaker 1: and there was way too much good shit to just
Speaker 1: do in two episodes. So here we are. We are
Speaker 1: talking about the Young Lords, a Puerto Rican street gang
Speaker 1: turned activist organization who where we left off, is just
Speaker 1: rocking shit in New York City. They're setting trash on fire,
Speaker 1: but in a good way. I feel like there's like
Speaker 1: good and bad ways to set trash on and they're
Speaker 1: all set to come into their own so let's watch
Speaker 1: them do it. So they've just burned a whole bunch
Speaker 1: of garbage and gotten the city to be like, maybe
Speaker 1: we need to do something about this garbage because these
Speaker 1: radicals keep setting it all on fire and blocking the roads.
Speaker 1: So they open up a storefront because now they're way
Speaker 1: more popular than they were, and they turned to organization.
Speaker 1: They started operating more like having autonomous working groups that
Speaker 1: work on different issues. And one of the autonomous working
Speaker 1: groups they set up is really interesting to me. They
Speaker 1: set up police watch organizations to go watch the police, right,
Speaker 1: uh huh. And these were community led rather than just
Speaker 1: led by the young Lords.
Speaker 3: Which no one else.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I haven't because I haven't done a Panther's
Speaker 1: episode yet. I'm not trying to contrast to the Panthers'
Speaker 1: ideas of police watch and stuff. But if you're going
Speaker 1: to have a membership organization with a hierarchy, please do
Speaker 1: shit like this. It was an autonomous affiliate network of
Speaker 1: neighbor neighbors circles, and most of the volunteers were men
Speaker 1: and women in their forties, not directly affiliated with the Lords.
Speaker 1: I think this was to basically have like cooler heads,
Speaker 1: like people were a bit calmer and more trustworthy in
Speaker 1: this way or whatever, you know, and they focused on
Speaker 1: conflict de escalation. They also helped resist unlawful arrests WHOA.
Speaker 1: And their goal was to eventually make the police obsolete.
Speaker 1: I really like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also really like that.
Speaker 1: I know, I'm like, why doesn't this just happen? Why
Speaker 1: don't people just make the police. I mean, probably a
Speaker 1: lot of people who try to make the police obsolete
Speaker 1: by either going to jail or becoming worse than the cops,
Speaker 1: but like the partner, Shure tried to make comps obsolete,
Speaker 1: but he sucks. Anyway. They were unarmed, or at least
Speaker 1: they were not armed with firearms, which wasn't a moral
Speaker 1: decision but instead a strategic one within the context they
Speaker 1: were in. Actually, most of what the Young Lords are
Speaker 1: doing is unarmed compared to a lot of other organizations.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about what weapons they did use.
Speaker 1: Have you Have you heard what weapon their like signature
Speaker 1: weapon was. No, I'm not going to tell you yet.
Speaker 1: It's going to come up later in the script.
Speaker 3: Okay, so good.
Speaker 1: I want you to think about what would be the coolest,
Speaker 1: like non gun weapon that they could have.
Speaker 3: I know, right now I'm picturing like chain with the
Speaker 3: ball with the spikes on it.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 5: Is it a battle axe?
Speaker 1: Nope, it's not a flail. It's not a battle axe.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: When I do my spinoff episode Great Medieval Weapons of
Speaker 1: History to explain the difference in morning stars and flails,
Speaker 1: and they like argument about whether or not the flail
Speaker 1: was actually historically used medieval Okay. Anyway, so they waited
Speaker 1: until they had buy in from the community before they
Speaker 1: even started this organization. They didn't just be like, oh,
Speaker 1: we're the new cops in town. We're going to start
Speaker 1: roaming the streets. They ended up with two hundred volunteers
Speaker 1: that patrolled a five block area around their storefront.
Speaker 3: Holy shit. Yeah, yeah, hundred people is a lot of
Speaker 3: people I know.
Speaker 1: And like, I want to know more about its organizational models.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, it's like my nerd shit as I
Speaker 1: want to figure out where they were hierarchical, where they
Speaker 1: weren't hierarchical, where they like moved into different realms. But
Speaker 1: you know, they also launched a children's breakfast program working
Speaker 1: together with the Black Panthers. I think that, and this
Speaker 1: is an inference from several sources, but I think that
Speaker 1: this is because the Panthers they're on the downswing because
Speaker 1: the Panther twenty one trial, right, So the young Lords
Speaker 1: are stepping up and the Panthers are helping them do it.
Speaker 1: And the cops work really hard to discourage parents from
Speaker 1: letting their kids participate, saying basically like, oh, they're a gang,
Speaker 1: don't let your kids fall into that gang. Keep your
Speaker 1: kids away from you know, the evil young Lords or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it didn't lots of people went working out of this storefront.
Speaker 1: The community just pours and support from all corners. There's
Speaker 1: local thieves who are like, hey, do you want some chairs?
Speaker 1: We stole out of this VW. And that's where all
Speaker 1: the chairs in the office came from. Healthcare professionals donated
Speaker 1: medicine and volunteered, and there was an informal clinic run
Speaker 1: out of there, probably hanging out on the VW chairs
Speaker 1: that were stolen out of. I mean, whoever's VW was
Speaker 1: was maybe mad, but you know, maybe they wanted to
Speaker 1: a richer neighborhood to do it. And who knows.
Speaker 3: Bread sourcing ye.
Speaker 1: From each according to ability to steal, to each according
Speaker 1: to need of stolen goods. They kept the whole block
Speaker 1: clean because that was like kind of their initial thing anyway,
Speaker 1: Right that there's a like physically clean the streets, not
Speaker 1: metaphorically cleaned the streets, although we'll talk about some of
Speaker 1: their how they handled drug dealers in a little bit later.
Speaker 1: Because people loved them. Yeah, they set them out in
Speaker 1: the trash on fire. Everyone liked them. Fire makes friends, apparently, I.
Speaker 3: Know I would I would think there'd be more of
Speaker 3: a backlash. I'm pretty excited that people were like, way
Speaker 3: to go, guys, someone had to do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Like I struggle to imagine that right now, in
Speaker 1: most places you could go burn a bunch of trash
Speaker 1: in the street and make do more than polarize people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I guess. I mean the need was so
Speaker 3: great that they, you know, that the community was just
Speaker 3: like something had to happen. We needed our trash to
Speaker 3: get picked up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally. And I bet you it's like, I
Speaker 1: bet you. The first half was like half the people
Speaker 1: were like, fuck yeah, burning trash, this rules, fuck the man,
Speaker 1: and the other half was like I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: But then when it like worked and people started picking
Speaker 1: up the trash regularly, they were like, oh all right,
Speaker 1: and so there are this much larger organization. Now. Some
Speaker 1: of them are still in high school. So the Young
Speaker 1: Lords managed to continue their name, but a lot of
Speaker 1: them dropped out of college and high school to work
Speaker 1: on this. There's a lot of ex college kids. This
Speaker 1: is a pattern we see across the late sixties early
Speaker 1: seventies movements, is that people go full time to work
Speaker 1: on this stuff. And the people who can go full
Speaker 1: time are people who are like, why would I want
Speaker 1: a degree when instead I can change the world.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: As someone who made that decision myself, I have a
Speaker 1: particular affinity for this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, no, everyone who finished their degrees, that's great. Fuck. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they start working alongside the welfare rights movement. They're just
Speaker 1: involved in everything. Because a fourteen year old young lord
Speaker 1: got arrested at a welfare rights demonstration. As far as
Speaker 1: I didn't put this in the script, but basically, I
Speaker 1: think he was like walking home from somewhere and he
Speaker 1: saw a bunch of women like doing a sit in
Speaker 1: and were like He was like, oh, I'm with them,
Speaker 1: and then sat down and got arrested or something like that.
Speaker 1: And he ends up in friend of the pod the Tombs,
Speaker 1: which has been which is locked up everyone in the
Speaker 1: show who's lived in New York over the course of
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years, Like we do episodes about
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century, and all of the anarchists are getting
Speaker 1: sent to the tombs.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, and here.
Speaker 1: We are in the nineteen sixties. People are getting sent
Speaker 1: to the tombs. Have you ever been to the Tombs?
Speaker 1: I have no idea if you got.
Speaker 3: Arrest in New York, I have not actually.
Speaker 1: Okay, I never got to have it sent, but.
Speaker 3: The name since a chill down my spine. Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1: I feel like most guests wou'd be very nervous to
Speaker 1: be like, hey, you ever got to arrest anyway, So
Speaker 1: the welfare movement of the late of the nineteen sixties
Speaker 1: deserves its own episode. At some point they shut down
Speaker 1: New York City a bunch of times. They were fierce
Speaker 1: as fuck. They were women of color lead, and the
Speaker 1: New York Young Lords weren't exclusively men, and some of
Speaker 1: the founders were women. But this alliance STILP helps bring
Speaker 1: gender equity equality into the movement, Like more and more
Speaker 1: women are joining because they're focusing also on this this
Speaker 1: particular thing. And this is something that they keep doing
Speaker 1: over and over again, is that they keep moving and
Speaker 1: working on issues that bring more and more women into
Speaker 1: the movement. And I think that's really cool. By October
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine, they put together a thirteen point program
Speaker 1: modeled on the Black Panthers but growing from it as well.
Speaker 1: They use the word Latino in this, which is one
Speaker 1: of the first public uses of the word in this context.
Speaker 1: And as far as I can tell, Yeah, as a
Speaker 1: white person who just read this stuff. Basically, later in
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, Hispanic was added to the census, and
Speaker 1: so Latino became more of a word to be like
Speaker 1: fuck Spain, Like what the fuck, we're not from Spain. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is before that, Yeah, yeah, exactly, So I
Speaker 1: think that they're still already on the like fuck Spain,
Speaker 1: we're not from Spain totally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were very much on that tip.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And it also it talks about this this thirteen
Speaker 1: point program. It talks about cross racial solidarity between all
Speaker 1: oppressed people. It talks about internationalism, it talks about women's liberation.
Speaker 1: It doesn't always succeed at doing more than talking about
Speaker 1: these things, but we'll.
Speaker 5: Get to that.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And I believe that at first it was like
Speaker 3: a ten point demand, right, and then I think I
Speaker 3: from what I remember reading, like the parts about battling
Speaker 3: machismo and women's liberation were added because of pressure from
Speaker 3: women within the Young Lords.
Speaker 1: I believe you're right. I wrote a bunch of the
Speaker 1: script a little bit ago. Yeah, it got at the
Speaker 1: very least, it got rewritten to further emphasize these things.
Speaker 1: I think the women's liberation thing was I could be wrong.
Speaker 1: I think it was in there in the beginning, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't as strongly worded, and it was like near
Speaker 1: the end it was like the last point or the
Speaker 1: second less time totally, and so it got like bumped
Speaker 1: up to number three or four or something after after this.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right, because I do remember
Speaker 3: it being thing about like much cheesebo needs to be
Speaker 3: used in a revolutionary way and the women were like, Yo,
Speaker 3: that's not what we're talking about. Actually, that's not possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: They did so much. Yeah, no, I mean I'm really
Speaker 1: excited about that part of it that they they did
Speaker 1: so much discussion about what is and isn't useful in
Speaker 1: terms of like they're basically having the conversation about masculinity
Speaker 1: versus toxic masculinity totally.
Speaker 3: And there are definite like conversations about gender and about
Speaker 3: how gender is a social construct like that was happening
Speaker 3: within the Young Lords, and a lot of conversation learning
Speaker 3: from gay liberation movements. Like when I read about that,
Speaker 3: that's what really blew my mind and maybe be like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I'm so proud that these people are
Speaker 3: Puerto Rican.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, because we get presented this like
Speaker 1: because the image of like well, actually, I mean mainstream
Speaker 1: society literally doesn't have an image of the young lads.
Speaker 1: Mainstream society ignores them, right or doesn't know about them.
Speaker 1: And but when we see like the mainstream image of
Speaker 1: radicals in the nineteen sixties, you might see a black
Speaker 1: man with a rifle right and it and there's nothing
Speaker 1: wrong with that image. But it's like, yeah, it's like
Speaker 1: I didn't know that the Black Panthers specifically teamed up
Speaker 1: with a Queer Liberation Front until.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, they They've made explicit statements around
Speaker 1: this time, being like we're with the queers, you know,
Speaker 1: and it's this like, yeah, I mean there's still all
Speaker 1: kinds of like sexism in the chismo, but people are
Speaker 1: so interested in like looking back and pretending like everything
Speaker 1: are these divorced movements. I remember this, No, I'm just
Speaker 1: completely upscripted. I remember this conversation I had with this
Speaker 1: old union miner in West Virginia years ago who was
Speaker 1: like working against mountaintop removal.
Speaker 3: Oh, and.
Speaker 1: I was talking to him and he was like, you know,
Speaker 1: a coal mining hippie in the sixties and he's white
Speaker 1: and he's like, yeah, in the sixties, we were out
Speaker 1: there protesting the war, and then on the other corners
Speaker 1: people protesting for gay rights, and then the other corners
Speaker 1: people protesting for black power. And we were like, why
Speaker 1: are we all on different corners? This is dumb. Let's
Speaker 1: stand on the same corner and then we're stronger. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wow, yeah, yeah, makes me happy.
Speaker 3: It could be that simple, you know.
Speaker 1: You know, and like, as you talked about, and we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about more about it, and I'll be
Speaker 1: curious because I think you know more about this part
Speaker 1: of it than me. The women within this movement had
Speaker 1: to fight for this inclusion, you know. But yeah, so
Speaker 1: they put together a thirteen point program and it ends
Speaker 1: with we want a socialist society. So there's no like,
Speaker 1: you can't really pretend like they're reformists, right. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: were really good at getting reforms, but that wasn't their goal.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They set up a bilingual newspaper which they mimiographed themselves
Speaker 1: before eventually getting it produced off proper. It was one
Speaker 1: of the country's first bilingual newspapers.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: At its peak, it had print runs of twenty four
Speaker 1: thousand copies rely fit every week, I believe. And it
Speaker 1: was called Polente, which I'll read. I'll read what is
Speaker 1: in a script really quick. Palente is slang that means onward,
Speaker 1: basically from PoTA Olente. There's a sick hooray for the
Speaker 1: riff rap song called Palente. Maybe you've heard of it, Alinda.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 3: It took me two years to write. Oh really it did. Yeah. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't know if anyone out there is hard on themselves,
Speaker 3: but you can probably relate to tasking yourself with I
Speaker 3: need to write a song that honors this movement and
Speaker 3: this like you know of my ancestors. So I better
Speaker 3: write a really good song within like four to five
Speaker 3: minutes that encapsulates this, like how much it means to me.
Speaker 3: So it took me about two years to do that.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense. They like, like there's
Speaker 1: episodes I haven't done of cool people who did cool
Speaker 1: stuff yet because I'm like, I'm not ready. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: not ready to like cover. I mean, I've done some
Speaker 1: that I kind of felt that way about Stonewall in
Speaker 1: the Spanish Civil War and some other things. Right, But
Speaker 1: there's some that I'm just like, Oh, how the hell
Speaker 1: am I gonna tell this? So that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense to me. It's a great song. Anyone who's
Speaker 1: listening should go and listen to this song and great video.
Speaker 3: Also, yeah, my friends Chris Mark, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I actually originally wrote this script for someone else, and
Speaker 1: then I use this part of the script to talk
Speaker 1: about how cool the song is, how people should check
Speaker 1: it out, and then I dragged you on as a guest. Nice,
Speaker 1: so they start putting out, uh, polente, Actually do you
Speaker 1: wanna do you have more of a I'm like, it's
Speaker 1: slang that means onward? Yeah, is there more that you
Speaker 1: could say about.
Speaker 3: What it means? It is true, it's just slang, you know,
Speaker 3: and it's funny within like, at least the experience of
Speaker 3: my family, you know, my dad, who was like a
Speaker 3: total like veteran turned hippie, would be like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: why aren't they like the young lords? You know, And
Speaker 3: then other people in my family would be like, that
Speaker 3: just means to literally go forward. There's like dance songs
Speaker 3: about that. Why are you getting all wrapped up in
Speaker 3: this word?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: So it's it's like a thing that I feel like
Speaker 3: For me, I was specifically drawn into that word because
Speaker 3: of the Young Lords. And maybe if you don't come
Speaker 3: from like a super like a nerdy background of researching them,
Speaker 3: you might just be like that means like keep a pushing,
Speaker 3: you know. But because of my mind being like totally
Speaker 3: blown by learning about them, I was like, this is
Speaker 3: the word, this is what I need to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, fuck yeah. Speaking of what we need
Speaker 1: to do, we need to be sponsored the things that
Speaker 1: we hate in order to eat food and feed it,
Speaker 1: feed the food to the people that we like and ourselves.
Speaker 1: So it's been a particular week of like learning about
Speaker 1: a bunch of ads that have managed to slip in
Speaker 1: past our filters. So if you're listening to this in
Speaker 1: Ireland and you get an ad for becoming a cop
Speaker 1: in Ireland, I'm I'm just gonna go ahead and say
Speaker 1: I do not support this particular sponsor.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is just trolling. I know, that really trolling,
Speaker 3: you know, especially.
Speaker 1: If it was like I don't know if as Northern
Speaker 1: Ireland or whatever, like especially feels like a Britan become
Speaker 1: a British cop in Ireland.
Speaker 4: I love to know what category they've slipped in under
Speaker 4: because we have like government blocked and like all those
Speaker 4: categories blocked.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like all social club.
Speaker 2: A few years back, we had the Washington State Patrol
Speaker 2: running ads on one of our shows, or a couple
Speaker 2: of our shows, and we were like, what the fuck,
Speaker 2: Like we have all these categories blocked.
Speaker 4: They were under business.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, it's more honest.
Speaker 4: You're like, yes, but yeah, yep, So don't enjoy these ads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, welcome to our life. Here you go, and we're back.
Speaker 1: And it'll be particularly funny because these ads change over time. Right,
Speaker 1: they're not set when we record the episode. They're set,
Speaker 1: I think when you listen to the episode. So what
Speaker 1: if in the future I start doing host red ads
Speaker 1: and I've gone on this long rant and then I
Speaker 1: come in and I'm like, do you like sandwich cookies? Well,
Speaker 1: do I have a sandwich cookie for you? The following
Speaker 1: brand of sandwich cookie is all natural. That's exactly what
Speaker 1: I need when I need sugar. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 1: not really doing a good job.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, is this really happening? I didn't want to drapped.
Speaker 5: Famous vegan snack the Oreo.
Speaker 3: I know it's vegan.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's why the new Minos thing is like
Speaker 1: not actually a rip off, because I mean, the more
Speaker 1: organic version is fine. But it's like people are like
Speaker 1: new Minos. There are the vegan Oreos, and you're like,
Speaker 1: as are Oreos.
Speaker 3: I haven't thought of at new Mino in a long time,
Speaker 3: and I got some.
Speaker 2: You taught me all about the gloriousness that is the
Speaker 2: Oreo magpie. You literally could do a sponsorship for Oreo
Speaker 2: if they were by an evil corporation.
Speaker 1: I know this is the problem, like anyway, the incredible
Speaker 1: tension of everyone needing jobs in order to continue to live.
Speaker 2: And I like this.
Speaker 1: I have the best job of anyone I know. I
Speaker 1: feel like Olinda, you might also identify it with having
Speaker 1: a pretty decent job.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but what most jobs. I'm going to turn
Speaker 1: this into a proper segue. Wow, what most jobs? But
Speaker 1: my job actually doesn't offer me not because it's healthcare. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about healthcare. Now, that's that's my segue.
Speaker 1: I'm really good at my job. The medical situation for
Speaker 1: people of color in the nineteen sixties New York was
Speaker 1: not good. Yeah, devastating that that's a better word. Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, white medical students used black and Puerto Rican
Speaker 1: hospitals for training before they moved to work on You
Speaker 1: know people that society actually cared about. Lincoln Hospital, the
Speaker 1: only hospital at the time in the South Bronx was
Speaker 1: called the butcher Shop. People would go in there to
Speaker 1: get a leg amputated and come out with the wrong
Speaker 1: leg amputated.
Speaker 3: Holy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was no triage in the waiting room of
Speaker 1: the er. The paint in the children's ward was lead.
Speaker 1: We'll talk more about lead pain. Here's a nice euphemism.
Speaker 1: People got enrolled into medical studies without their consent. That
Speaker 1: is the nicest way of phrasing that I can possibly imagine. Seriously,
Speaker 1: is a it's bad. It's like a really bad thing.
Speaker 1: So the Young Lords single handedly, No wait, they show
Speaker 1: up as one player in a larger coalition of groups
Speaker 1: fighting for health rights, the East Harlem Health Council, the
Speaker 1: e h HC. This is actually before they moved to
Speaker 1: the South Bronx. We're going to come back and talk
Speaker 1: about Lincoln Hospital a little bit later, Okay, But so
Speaker 1: this is the when they're still more in East Harlem.
Speaker 1: They're protesting inside and outside of hospitals about the abuses
Speaker 1: happening there, and a ton of the medical providers at
Speaker 1: these hospitals were involved in organizing with the EHHC, just
Speaker 1: usually not the administration, but the actual doctors and the
Speaker 1: other you know, nursing staff and administrative staff and stuff.
Speaker 1: Administrative staff, I don't know what you call the people
Speaker 1: who aren't the bosses but are still administering things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've got nothing, yeah, administrative staff, yeah, middle management
Speaker 2: yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think it's like again, like you have these
Speaker 1: like people who are like, we're crazy socialists who wear
Speaker 1: crazy outfits and uniforms and patrol like to keep the
Speaker 1: cops off of our block. And the doctors are like, wait,
Speaker 1: but are you trying to help people? And they're like yeah,
Speaker 1: and they're all right, great, we're trying to help people too.
Speaker 1: How do we help people?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Young Lords they sat down with some doctors at
Speaker 1: Metropolitan Hospital in Harlem and they drafted a ten point
Speaker 1: health program because of course it had to be a
Speaker 1: ten point health program because they only have two naming
Speaker 1: conventions in the Young Lord, which is one is the
Speaker 1: ten point or whatever number point program and the other
Speaker 1: one is the the something offensive like the garbage offensive. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's now. I love a good naming convention, and there
Speaker 1: have been great one starughout history. I'm just so. I'm
Speaker 1: not trying to drag them. They just they have two
Speaker 1: of them in it. In the ten Point Program, they
Speaker 1: advocate for direct democratic control of the hospital by a
Speaker 1: combination of its medical staff, its workers, and the residents
Speaker 1: of the neighborhood.
Speaker 3: No fucking notes like, seriously, that sounds great, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm in how do we do it? Also in
Speaker 1: the ten point Program was like healthcare should be free?
Speaker 1: What the fuck? Then they form yet another organization, the
Speaker 1: Health Revolutionary Unity Movement or RUM HRUM. I think HRUM.
Speaker 1: And it might seem sort of odd that they may
Speaker 1: and join a million organizations, but it's actually kind of
Speaker 1: an effective decentralization technique that I think this is my
Speaker 1: own bias coming into it. When they are more effectively
Speaker 1: decentralized is when they are accomplishing more. From my point
Speaker 1: of view, that's my reading of this history. They're avoiding
Speaker 1: putting themselves directly into power. They're keeping power with the people,
Speaker 1: which is the stated goal. And I'm under the impression
Speaker 1: that they were also learning a lot about what wasn't
Speaker 1: working with the black panthers who also were looking at
Speaker 1: their own weaknesses.
Speaker 3: And try to show them up.
Speaker 1: Don't get me wrong. It's also important because while this
Speaker 1: is a story about how how the Young Lord's one
Speaker 1: sanitation detox facilities a patient's bill of rights, it's also
Speaker 1: a story about how the young Lords, in conjunction with
Speaker 1: a huge intersecting swath of revolutionaries and like medical professionals
Speaker 1: and stuff.
Speaker 2: Do so.
Speaker 1: An awful lot of this healthcare activism was inspired by
Speaker 1: the Cuban Revolution. A bunch of doctors and young lords
Speaker 1: has secreted themselves to Cuba at one point or another
Speaker 1: to see how to create a functioning health care system.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a I'm not like a big state socialism girl,
Speaker 1: but I'm also not a big capitalism girl, and socialist.
Speaker 1: Cuba produced a better healthcare system than the United States
Speaker 1: has ever managed to do.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So, on December fifth, nineteen sixty nine, they joined to
Speaker 1: sit in at the hospital. They're protesting the construction of
Speaker 1: an emergency room that I could not figure out what
Speaker 1: was wrong in the emergency room was being done in
Speaker 1: a bad way. Okay, I don't know there's so many
Speaker 1: different times they all take over churches and hospitals and
Speaker 1: shit that it was like, wow, yeah, it's a good
Speaker 1: problem for your movement to have. Being like, I can't
Speaker 1: keep track of everything they did because they did everything constantly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe them that the er was being done in
Speaker 1: a bad way and that it was worth protesting. I
Speaker 1: have no everything else they've been right on about. So
Speaker 1: they didn't win a dramatic change in the construction of
Speaker 1: the er, but they want a sort of a side demand, okay,
Speaker 1: in that the hospital would now pay for one of
Speaker 1: their doctors to come volunteer at their storefront clinic and
Speaker 1: offer immunizations. Yeah, and then there was something else that
Speaker 1: they wanted to work on. They just like literally worked
Speaker 1: on everything. They were focused on lead poisoning. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you knew this, but lead is really.
Speaker 3: Bad for you, yes, especially for children.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which is why you shouldn't paint the children's
Speaker 1: wing of the hospital in lead. Apparently it's like sweet
Speaker 1: if you eat it, and that's why kids eat it.
Speaker 1: Sophie is looking distressed by this.
Speaker 3: It's trachac.
Speaker 1: So lead poisoning, it's lead poisoning.
Speaker 2: The original like fruit flavored vape things.
Speaker 1: I don't maybe there's lead in the current vape. Well,
Speaker 1: we get sued if I make this claim.
Speaker 3: Allegedly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're saying you don't know, but you might know,
Speaker 4: but it might be, but it might not be.
Speaker 5: And that's hine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're not in the UK. We can't get sued
Speaker 1: for libel. There's probably not.
Speaker 5: Like this podcaster is in the UK bagpot, but I'm
Speaker 5: not in the oh.
Speaker 1: I see interesting, the delicate balance we all walk, Okay,
Speaker 1: I genuinely have no All I know is that vapes
Speaker 1: are unregular, right are they still unregulated?
Speaker 3: I don't know about this.
Speaker 5: I don't get pretty unregulated. But lead paint tastes sweet,
Speaker 5: and that's why kids.
Speaker 1: That is all right. I'm looking it up.
Speaker 3: Really with my day.
Speaker 5: It's Monday, and I'm already like what the fuck?
Speaker 1: Yeah, lead paint has a sweet taste, which encourages children
Speaker 1: to put paint chips in their mouths and chee on
Speaker 1: surfaces like windowsills, says University of Rochester. The top Google
Speaker 1: result when I google lead paint.
Speaker 5: I bet animals are drawn to it as well.
Speaker 1: M that's why animals attack. I'mank you violent.
Speaker 5: Thanks, thanks for bombing me out, magpie.
Speaker 3: You're welcome.
Speaker 6: That's the point of this ship. Wait this, well, let
Speaker 6: me talk about how they've stopped it. Oh, that's a
Speaker 6: great thing. They stopped this shit. Tell me all right,
Speaker 6: So fucks you up. It fucks up your brain, it
Speaker 6: fucks up your kidneys, it can kill you. Children in
Speaker 6: poor urban areas were chok full of lead. The paint
Speaker 6: had been discontinued in the nineteen forties, but no one
Speaker 6: was checking poor houses housing areas to make sure that,
Speaker 6: like landlords were getting rid of the lead paint and shit.
Speaker 6: In New York City late nineteen sixties, twenty five to
Speaker 6: thirty five, thousand kids were getting fucked up by lead
Speaker 6: poisoning every year. Wow, And that's just the ones who
Speaker 6: were like it was bad enough or got noticed in
Speaker 6: that way.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Of course, one kid, he was two years old, his
Speaker 1: name was Gregory Franklin. He was killed by lead paint
Speaker 1: and basically since he had been born, his parents had
Speaker 1: been fighting with their landlord to deal with the lead
Speaker 1: paint in their house to no success, and then they
Speaker 1: lost their child. So the young lords spring into action.
Speaker 1: They what they needed was a lead offensive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. I know.
Speaker 1: It's so good, especially lead offensive because it sounds like
Speaker 1: it's going to be about machine guns, but they're still
Speaker 1: unarmed except for with that particular tool that we're going
Speaker 1: to get to you later.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: The city had access to a ton of free lead
Speaker 1: poisoning kits, but they weren't distributing them, or at least
Speaker 1: they weren't distributed them in these areas. So during the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine mayor all election, the Young Lords announced
Speaker 1: they were going to do free door to door testing
Speaker 1: with these kits, which the city hadn't promised them. They
Speaker 1: didn't call up the city and be like, hey, can
Speaker 1: we get some kits and then say hey, we're going
Speaker 1: to do testing. They just announced the city is going
Speaker 1: to give us kits, call and we are going to
Speaker 1: do testing, and the government was like no. So then
Speaker 1: medical personnel and the Young Lords did a sit in
Speaker 1: at the Department of Health and they walked out that
Speaker 1: particular day with two hundred kits and I believe started
Speaker 1: just getting kids from the city.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, direct action gets the fucking goods. And they went
Speaker 1: door to door doing testing for lead and it was
Speaker 1: two groups. It was the Young Lords and then h
Speaker 1: rum the health movement and they the larger coalition.
Speaker 3: That they're part of, uh huh.
Speaker 1: And so they tracked who they who needed treatment, and
Speaker 1: the doctors with them made referrals. So they go around
Speaker 1: and be like young lords and doctors working together. Over
Speaker 1: thirty percent of the kids that they tested tested positive
Speaker 1: for lead exposure. And so then they would sit down
Speaker 1: and talk with people about their rights and about how
Speaker 1: to go about and try and get justice and try
Speaker 1: and get health health needs taken care of. And they
Speaker 1: did this once a week. One source says they did
Speaker 1: every Saturday. One source they says they did it every Tuesday.
Speaker 1: Because why would history agree with itself. I mean the
Speaker 1: answer is because it was a bunch of humans, and
Speaker 1: humans don't remember shit from forty years ago very clearly.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah yeah at the time, way, yeah, they were
Speaker 3: doing it once a week.
Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, get me to cut you off. I'm
Speaker 1: sorry saying, oh no, that's all.
Speaker 3: That's all I was saying. It's a great, it's like
Speaker 3: an incredible thing to do with your time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like even it's like it's like volunteerism or whatever, right,
Speaker 1: but it's like fucking direct action. You're going around and
Speaker 1: helping people and like you're getting to know your neighbors
Speaker 1: and like they're just like not a downside, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: And so they publicized what they found and it became
Speaker 1: a scandal for the city who had refused to take
Speaker 1: had refused to give them the tests, you know. So
Speaker 1: within within months, the city changed its housing codes, stepped
Speaker 1: up testing, founded the Bureau of Lead Poisoning Control, I
Speaker 1: think basically because they were like, if you tell the city, like,
Speaker 1: if you don't take care of people, the socialists will
Speaker 1: the city's like, maybe we should take care of the people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: much like you will be taken care of by Uh,
Speaker 1: let's go with a positive sponsor again, old stand by turtles.
Speaker 1: Turtles are really cute. You want to be sponsored by
Speaker 1: the cute.
Speaker 3: Little turtles that live free, that live free like in
Speaker 3: the wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, why not, Like we just were thinking about good
Speaker 1: sponsors to do little ads for.
Speaker 3: I'm a fan of turtles. I love how they live
Speaker 3: for a very long time. Yeah, you should probably listen
Speaker 3: to them more.
Speaker 1: Yeah, respect your elder turtles. Yeah that is this is
Speaker 1: an ad for respecting your elder turtlesh you should listen
Speaker 1: to the Methuselah turtles in your life, and then whatever
Speaker 1: else these other ads are. We didn't approve of their
Speaker 1: an accident. I hope it's all turtle ads. Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1: My favorite turtle fact I learned is that box turtles
Speaker 1: stay within a mile or so of where they were
Speaker 1: born their whole life.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that was wanted from that ad.
Speaker 1: Just now about turtles that we are heard.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I didn't. I didn't hear. It is local,
Speaker 3: little guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, keep it local, like a yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about and they take over church. I
Speaker 1: mean around that time, they keep working on survival programs too,
Speaker 1: which is what they call the like you know, breakfast
Speaker 1: program and stuff like that. Right, but they wanted to
Speaker 1: do more and they need another base of operations. And
Speaker 1: also their friend and the black panther, Fred Hampton, had
Speaker 1: just been murdered in Chicago by the police, so they
Speaker 1: were looking for a place that they could operate that
Speaker 1: the police probably wouldn't storm in a hail of gunfire.
Speaker 3: Okay, So they wanted a church real lyeant by the way,
Speaker 3: I know, and I feel like I always wondered why
Speaker 3: the Church, and that's like a very great point. Yeah,
Speaker 3: practical point.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It also is that like, Okay, so they're Marxist Leninist
Speaker 1: organization right ostensibly and practically, but they're clearly doing their
Speaker 1: own thing. They're things their own way and in their
Speaker 1: own context. So they're not an atheist organization like Marxist
Speaker 1: Lenism is like supposed to be right. Some of them
Speaker 1: are atheists, some of them are not. The Christian Church
Speaker 1: was criticized regularly by the Young Lords for being an
Speaker 1: instrument of colonization, completely accurate, but at the same time,
Speaker 1: they used Christ as a man of the people a
Speaker 1: lot in their propaganda.
Speaker 3: Oh I like it, I like it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They had posters.
Speaker 1: I really want one. They had posters of Jesus with
Speaker 1: an AK forty seven slung around his shoulder.
Speaker 3: Wait, what do we get that?
Speaker 1: I'm like, immediately on the day, I know, anybod who's listening,
Speaker 1: if you have access to these posters, please send them
Speaker 1: to me and Alinda seriously. And I think that some
Speaker 1: of the Radical Catholics are rolling with them at this point.
Speaker 1: You can hear more about the passifist Radical Catholics in
Speaker 1: our episode The Passifist Radical the ones who are rolling
Speaker 1: with the Young Lords probably ant passist, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure you can hear more about them in our episode
Speaker 1: about the Burglars versus the FBI that came out recently.
Speaker 1: So the Young Lords they are looking for this new
Speaker 1: base and they go to a Spanish church in Harlem
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, can we use your space? But
Speaker 1: the priest at East Harlem's first Spanish United Methodist church
Speaker 1: didn't want to let them feed kids there. He was
Speaker 1: a refugee from Castor's Cuba and he was not super lefty,
Speaker 1: it's a way that one could say that. So they
Speaker 1: went four more times to Sunday Mass and they would
Speaker 1: participate in mass, I believe, respectfully, but then they would
Speaker 1: also like speak up and be like let us feed
Speaker 1: kids here. Each time the priest it's like, no, you
Speaker 1: can't do that. So then they go. I think it's
Speaker 1: time number five, but I'm not entirely sure, and a
Speaker 1: Young Lord tries to speak at the service and an
Speaker 1: undercover copp to arrest him because the priest had set
Speaker 1: up a sting to arrest the Young Lord's during mass.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I know. So a brawl broke out because
Speaker 1: a brawl broke out between cops and lords in the
Speaker 1: house of the Lord. Thirteen Young Lords, eight men and
Speaker 1: five women were arrested and five more were hospitalized.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Religious civil rights leaders came out against the church for
Speaker 1: having set up a sting to arrest the lords at mass.
Speaker 1: So the Young Lords gave up, went home, disbanded their organization. No,
Speaker 1: it stiffened the resolve to use the church, and it
Speaker 1: also turned more of the congregation into supporters of the
Speaker 1: Young Lord's request to use the space. The congregation of
Speaker 1: the church was fairly split, and more of the younger
Speaker 1: congregants were like, fuck yeah, the Young Lord's rule, and
Speaker 1: more of the older congregants were like the Young Lord's
Speaker 1: drool totally how they phrased it. And so the next Sunday,
Speaker 1: five hundred supporters for the Young Lords waited outside. The
Speaker 1: Young Lords met with the church board, who started off
Speaker 1: the conversation by saying racist shit against Puerto Ricans. That's
Speaker 1: the other like background context to a lot of this, Right,
Speaker 1: It's not just like people being like I have slightly
Speaker 1: more conservative economic values than you, and I don't think
Speaker 1: it's a good way to help people grow up. No,
Speaker 1: they're like, you, I'm not gonna say it how they
Speaker 1: would say it. You lazy Puerto Ricans have no work
Speaker 1: ethic and that's why you're all poor and you blow
Speaker 1: all your welfare money on beer. These are some of
Speaker 1: the my paraphrasing of what they've said, you know, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Also that it was disrespectful for the Afro Puerto Ricans
Speaker 1: to have to wear their hair, and Afros was another thing.
Speaker 1: The priests were like, we don't like your haircut.
Speaker 3: Wow, we did go out of your like you're laying
Speaker 3: by the way. Literally, no on asking you about people's hair.
Speaker 3: But cool, you're supposed to be darking about Jesus and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Famous, if no one asked you. Famous hates people
Speaker 1: for their haircut. Jesus maybe he doesn't like frosted tips.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure. I've never asked him about ast tins.
Speaker 1: But so for two more weeks they keep going to
Speaker 1: Sunday mass. So this is like two months now, right
Speaker 1: then the third week after they've been beaten by cops,
Speaker 1: it's December twenty eighth, nineteen sixty nine, they go to
Speaker 1: a Sunday service and then they nail the doors shut,
Speaker 1: lock themselves inside, and they basically take the university takeover
Speaker 1: strategy to the community. And if you remember, this isn't
Speaker 1: the first time the Young Lads, the Young Lords in
Speaker 1: Chicago took over a church as well, right, but it
Speaker 1: certainly gets presented that they're drawing more from their experiences
Speaker 1: during the Columbia University takeover, which is when Columbia University
Speaker 1: students led by led by black students took over much
Speaker 1: of the university, which if you want to hear more about,
Speaker 1: listen to our episode about up against the Wall Motherfuckers,
Speaker 1: the which I think we just called up against the
Speaker 1: Wall in the title because we're not allowed to cuss
Speaker 1: on the title.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 5: I like that this entire podcast has turned into an
Speaker 5: ad for other episodes of our podcast.
Speaker 1: I like to see it as weaving the web of history,
Speaker 1: but it's also yeah, it's also just yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: if you want more context, they didn't take hostages. They
Speaker 1: let anyone out who wanted to leave. They held a
Speaker 1: press conference and they said that their demand was the
Speaker 1: ability to run a food program out of the church,
Speaker 1: and they couched it all in religious language, but without lying.
Speaker 1: They were like, they weren't like, oh, Christianity's perfect in
Speaker 1: every way and they're doing it wrong. They're like, look,
Speaker 1: Christianity became a religion of colonization, but Jesus himself was
Speaker 1: a man of the people, because that's their line, right,
Speaker 1: and they echo liberation theology stuff, which you can hear
Speaker 1: more about in our episodes about Chico Mendez in the
Speaker 1: Fight for the Rainforest. Now I'm just gonna do to
Speaker 1: make Sophie shake her head. The mayor. This is like
Speaker 1: one of my favorite details of this whole thing. So
Speaker 1: the mayor has a Puerto Rican aid, like a guy
Speaker 1: who's this point of contact with the Puerto Rican community. Okay,
Speaker 1: his name is Arnie Segata.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, wait, like my I end up utilizing that's
Speaker 3: my uncle.
Speaker 1: Wait is it your uncle?
Speaker 3: No? I have no idea who Ernie is, but Arnie related, Arnie, Arnie,
Speaker 3: We're related though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Arnie Segata. It's spelled the same way. I had
Speaker 1: to just double check. I had to look up your
Speaker 1: own I had to look up your last name. I remember,
Speaker 1: I was spelling it right in my head because I'm
Speaker 1: like not very good at the double rolled ours thing,
Speaker 1: and so I was like, oh, maybe I anyway, So
Speaker 1: your uncle Arnie.
Speaker 3: Oh god, does he suck. I'm worried about No, he's great.
Speaker 3: Oh good, you come from Arnie. Let's go, Yeah, let's go.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: So he started off not great because he's the mayor's guy.
Speaker 1: He gets sent he's the token guy. He gets He
Speaker 1: used to quell unrest in Puerto Rican neighborhoods. He was
Speaker 1: probably on the ground during the trash burning, being like,
Speaker 1: everyone calm down. So the Mayor's like, here, go in,
Speaker 1: and he has this like backpack telephone, this like radio,
Speaker 1: like military fucking telephone, you know.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 1: Forty minutes later, the mayor's office is like radio is
Speaker 1: and it's like and what the fuck?
Speaker 3: Where are you?
Speaker 1: What's happening? And Arnie is like I think they're right
Speaker 1: and I'm staying with them. Oh god, And he gets
Speaker 1: fired and he stays.
Speaker 3: Arnie, Yeah, my man, I gotta I'm kind of like,
Speaker 3: look this guy up on the internet right now.
Speaker 1: So they renamed the place the People's Church, and the
Speaker 1: community pours in to discuss what to do about all
Speaker 1: kinds of shit like evictions to lack of interpretation services.
Speaker 1: It'school meetings, and it was called the Church Offensive Wow.
Speaker 1: I really hope that at some point a young lord
Speaker 1: became a youth pastor, sat down backwards on a folding
Speaker 1: chair and said, you know who else had a ten
Speaker 1: point program and then talked about the Ten Commandments.
Speaker 3: That's what I hope that.
Speaker 1: So they ran a medical clinic there because of course
Speaker 1: they did, staffed by all their doctor comrades, and they
Speaker 1: ran their breakfast program, plus free community meals every evening
Speaker 1: for everyone. And so it's like all of these different
Speaker 1: people from the community coming and bringing in food and
Speaker 1: sharing it with everyone. It's fucking utopian, Like just frankly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: They taught classes on Puerto Rican and black history. They
Speaker 1: set up a loud speaker facing the street that played
Speaker 1: speeches from Malcolm X and shit alongside Puerto Rican music.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 1: The Young Lords generally didn't carry weapons, and when they
Speaker 1: needed security they okay, I want you you both get
Speaker 1: a guess again. So if you can't look at the script,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not guess what their weapon was. The
Speaker 1: flail wasn't correct, the battle axe was incorrect. I'll give
Speaker 1: you a hint. Turtles, what do you a shell?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Wait?
Speaker 2: How there's there's They're just out here throwing shells.
Speaker 1: No, they have nun chucks.
Speaker 3: Oh oh the turtle.
Speaker 5: The turtle thing was I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Sorry. So they carry none chucks as theirs their weapons
Speaker 1: of choice, which is I mean, like frankly, like it's
Speaker 1: a scary weapon to carry, but it's like not a
Speaker 1: you know, it's not a like kill you weapon.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But if someone walks up to me and they're like
Speaker 1: kind of scary anyway and they have a breton and
Speaker 1: they're carrying nunchucks, like I don't want to fuck with them.
Speaker 3: Absolutely not. This is like also the most New York
Speaker 3: thing ever, by the way, Oh yeah, because you know
Speaker 3: it's just like, i mean, it just isn't the way
Speaker 3: that it's this like cross cultural.
Speaker 1: Like oh my god, you're right.
Speaker 3: Moment, you know. I mean, I'm sure this was coming
Speaker 3: out of like at the time kung fu movies were huge. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, like this is just oh really yeah, it's
Speaker 3: just the most New York image in my mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Totally Also very warriors energy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally totally. Which is I mean that's their roots, right,
Speaker 1: It's like they're a crazy gang that wants to yeah,
Speaker 1: realize that there's more of them than there are cops
Speaker 1: in this town, so white supporters use their whiteness to
Speaker 1: pass through police lines and deliver supplies.
Speaker 3: Oh wow.
Speaker 1: And the young Lawyrd's made sure that no one did
Speaker 1: any desecrating of the church, and they kept the altar
Speaker 1: and everything intact. They actually even kept Sunday services and
Speaker 1: like the regular congregation was able to come in and
Speaker 1: use the church on Sunday even during their occupation, although
Speaker 1: only the younger congregants came right because the people don't
Speaker 1: like them aren't going to show up. And they held
Speaker 1: festivals of the oppressed with Puerto Rican music, with poets
Speaker 1: and musicians and writers and artists. I read something that
Speaker 1: claimed this is the kind of thing that I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of places might claim origin to that
Speaker 1: the spoken word poetry jam, Like the whole concept of
Speaker 1: the spoken word poetry jam was developed here. I believe it,
Speaker 1: and if so, this is one of the foundations of
Speaker 1: hip hop.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's also where the poet Pedro Pietry gave his first
Speaker 1: public reading of his poem Puerto Rican Obituary.
Speaker 3: Which is featured in my song Ballante. Yeah, and there's
Speaker 3: incredible footage of him reading it. I think for the
Speaker 3: first time on YouTube that you guys should check out
Speaker 3: because it's very moving.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. Even if you're like not a poetry girl,
Speaker 1: you should go and listen to this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very much street poetry. You're not going to cringe.
Speaker 3: It's not like particularly slam yet, you know, it's very
Speaker 3: I remember reading that that poem for the first time
Speaker 3: when I was in high school in an anthology of
Speaker 3: called like the Outlaws Anthology of Poetry or something, and
Speaker 3: reading that poem really was the first time I ever
Speaker 3: saw Puerto Ricanness be like so talked about in such
Speaker 3: a real way, in a way that wasn't like a
Speaker 3: Mickey Mouse way.
Speaker 1: You know, I believe you, But tell me more, what's
Speaker 1: the Mickey Mouse way?
Speaker 3: Like the way that we were portrayed in media when
Speaker 3: I was growing up, which was very like docile and
Speaker 3: fun and like it was very j lo, very Ricky Martin.
Speaker 3: That was like what I grew up with. And also
Speaker 3: like literally West Side Story being something that's like, oh, well,
Speaker 3: you can see us featured in such recent movie as
Speaker 3: this West Side Story and it's like nineteen ninety eight. Yeah,
Speaker 3: why is this the last reference that I have? Yeah?
Speaker 3: So it was just very much. You know, I was
Speaker 3: hanging out in the Lower east Side and Tomkin Square
Speaker 3: Park and stuff, and for the first time being like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, the problems that I'm seeing in society
Speaker 3: now were happening then, and people like me, we're talking
Speaker 3: about it and we're experiencing it, and this is like
Speaker 3: a poem that's expressing that angst, you know. Yeah, So
Speaker 3: it was a very powerful moment for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The first time I heard it was in your song.
Speaker 1: And then when I like was reading about this, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, because I was just all, yeah, in
Speaker 1: all the connections. So I want to quote about this
Speaker 1: takeover just to keep talking about how cool it is.
Speaker 1: From the best book on this history that I found
Speaker 1: was called The Young Low is called the Young Lords
Speaker 1: by U. Johanna Fernandez. Quote. Immediately, local grandmothers began delivering
Speaker 1: pots of food to the Puerto Rican radicals through church windows,
Speaker 1: while a FEELANX of National Lawyer's Guild attorneys on site
Speaker 1: and in the church's periphery filed court injunctions and reminded
Speaker 1: judges and police of the barricaded radicals constitutionally protected right
Speaker 1: to protest. Teetering between sacrilege and righteousness. The Young Lord's
Speaker 1: unfolding drama was captured by TV cameras parked in the
Speaker 1: out parked in and outside of the House of Warship.
Speaker 1: And yeah, because of the National Lawyer's Guild. Shout out
Speaker 1: to the National Lawyer's Guild who are also still around
Speaker 1: and doing amazing things. The fight to evict them was
Speaker 1: held in the courts rather than just like storming the place,
Speaker 1: like because you like, hear about this and you're kind
Speaker 1: of like, well, why didn't they just like storm it, right,
Speaker 1: And the answer is that, Okay, they took it to court.
Speaker 1: And their strategy, which is probably never gonna win or whatever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: their strategy was basically, a Methodist church is mandated to
Speaker 1: help people, and that's what we're doing. And this stalled
Speaker 1: their eviction, but not for all that long. I think
Speaker 1: it's thirteen days maybe in the end. On January seventh,
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, the occupants gave themselves up into police custody
Speaker 1: walking out of the church. Some of them were singing,
Speaker 1: some of them had their fists raised in silence. When
Speaker 1: presented before a judge, each one corrected the judge's pronunciation
Speaker 1: of their name, saying their own names in Spanish instead
Speaker 1: of English, which is such a good fuck you totally.
Speaker 1: They didn't win the use of the church. The church
Speaker 1: promised to run a day care center and a drug
Speaker 1: detoc center, but it never did. But they won yet again.
Speaker 1: The government's shamed into action. Just as importantly, their power
Speaker 1: is growing, and we're going to talk about what they
Speaker 1: did with their growing power on Wednesday in the final
Speaker 1: part of this four part epic.
Speaker 3: I don't want it to end.
Speaker 1: Well, when we come back, we're going to see them
Speaker 1: overthrow capitalism and no, I'm just kidding it co intel,
Speaker 1: repression and internal conflicts fuel by authoritarian instructure and going
Speaker 1: to fuck them up, but their legacy will live on.
Speaker 1: And when we come back, they're going to take over
Speaker 1: a fucking hospital.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say, I Linded. Do you
Speaker 5: know what else is based? You're pluggables? My what you're pluggables?
Speaker 5: Anything that you.
Speaker 3: Well, you can find me on all of the social medias.
Speaker 3: Some of them terrify me more than others. But I'm
Speaker 3: on Instagram as hooray for the riff raff that spelled
Speaker 3: with a U h u r r a y for
Speaker 3: the riff Raff on Twitter and all the other ones,
Speaker 3: and I'll be on tour this summer on the West
Speaker 3: Coast and also through the Midwest in July.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Magpie anything you want to plug?
Speaker 1: My other podcast, Like the World's Dying, has gone weekly,
Speaker 1: So if you're like, how am I going to make
Speaker 1: it till Monday? You can listen to me or one
Speaker 1: of my other co hosts on Friday by listening to
Speaker 1: live like the World Is Dying? And I'm on social
Speaker 1: media even though I hate it, as are, so if
Speaker 1: you want to participate in either everyone feeling bad about
Speaker 1: themselves been trying to perform coolness, you can see me
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Margaret Kiljoy. Or if you want to
Speaker 1: have bad faith arguments with people making bad faith arguments
Speaker 1: about you and watch the Left of Hour itself, you
Speaker 1: can find me on Twitter at Magpie Killjoy.
Speaker 3: Sophie.
Speaker 6: What do you got?
Speaker 1: What do you want to plug?
Speaker 2: Ah? My beautiful friend Jimmy Loftus has a book coming
Speaker 2: out and it is available for pre order right now.
Speaker 2: It is called Raw Dog. If you go to any
Speaker 2: of Jamie's social media's you can find a link to
Speaker 2: pre order or requested at your local library.
Speaker 1: It's probably worth pointing out that it's about hot dogs.
Speaker 3: Oh, fair enough, fair enough, it up.
Speaker 1: Yep, we'll see you Wednesday.
Speaker 2: They Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production
Speaker 2: of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts and cool Zone Media,
Speaker 2: visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out
Speaker 2: on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 5: App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.