WEBVTT - How Boycotts Work (Or Do They?) 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:07.120 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.119 --> 0:00:13.520 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:13.600 --> 0:00:16.160 Chuck and it's just the two of us, and we 0:00:16.320 --> 0:00:21.280 are doing an episode on boycotts today because boy boycott's 0:00:21.360 --> 0:00:25.560 really sticking your crawl. Did a lot of them. They 0:00:25.560 --> 0:00:29.080 seem to be overused in this era, and I wanted 0:00:29.120 --> 0:00:31.240 to see how the whole thing worked, just from watching 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:33.160 them happen over and over again. 0:00:34.080 --> 0:00:37.239 Yeah. Well, you know Webster's defines a boycott as a 0:00:37.280 --> 0:00:42.400 collective active refusal. Yeah, so does Steve, who help us 0:00:42.400 --> 0:00:45.400 with this. But you know what we're talking about, right, 0:00:45.440 --> 0:00:48.320 that's when people get together these days. Usually it's a 0:00:48.360 --> 0:00:50.760 call on social media or something, and they say, hey, 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:52.840 we're not going to buy this thing from your store, 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:54.720 or we're not gonna buy anything from your store, or 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:56.880 we're not gonna buy anything from your company, or we're 0:00:56.880 --> 0:00:59.960 not going to buy anything from your state or country 0:01:00.120 --> 0:01:03.440 because we want to hit your bottom line, hitch in 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:04.200 the wallet. 0:01:03.880 --> 0:01:06.040 As they say, to get you to change. 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.080 Yeah, I mean to get you to change, or I think, 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:11.640 in some people's cases these days, just to be mean 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:13.600 because I hate what you stand for. 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:16.919 Yeah, so I want to say I'm not poop pooing 0:01:16.959 --> 0:01:20.840 the entire concept of boycotts. What what I was taking 0:01:20.920 --> 0:01:24.520 issue with is just how fast and loose they come, 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:27.720 over and over that if you really followed every boycott 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:29.880 like you had starve to death, there'd be nowhere you 0:01:29.880 --> 0:01:32.160 could buy food any longer, let alone anything else. 0:01:32.840 --> 0:01:35.880 Well, yeah, and can I quickly say also that these 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:39.040 sort of so many calls for these boycotts and social media, 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:41.680 they're also I feel like a lot of times like 0:01:42.360 --> 0:01:44.760 just not thought out and that like you're boycotting this 0:01:44.880 --> 0:01:47.000 one thing, but the same company owns this other thing 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:49.960 that you like, and they just seem to be kind 0:01:50.000 --> 0:01:51.840 of the dumb version of boycotts. 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:55.040 Yeah, they're very knee jerk, they're not very organized, and 0:01:55.120 --> 0:01:59.440 they're just emotionally driven. All boycotts have some level of 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:04.160 emotion and to them driving them, But there's also supposed 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:05.720 to be a lot more to them if you're gonna 0:02:05.720 --> 0:02:06.680 make it successful. 0:02:07.400 --> 0:02:09.400 Yeah, and we're gonna cover all that stuff. 0:02:09.720 --> 0:02:12.080 But also one more thing, Chuck, I am also not 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:16.440 poopooing anybody caring about something that's great. I will always 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.359 promote somebody caring about something that's important to you, and 0:02:19.480 --> 0:02:21.520 a lot of people show that they care by joining 0:02:21.600 --> 0:02:23.959 in on boycotts or maybe even starting boycotts. 0:02:24.280 --> 0:02:26.720 Yeah. I mean you're known as the guy who cares. 0:02:27.000 --> 0:02:29.280 Who's been calling me that the public at large. 0:02:29.400 --> 0:02:31.400 I think that's your nickname on Reddit, the. 0:02:31.360 --> 0:02:33.400 Boy who cares and the best all around boy. 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.080 Oh man, look at that match made and heaven. 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.120 The barb, the BHC and the barb. 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:41.120 I love it. 0:02:41.680 --> 0:02:44.079 So let's start talking about boycotts because, like I said, 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:46.840 I was curious in how they worked. We havesked David 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.680 help us with them. And what I didn't know right 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:52.639 out of the gate is that Boycott is somebody's last name. 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.680 The first guy whoever on record, got boycotted was named 0:02:57.000 --> 0:02:58.600 Charles Cunningham Boycott. 0:02:59.080 --> 0:03:01.520 Yeah. That seems like something we would make up as 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:05.240 a bit, yeah, but it's actually totally true. He was 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.880 an Englishman living in Ireland and County Mayo, and he 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:13.680 was a rent collector, specifically would collect rent for absentee 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:18.080 British landlords from Irish tenant farmers who were having a 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.200 very rough time in eighteen seventy nine, down on. 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.840 Their luck, as you'd put it. There was a terrible famine. 0:03:24.840 --> 0:03:27.840 This is after the Great Irish Potato famine, but this 0:03:27.880 --> 0:03:30.959 one wasn't so wonderful either, And so these farmers were 0:03:30.960 --> 0:03:34.720 not exactly looking forward to being evicted for being behind 0:03:34.720 --> 0:03:38.360 on rent. And Boycott apparently seems to be one of 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.920 those people who had like he just followed the rules. 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.080 You're the one who's not paying your rent, so get out. 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.840 And the Irish people in County Mayo decided to do 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.800 something about it. They formed an organization called the Land League, 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:55.080 and they were agitating for fair rents. They were agitating 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.119 for an end to evictions, and Charles Boycott just kept 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:00.640 evicting people. So they're like, we've got to try something else. 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.520 What can we do. Let's do everything we can to 0:04:03.600 --> 0:04:05.480 ruin Charles Boycott's life. 0:04:05.960 --> 0:04:08.560 Yeah, and if there was only a name for this kind. 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:11.280 Of action, they're like, we'll get to that later, yeah. 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.160 But we can't think of one. So later, in a 0:04:14.240 --> 0:04:17.359 letter to the Times of London, Boycott basically kind of 0:04:17.880 --> 0:04:20.960 summarize what they had been doing. And we're not going 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:23.200 to read all this word for word, but you know, 0:04:23.279 --> 0:04:25.479 they really screwed with his business. He's you know, they 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.600 collected in crowds on his farm. They you know, would 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:31.680 harass him at his house. They threatened people that worked 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:34.400 for him, like his blacksmith apparently got a letter threatening 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:36.640 him with murder if he did any more work for him. 0:04:36.920 --> 0:04:41.000 They threatened his laundress to stop washing his clothes, and 0:04:41.279 --> 0:04:43.360 he couldn't get anybody to do any kind of work 0:04:43.400 --> 0:04:45.839 for him, basically and ruined his business. It became a 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:49.920 big story, like not just there, but kind of internationally. 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:53.960 The British newspapers picked it up. The British newspapers also 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.080 raised funds to send fifty Northern Irish loyalists to harvest 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:00.839 his potato crop, because you could didn't get anyone to 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:02.960 do it because they were afraid they'd get you know, 0:05:03.080 --> 0:05:07.560 physically beaten or harassed, and they were protected by British troops. 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:10.960 And apparently, by one account, it cost ten thousand pounds 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:14.360 to harvest five hundred pounds worth of potatoes from those 0:05:14.920 --> 0:05:16.160 Northern Irish loyalists. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.240 I did some conversions, let's hear it. So if they 0:05:20.320 --> 0:05:24.680 spent ten thousand pounds sterling to harvest these potatoes, they 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.960 spent a million pounds sterling or one point four million 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:33.200 dollars in today's money to harvest fifty two thousand pounds 0:05:33.279 --> 0:05:38.040 sterling or seventy thousand dollars worth of potatoes. Isn't that insane? 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:40.200 That really just drives it home. That's why I do 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.839 those conversions, Yeah, because I want to drive at home. 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:44.520 How nuts? 0:05:44.560 --> 0:05:48.520 That was totally nuts. He left Ireland boycott did in disgrace. 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.680 It was a very successful challenge to his authority. Can't 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.880 call it a boycott yet, but you could very soon 0:05:56.000 --> 0:06:00.120 because American journalist James Redpath said, you know what, the 0:06:00.160 --> 0:06:02.640 first person who used that as a verb was a 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:05.280 local priest, believe it or not. His name was Father O'Malley, 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:10.320 who said, I believe he suggested the land League try 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.239 the same thing on another landlord named Brown, and he said, 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.359 let's do what they did to boycott. Let's do a 0:06:16.400 --> 0:06:19.479 boycott on this Brown. That's what we're gonna do. We're 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.120 going to boycott Brown. See the word is a verb, 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:25.520 it's boycott. You understand. 0:06:26.160 --> 0:06:27.560 That was a great father O'Malley. 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:28.360 Thanks. 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:32.560 Yeah, And so just by covering father O'Malley using it 0:06:32.640 --> 0:06:37.240 as a verb. Writing about these new boycotts, James Redpath, 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:42.919 who appears to have been a contemporaryaneous journalist to this time. 0:06:43.520 --> 0:06:46.520 He kind of helped generate this idea that you could 0:06:46.560 --> 0:06:51.320 actually get stuff done by boycotting. People check this out. 0:06:51.480 --> 0:06:54.000 And so I think in the next year there are 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:58.640 more than a thousand boycotts in Ireland without social media. 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:03.120 Yeah, there were thousand boycotts, and that means father O'Malley 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.960 one hundred thousand times said, remember it's called boycotten. 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:11.880 That is so good. We're going to get two emails 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:14.760 from people who aren't even Irish that are mad at 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.440 us for doing that. Yeah, and then fifteen emails from 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:20.840 people from Ireland who are like that was a hilarious 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.120 chuck totally, that's how it goes. 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.200 Yeah, and maybe one from father a father O'Malley, because 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:27.120 I know there's a bunch of them. 0:07:27.200 --> 0:07:28.960 Ye, I'm going to say, that doesn't narrow it down 0:07:28.960 --> 0:07:29.280 at all. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:29.920 Yeah. 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.520 So yeah, that's where the whole boycott got started in 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.520 County Mayo, Ireland. And since then people have studied these 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:42.679 things and have really kind of gotten down to almost 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.120 the science what it would take to make a boycott effective, 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:48.720 and there have been a lot of effective boycotts over 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:50.360 the years. We're going to talk about some of them, 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:52.960 but to just kind of pull apart the nuts in 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.200 the bolts. There's just a handful of things that you 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:59.760 really have to do just right, and then it's sprinkle 0:07:59.760 --> 0:08:02.480 it with a little bit of luck and you could 0:08:02.560 --> 0:08:04.520 have an effective boycott on your hands. 0:08:04.840 --> 0:08:07.280 I think you meant just a little bit of luck. 0:08:07.440 --> 0:08:09.520 Yeah, a little bit of leper kind. 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:14.160 Dust right, Yeah, for sure. These are the one, two, three, four, 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.440 five six things you need to do. If you you know, 0:08:17.480 --> 0:08:19.560 you can boycott your day away. But if you want 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.680 to really be effective these there at least i'd say 0:08:22.680 --> 0:08:24.640 probably four out of six of these need to be around. 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.720 Yeah. Six steps to ruining target's market share. 0:08:29.040 --> 0:08:30.880 You gotta have a clear goal in mine, which means 0:08:31.080 --> 0:08:34.160 you have an outcome in mind. Basically m hm. You 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:36.559 want to narrow target. So you want to either target 0:08:36.559 --> 0:08:38.520 like a very narrow like a product or just a 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:42.880 single company. H That's why sometimes when I think about like, yeah, 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.960 you're targeting this company, but like the parent company isn't targeted. 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:48.600 I don't know. That's where it can get a little messy. 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:50.680 I think, yeah, and poor targets, Like can you guys 0:08:50.720 --> 0:08:53.640 stop using the word target when you're talking about boycotts. 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.480 Uh, there's also awareness and education, because your your goal 0:08:58.520 --> 0:09:01.400 here is to not only getting them to change whatever 0:09:01.440 --> 0:09:04.000 they're doing, but to bring awareness and educate people and 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:05.400 whatever you feel like they're doing wrong. 0:09:05.600 --> 0:09:07.880 Well. Plus also the more support you have, the better 0:09:07.960 --> 0:09:08.520 off you are. 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:09.680 Yeah, yeah, good point. 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:12.120 You also want to reach core customers. This is a 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:13.120 very important point. 0:09:13.520 --> 0:09:13.720 Yeah. 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:17.319 They've turned up an expert in boycotts and studying boycotts 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.439 who said, essentially, if you have a bunch of PEDA 0:09:20.559 --> 0:09:24.320 members who are boycotting Kentucky Fried Chicken, like, that's not 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:26.120 going to have much an effect because none of those 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:29.520 PEDA members were ever buying Kentucky Fried Chicken in the 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:32.480 first place. And yeah, maybe you could generate some public sympathy, 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:37.360 but you're not getting to their core customers necessarily. Yeah, 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:38.720 and that's what makes it effective. 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:43.000 What else, Yeah, Uh, there's sustain Uh, there's substitutability. This 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:47.760 is a big one, because if you can very easily 0:09:48.000 --> 0:09:50.959 switch to another brand of whatever, then it's going to 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:54.240 make your boycott far more effective. Like if then you know, 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.960 we'll get to other examples later. But like you know, 0:09:57.000 --> 0:09:59.000 with the big blood Light boycott was a very big 0:09:59.000 --> 0:10:01.080 and we're going to cover later. It was really easy 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.000 for the people who wanted a boycott by light to 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.719 switch to another, like an expensive light beer. So that 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.360 was a pretty effective boycott because it's like super easy. Yeah, 0:10:09.360 --> 0:10:11.319 I'll just drink Miller Led or whatever, right. 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.880 Or I'll go to churches or Popeyes rather than Kentucky 0:10:13.920 --> 0:10:18.880 Fried Chicken exactly. And then also like if you want 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:23.360 a successful boycott, you have to really like nail in 0:10:23.440 --> 0:10:26.880 that bottom line. You really got to hurt the company 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.839 financially if you want to make them at least start 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:33.600 listening to you, if not actually enact the change that 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:38.480 you're looking for. And you know, in times past, essentially 0:10:38.559 --> 0:10:42.959 pre social media era, that was the one measure of boycotts, 0:10:43.000 --> 0:10:45.120 that is how you got a company to respond. You 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:48.920 started really affecting either their sales or their stock price, 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:52.599 and more and more often than not their stock price. Nowadays, 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.640 because of social media, bad press can spread so fast 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:59.880 and so far and so wide that just getting like 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:05.720 negative press can actually make large corporations or organizations change 0:11:06.360 --> 0:11:09.680 their stance on something or make them drop their stance 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:10.760 in total. 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:13.360 Yeah, for sure, that's a very good point. It's a 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:17.360 little bit different ballgame these days. Should we take our break? Yeah, 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:19.400 all right, we'll take a break. We'll be right back 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.560 to as promised, talk about some of the most famous 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:55.560 boycotts throughout history. All right, we're back in this promise. 0:11:55.559 --> 0:11:57.680 We're gonna take you on a little walk through the 0:11:57.760 --> 0:11:59.880 history of boycotts. And we got to start with Colonial 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.840 because they were good at it. A lot of times 0:12:02.840 --> 0:12:06.200 they were boycotting an act that was passed by the 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:08.960 British that they did not like. Over here in the 0:12:09.000 --> 0:12:13.880 New Colonies. They had some pretty wicked branding with slogans 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:17.080 like no taxation without representation. They were pretty good at 0:12:17.080 --> 0:12:19.640 that kind of thing. And the first one we're going 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:22.080 to talk about is seventeen sixty five. I know we've 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:24.120 talked about, you know, all these kind of here and 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.040 there in the life of the show. But the Stamp 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:29.760 Act was passed in sixty five, which was a tax 0:12:29.840 --> 0:12:32.920 on paper goods and documents and things like that, and 0:12:33.120 --> 0:12:36.640 the merchants in Boston and New York said, nope, we're 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.120 going to sign a non importation agreement and we're not 0:12:40.160 --> 0:12:42.880 going to import goods from England anymore. And it worked 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.240 about a year later, Parliament repealed the Stamp Act. 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:49.280 Yeah, first boycott and the we should say the American colonies. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.880 It could see our Australian and New Zealand listeners. Good, 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:54.480 I don't remember any of this, what you're talking about. 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:55.600 Yeah, lots of colonies. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.040 This happened in the American colonies, right, that's right. Shortly 0:12:59.080 --> 0:13:02.120 after that, so Parliament's trying to pay for the Seven 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:05.040 Years War, the French Indian Wars, what the American colonists 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:08.720 called it. So they were then now directly taxing the 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.120 American colonies, and they followed up with the Stamp Act 0:13:12.120 --> 0:13:16.880 with the Townsend Revenue Act in seventeen sixty seven. It 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.640 taxed a bunch of different stuff. The colonists organized a 0:13:20.679 --> 0:13:25.280 bunch of protests and boycotts again, and Parliament responded and 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.719 they repealed the Townsend Act three years later, but they 0:13:28.800 --> 0:13:31.600 kept one part of it. They kept a tax on tea. 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.120 Everyone loved tea in the American colonies, as I'm sure 0:13:35.120 --> 0:13:37.800 in Australia and New Zealand too at the time. So 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.120 it was a big deal to have this big tax 0:13:40.200 --> 0:13:43.240 on tea. And so the American colonists said, well, we're 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:47.000 not going to drink British tea, and in Parliament said oh, yeah, 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:49.959 well get this. We're going to give the East India 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:55.120 Company basically free reign on selling below costs for tea, 0:13:55.240 --> 0:13:58.640 so that even with this tax, it's going to cost 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:02.480 you less for tea than buying this smuggled illegal tea 0:14:02.559 --> 0:14:04.240 that normally is cheaper with the tax. 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:04.520 Right. 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.200 So some merchants were like, well, it sounds kind of 0:14:07.200 --> 0:14:09.520 good to me. I can make more money. And the 0:14:09.960 --> 0:14:13.600 people here in the American colonies we call the patriots, 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:17.080 the founding fathers said nay to that, and that actually 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:18.600 led to the Boston Tea Party. 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.200 Yeah, the Sons of Liberty said no, thanks for get 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:23.320 a demputee in the Hobba. 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.600 Wow. I mean, you are killing it today all over 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:27.080 the place. 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:30.320 And that's what they did. In seventeen seventy four of 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.800 the First Continental Congress passed a colony wide ban on 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:37.640 all trade with Britain. And that was the beginning of 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:39.000 what would become a war. 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:43.000 Yeah, it worked then, it worked later And I mean 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.040 they didn't have a name for this because this was 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:50.120 before the County Mayo Boycott's and Charles Boycott. But they 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:53.480 were like this unnamed thing that we're doing. It really 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:57.760 kind of works, and so it inspired other groups that 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:01.200 came along in America over the court. So the coming centuries, 0:15:01.720 --> 0:15:05.080 especially if you were part of a civil rights organization, 0:15:06.440 --> 0:15:11.360 boycotts proved very effective. They are really worthwhile to do 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.480 because most of the time, if you're agitating for civil rights, 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.360 you have a group of true believers who are willing 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.000 to actually work at this. And one of the first 0:15:22.040 --> 0:15:25.360 groups fighting for civil rights in the United States were 0:15:25.400 --> 0:15:28.680 the Quakers Quaker abolitionists, and they formed something called the 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:30.280 Free Produce Movement. 0:15:31.080 --> 0:15:33.840 Yeah, this was in the eighteen forties through the Civil 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.040 War basically, and they boycotted goods made by enslaved people, 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.800 cotton of course being one of the keys there. And 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:42.400 as far as they were concerned, like, hey, if you're 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.960 buying the stuff, you're supporting slavery. So the Free Produce 0:15:46.040 --> 0:15:49.920 Movement sort of tackled that. Another obvious example as far 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:54.040 as civil rights go is the great Montgomery bus Boycott, 0:15:54.080 --> 0:15:57.920 which we covered in detail in our episode from February 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.720 twenty eighteen. Rosa Parks colon Asient of Change, So you 0:16:01.720 --> 0:16:04.160 can go listen to that episode for the full rundown 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:07.720 of the Montgomery bus boycott. But that was a couple 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:10.720 of highlights for me was the fact that before Rosa 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:14.040 Parks came along. I always want a chance to shout 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.400 out fifteen year old Claudette Colvin who in March nineteen 0:16:17.440 --> 0:16:20.240 fifty five refused to move so a white passenger could 0:16:20.240 --> 0:16:23.160 take her seat. She was also yanked off the bus 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:25.480 and arrested by the cops. But they would end up 0:16:25.560 --> 0:16:30.400 rallying around Rosa Parks instead about nine months later. And 0:16:30.440 --> 0:16:32.240 then the other thing I just wanted to highlight, and 0:16:32.280 --> 0:16:34.480 again you should listen to that episode because it's really 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:38.720 in depth, but was that the black community rallied around 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:40.560 each other in like a big way, Like black taxi 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:43.240 drivers would charged the same fare as the bus fair 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:47.880 would be. They had volunteers organizing carpools. They had shoe 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.000 drives because people were walking so much, they were wearing 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:52.280 their shoes out to get people in fresh shoes. And 0:16:52.720 --> 0:16:55.840 it's a really beautiful moment in American history. 0:16:55.920 --> 0:16:58.240 Yeah, and it was a real struggle for them because 0:16:58.280 --> 0:17:01.720 this is how black people in Montgomery largely got around 0:17:01.880 --> 0:17:03.640 was the bus. So to give that up was a 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:06.480 big deal, and it was a successful boycott. It lasted 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.879 three hundred and eighty two days until the Supreme Court 0:17:10.400 --> 0:17:15.160 ruled that segregation on buses was unconstitutional. If your boycott 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.159 leads to a Supreme Court ruling that what you're fighting 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:23.320 against is unconstitutional, that is a successful boycott, Yeah, for sure. 0:17:23.800 --> 0:17:27.160 And then one other thing about the Montgomery bus boycott 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:29.920 is that it directly inspired another boycott a few years 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:34.600 later that involved the United farm Workers grapegrowers or grape harvesters. 0:17:34.640 --> 0:17:37.840 I should say that was led by Caesar Chavez, and 0:17:37.960 --> 0:17:40.560 I mean one of the things that he did that 0:17:40.600 --> 0:17:43.840 also makes boycott successful that we talked about was educating 0:17:43.880 --> 0:17:47.119 the public. They created bumper stickers that said uvas, no, 0:17:47.760 --> 0:17:50.800 no grapes. They told people what was going on, and 0:17:50.840 --> 0:17:55.120 they got public support. That really helped these boycotts really 0:17:55.160 --> 0:17:58.080 helped put the pressure on the grape growers to give 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:00.480 the grape harvesters better work and can nditions. 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:02.480 Can we talk about apartheid? 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:04.480 I think we should so. 0:18:04.760 --> 0:18:08.560 Apartheid was segregation in South Africa. It was their version 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:14.200 of legal segregation of their people of the white minority 0:18:14.359 --> 0:18:17.800 and the black majority in South Africa, and it was 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:22.280 around since nineteen forty eight through basically the mid nineties 0:18:22.359 --> 0:18:24.520 to when it finally dissolved, I think was like ninety four. 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:30.880 And the repeal of apartheid is partially credited to international pressure, 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:36.480 Boycott's sanctions, divestment and little Stevie van zandt Yeah, and 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:38.520 little Stevie VanZant. We'll get to him in a sec 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.320 But the nonviolent protests were a big part of it, 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:45.560 led by the African National Congress. Nelson Mandela was one 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.359 of the leaders in the ANC. So in nineteen fifty nine, 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:53.879 A and C president Albert Luthuli said, Hey, great Britain, 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:56.720 why don't you boycatt all South American produce, all South 0:18:56.760 --> 0:18:59.600 African produce the first time they kind of reached out 0:18:59.600 --> 0:19:03.640 Internet for help like that, and so South Africa said, 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:07.520 you know what, we're outlawing the ANC and Nelson Mandela, 0:19:07.560 --> 0:19:08.399 you're going to jail. 0:19:08.560 --> 0:19:13.000 Yeah, yeah, for suggesting a boycott, not even staging a boycott, 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.920 but suggesting one. The UN got involved in nineteen sixty 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.440 two and they were like, hey, guys, this is not okay. 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:23.080 We all or you guys need to start breaking ties 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.760 with South Africa, And everybody said nuts to that. And 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.320 it took a bunch of different sports organizations to finally 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:33.720 get the public aware of it and hence getting governments 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:37.720 involved in doing something about dismantling apartheid by turning their 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:41.639 backs in South Africa. And the first sports organization to 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:45.320 cut ties without South Africa in protests of its apartheid 0:19:45.359 --> 0:19:49.320 policies was the International Table Tennis Federation, who did so 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.119 all the way back in nineteen fifty six. 0:19:51.720 --> 0:19:54.399 Pretty great. Yeah, I love that. In sixty four the 0:19:54.600 --> 0:19:58.399 IOC committee said no South African teams can participate in 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:00.560 the Olympics. Yeah, and that was a band that lasted 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:03.640 from sixty four to ninety two, so very long standing. 0:20:04.160 --> 0:20:07.520 There were boycott's in Britain when South African cricket and 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:08.800 rugby teams which were there. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:12.320 Yeah, there was a very famous Battle for Swansea, I think, 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.520 where there was like a rugby protest that the cops 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:17.960 and some hooligans started beating up and it just became 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:21.200 a huge thing and made international news too. 0:20:21.600 --> 0:20:24.000 Yeah. I mean I remember all this stuff growing up 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:25.919 in the eighties. It was all over the news. You 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.120 couldn't like, you couldn't like go ten minutes without hearing 0:20:29.119 --> 0:20:30.840 the word apartheid or anti apartheid. 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:33.920 I mean I knew the President of South Africa's name 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:37.000 as like a ten year old, because what was it, 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:38.240 fw de Clerk. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:40.280 Oh, you're like I knew it at ten. I don't 0:20:40.320 --> 0:20:40.560 know that. 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:42.600 No, I'm almost positive that. 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:43.800 Yeah it was, I remember to Clerk. 0:20:43.840 --> 0:20:45.680 Yet I learned about it from Mad magazine. 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:51.840 Of course, the eighties is also when you got college 0:20:51.920 --> 0:20:54.120 kids involved in that. You know, if you want to 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.200 get college kids on your side, that's a pretty smart 0:20:57.240 --> 0:20:59.280 thing to do, because they got nothing else to do, 0:21:00.160 --> 0:21:03.199 take like a couple of classes a day maybe, And 0:21:03.280 --> 0:21:07.919 so they got together, started their activism on campus, and 0:21:08.000 --> 0:21:10.680 more than one hundred and fifty US colleges divested from 0:21:10.800 --> 0:21:14.920 South Africa, so they withdrew investments in South African companies 0:21:15.040 --> 0:21:21.000 as institutions as a whole. That was a un cultural boycott, 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:24.000 and part of that ended up being something and started 0:21:24.000 --> 0:21:26.760