WEBVTT - The Hug Heard Round the World 0:00:15.356 --> 0:00:15.796 Pushkin. 0:00:19.276 --> 0:00:26.516 The following podcast contains explicit language. 0:00:28.876 --> 0:00:33.076 I knew him, man O Jang goes in, He danced 0:00:33.116 --> 0:00:33.396 for you. 0:00:36.596 --> 0:00:40.076 And worn not shoes. 0:00:42.476 --> 0:00:45.556 Sammy Davis Junior was one of the world's greatest entertainers. 0:00:45.956 --> 0:00:48.916 He was Sammy the way Cher was Cher or Elvis 0:00:48.956 --> 0:00:52.796 was Elvis, five foot five, barely skinny as a pencil, 0:00:53.156 --> 0:00:57.916 oversized sunglasses, jewelry hanging off him like Christmas ornaments. He 0:00:57.996 --> 0:01:01.356 lived off nicotine and Vermuth, never wore the same suit twice, 0:01:01.636 --> 0:01:04.236 made a fortune, died, broke that kind of life. 0:01:04.276 --> 0:01:12.756 Then he would likely judge now. 0:01:12.196 --> 0:01:16.596 A singer, a dancer, a master impressionist, with a famous 0:01:16.796 --> 0:01:21.476 exaggerated laugh that unfolded in three acts, the eyes closed 0:01:21.476 --> 0:01:25.676 in delight, the full body convulsion, the three step stagger. 0:01:29.516 --> 0:01:32.196 In nineteen seventy two, at the height of his fame, 0:01:32.716 --> 0:01:36.116 Sammy went to the Republican National Convention in Miami Beach. 0:01:36.356 --> 0:01:39.076 Flew there on a private jet owned by an oil company, 0:01:39.436 --> 0:01:43.636 took a suite at the Playboy Hotel. On the opening 0:01:43.716 --> 0:01:46.556 night of the convention, he sat in the private box 0:01:46.596 --> 0:01:51.676 of the Republican presidential nominee, Richard Nixon. On a second 0:01:51.756 --> 0:01:54.396 night of the Convention, Davis pled a concert for the 0:01:54.436 --> 0:01:57.756 Republican Youth in a shirt opened to his navel and 0:01:57.796 --> 0:02:02.396 skin tight pants. He was halfway through his set when 0:02:02.436 --> 0:02:11.156 suddenly people started chanting four more years. The cheers were 0:02:11.156 --> 0:02:15.476 for Nixon, fresh from accepting the Republican nomination. He was 0:02:15.516 --> 0:02:19.316 crashing the party. Davis held up his hand acquiet the crowd, 0:02:19.836 --> 0:02:24.436 Ladies and gentlemen. The President and the future President of 0:02:24.516 --> 0:02:29.076 the United States of America p pneumonia. 0:02:33.236 --> 0:02:35.756 I am opposed to bussing for the purpose of achieving 0:02:35.836 --> 0:02:39.436 racial balance in our schools. I have spoken out against 0:02:39.436 --> 0:02:42.116 bussing scores of times over many years. 0:02:43.356 --> 0:02:46.916 Richard Nixon was, in nineteen seventy two, the leading practitioner 0:02:46.956 --> 0:02:50.556 of what was known as the Southern Strategy, the attempt 0:02:50.636 --> 0:02:53.716 to use racist appeals to win over Southern white voters 0:02:53.716 --> 0:02:57.236 to the Republican Party. He nominated two Southerners to the 0:02:57.276 --> 0:03:01.356 Supreme Court, men who were such committed segregationists and so 0:03:01.516 --> 0:03:05.676 deeply unqualified that the Senate wouldn't confirm them. In the 0:03:05.716 --> 0:03:08.876 privacy of the Oval office, Nixon referred to black people 0:03:08.876 --> 0:03:12.516 as niggers and jigaboos. He did his best to delay 0:03:12.556 --> 0:03:16.116 the integration of American public schools. He once complained to 0:03:16.116 --> 0:03:19.116 one of his aides that the anti poverty programs established 0:03:19.116 --> 0:03:22.756 by his predecessors were a waste of money because African 0:03:22.756 --> 0:03:26.876 Americans were genetically inferior. It was just four years since 0:03:26.916 --> 0:03:29.916 Martin Luther King Junior was shot in Memphis, and the 0:03:29.956 --> 0:03:33.636 president seemed bent on reversing everything the civil rights movement 0:03:33.916 --> 0:03:38.356 had fought for black people in nineteen seventy two. Did 0:03:38.436 --> 0:03:44.156 not like Richard Nixon, that is, except for one of 0:03:44.156 --> 0:03:47.596 the most famous black men in the country, Sammy Davis Junior, 0:03:47.996 --> 0:03:51.436 who sat in the Nixon family box, performed at the 0:03:51.516 --> 0:03:55.596 Nixon coronation, and who crossed the stage and rapped one 0:03:55.636 --> 0:03:59.116 of the most famously chilly and awkward of all presidents 0:03:59.276 --> 0:04:06.716 in a joyful, excited, loving hug. Let me read to 0:04:06.756 --> 0:04:10.556 you Will Haygood's description of that moment in his biography 0:04:10.596 --> 0:04:14.596 of Sammy Davis Junior. The public had rarely seen Nixon 0:04:14.676 --> 0:04:18.116 in such an embrace, even with his own wife and 0:04:18.236 --> 0:04:23.036 Nixon letting loose with a slow, widening grin towering over Davis, 0:04:23.396 --> 0:04:26.476 wrapping his arms across his own chest, so awkwardly and 0:04:26.596 --> 0:04:30.716 yet tenderly like some flushed teenage kid and all those 0:04:30.756 --> 0:04:34.956 white delegates and all those Nixon placards, and Davis leaning 0:04:34.956 --> 0:04:38.956 on the president's shoulder as if Nixon were kid. Nixon 0:04:39.196 --> 0:04:45.156 and Sammy in full embrace. When people remember Sammy Davis Junior, 0:04:45.516 --> 0:04:48.796 that's what they think of the photograph of that moment. 0:04:49.796 --> 0:04:56.116 Sammy never got over it. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. 0:04:56.756 --> 0:05:00.556 You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about Things Forgotten 0:05:00.836 --> 0:05:10.356 and Misunderstood. This episode is about Sammy David and what 0:05:10.516 --> 0:05:14.676 happened on that stage in Miami Beach, because that moment 0:05:14.756 --> 0:05:19.316 raises questions about obligation and loyalty that still haven't been resolved, 0:05:20.356 --> 0:05:32.476 or maybe have been resolved in the wrong way. 0:05:36.596 --> 0:05:38.836 To understand this, you have to go back to what 0:05:39.196 --> 0:05:43.316 young brother here referred to as the House Negro and 0:05:43.396 --> 0:05:46.836 the Field Negro. Back during slavery. 0:05:47.276 --> 0:05:50.836 In nineteen sixty three in Detroit, Malcolm X gave one 0:05:50.836 --> 0:05:52.396 of his most famous speeches. 0:05:53.076 --> 0:05:55.676 There was two kind of slaves. There was the House 0:05:55.756 --> 0:05:58.596 Negro in the field Negro. The house Negro. They lived 0:05:58.636 --> 0:06:03.076 in the house with Master. They dressed pretty good. They 0:06:03.236 --> 0:06:07.476 ate good because they eat his food. They would give 0:06:07.556 --> 0:06:11.516 their life to save them Master's house quicker than the 0:06:11.556 --> 0:06:15.836 master would the house Negro. If the master said we 0:06:15.876 --> 0:06:18.476 got a good house here, the house negroes say, yeah. 0:06:18.156 --> 0:06:19.356 We got a good house here. 0:06:20.116 --> 0:06:22.956 Whenever the master said we, he said we. That's how 0:06:22.996 --> 0:06:24.236 you can tell a house Negro. 0:06:26.196 --> 0:06:28.476 Malcolm X was trying to win his audience over to 0:06:28.516 --> 0:06:31.396 the cause of black nationalism. He was a separatist. 0:06:32.076 --> 0:06:35.756 He identified himself with his master more than his master 0:06:35.876 --> 0:06:39.116 identified with himself. And if you came to the house 0:06:39.196 --> 0:06:44.956 Negro and said let's run away, let's escape, let's separate 0:06:46.116 --> 0:06:48.996 that house, Negro would look at you and say, man, 0:06:49.076 --> 0:06:52.996 you christ, what you mean separate? Where is there a 0:06:53.036 --> 0:06:56.716 better house than this? Where can I wear better clothes 0:06:56.916 --> 0:07:00.076 than this? Where can I eat better food than this? 0:07:00.436 --> 0:07:01.836 That was that house Negro. 0:07:03.636 --> 0:07:06.476 Malcolm X was talking about African Americans who he felt 0:07:06.476 --> 0:07:10.196 had betrayed their community, who had ACHIEVEDSS by turning their 0:07:10.236 --> 0:07:13.436 backs on where they'd come from. He was talking about 0:07:13.436 --> 0:07:15.396 people like Sammy Davis Junior. 0:07:15.836 --> 0:07:21.676 I gotta be me, gotta be me. 0:07:24.836 --> 0:07:28.596 Davis was an epic talent. He was Michael Jackson. Before 0:07:28.596 --> 0:07:32.196 Michael Jackson. He was the first black person in history 0:07:32.436 --> 0:07:35.396 who could sell out performances around the world. A charter 0:07:35.556 --> 0:07:38.436 member of Frank Sinatra's rat Pack, a staple in the 0:07:38.476 --> 0:07:40.196 tabloids for forty years. 0:07:40.556 --> 0:07:43.156 The Dream of Life flat fears. 0:07:44.156 --> 0:07:46.716 There's a sequence I Love from a gala in Sammy's 0:07:46.756 --> 0:07:50.156 honor in nineteen eighty nine, marking his sixtieth anniversary in 0:07:50.196 --> 0:07:55.236 show business, Gregory Hines, a legendary tap dancer, does a 0:07:55.316 --> 0:07:57.716 number for Sammy, who's sitting in the front row. 0:08:09.316 --> 0:08:10.876 Last Stop Time, Stop Time. 0:08:11.076 --> 0:08:14.396 Then Heines invites Sammy up to join him. Sammy's just 0:08:14.436 --> 0:08:17.196 had his hip replaced. He'll be dead from cancer within 0:08:17.236 --> 0:08:20.676 the year. He puts on his tap shoes, hobbles on stage, 0:08:20.996 --> 0:08:23.356 and the two of them do a dance off. I 0:08:23.436 --> 0:08:25.716 swear to God, if you don't believe me, look it 0:08:25.796 --> 0:08:32.676 up for yourself. Sammy blows him away. At the end, 0:08:33.156 --> 0:08:36.636 Hines gets down on his knees and kisses Sammy's shoes. 0:08:49.676 --> 0:08:52.756 Davis was born in Harlem. He started playing the vaudeville 0:08:52.796 --> 0:08:55.356 circuit as a three year old with his uncle Will 0:08:55.396 --> 0:08:59.356 Maston and his dad, Sammy Davis Senior. He never had 0:08:59.396 --> 0:09:03.156 any formal schooling or any childhood to speak of the 0:09:03.236 --> 0:09:06.636 three of them travel Jim Crow America, performing for white 0:09:06.676 --> 0:09:09.676 audiences in one hotel, then sleeping on the other side 0:09:09.676 --> 0:09:14.596 of the tracks in a colored hotel. During the Second 0:09:14.636 --> 0:09:17.356 World War, when he was drafted into the army, his 0:09:17.516 --> 0:09:20.676 nose was broken so many times in fights that it's 0:09:20.756 --> 0:09:25.116 flat for the rest of his life. Sammy was taunted, harassed. 0:09:25.636 --> 0:09:28.316 At one point, a couple of white soldiers pinned Sammy 0:09:28.396 --> 0:09:33.036 down right coon in white paint across his forehead. There's 0:09:33.036 --> 0:09:37.356 an almost unbearable moment in Sammy's autobiography Why Me. He 0:09:37.476 --> 0:09:40.916 described standing under the shower in the latrine for hours 0:09:41.116 --> 0:09:44.396 trying to get the white paint off his body. I 0:09:44.476 --> 0:09:47.836 stood under the hot water, rubbing until rashes of blood 0:09:47.916 --> 0:09:51.556 trickled to the surface, brushing until I'd scraped the last 0:09:51.556 --> 0:09:56.676 speck of white out of my skin. I got into bed. Nobody, 0:09:57.196 --> 0:10:00.476 nobody in this world is ever going to do this 0:10:00.676 --> 0:10:05.676 to me again. I'll die first. But Sammy's answer to 0:10:05.836 --> 0:10:08.556 never letting anyone do this to him again wasn't to 0:10:08.636 --> 0:10:12.596 fight like Malcolm X wanted black people to do. Sammy's 0:10:12.636 --> 0:10:17.796 solution was to join. He moved very publicly into the 0:10:17.836 --> 0:10:22.036 Master's house. He dated white women blondes. He married the 0:10:22.036 --> 0:10:25.756 stunning Swedish actress May Britt at a time when interracial 0:10:25.756 --> 0:10:29.436 marriages were almost unheard of. When he moved to Los Angeles, 0:10:29.556 --> 0:10:32.916 he didn't move to Baldwin Hills, where middle class blacks lived. 0:10:33.196 --> 0:10:36.316 He moved into a lily white section of the Hollywood Hills. 0:10:37.276 --> 0:10:42.756 This modern house. Negro loves his master. He wants to 0:10:42.796 --> 0:10:45.876 live near him. He'll pay three times as much as 0:10:45.876 --> 0:10:49.196 the house is worth just to live Negro's master, and 0:10:49.276 --> 0:10:51.636 then brag about I'm the only Negro out here. 0:11:01.796 --> 0:11:03.716 I'm the only one on my job. 0:11:04.516 --> 0:11:06.316 I'm the only one in this school. 0:11:06.396 --> 0:11:08.316 You nothing but a house Negro. 0:11:15.876 --> 0:11:18.556 If I play a Dave Chappelle routine for you without 0:11:18.596 --> 0:11:21.676 telling you that it's him or Richard pryor bit from 0:11:21.676 --> 0:11:24.836 the nineteen eighties, you'd know right away the Chappelle and 0:11:24.876 --> 0:11:29.516 Prior are black. They code black. But listen to this 0:11:30.116 --> 0:11:33.236 Sammy Davis on The Dick Cabot Show, talking about what 0:11:33.316 --> 0:11:36.436 he learned from the old Bush Belt comedians who used 0:11:36.436 --> 0:11:39.436 to hang out at Hanson's drug Store just up Broadway 0:11:39.676 --> 0:11:40.836 in the nineteen forties. 0:11:41.676 --> 0:11:44.636 All the impressionist will hang out on the corner and 0:11:46.396 --> 0:11:48.516 I'd say, hey, I get one. I think I got one. 0:11:48.636 --> 0:11:51.276 I think I finally got Jimmy Stewart man, you know, 0:11:51.316 --> 0:11:53.676 and will Or Larry Storch would say, no, you haven't 0:11:53.676 --> 0:11:55.076 got it man, That is, I. 0:11:55.276 --> 0:11:56.756 Gotta be up here. 0:11:57.756 --> 0:12:00.036 You got a tool, law, I want your door. 0:12:00.196 --> 0:12:04.236 You gotta have a sort of a draw behind that. 0:12:05.836 --> 0:12:06.356 Disappear. 0:12:07.996 --> 0:12:10.916 Cavitt then asked me if he also does Laurence Olivier, 0:12:11.476 --> 0:12:15.396 which you think is just Cavot being mischievous, because Olivier 0:12:15.516 --> 0:12:18.716 was the greatest Shakespearean stage actor of his day, the 0:12:18.756 --> 0:12:21.916 son of a high Church Anglican clergyman, about as far 0:12:21.916 --> 0:12:24.356 from Sammy as you can get in theory. 0:12:24.836 --> 0:12:26.796 Of course you do Olivier. 0:12:26.916 --> 0:12:29.116 Yes, really, what would you like to hear me do 0:12:29.236 --> 0:12:30.476 from a. 0:12:30.516 --> 0:12:32.356 Couple acts from King Lear would be nice? 0:12:33.476 --> 0:12:36.116 Well, he only did Leir once? How about Richard the Third? 0:12:36.396 --> 0:12:37.676 I'll settle for Dick the Third? 0:12:37.836 --> 0:12:45.436 Okay, now is the winter of our discontent made Gloria 0:12:45.596 --> 0:12:49.556 summer in this sun of York. Since I cannot buy 0:12:49.756 --> 0:12:53.556 the rightful claim my way to the throne, I shall 0:12:53.636 --> 0:12:56.076 lack and heal my way instead. 0:12:56.356 --> 0:12:57.116 Oh that's great. 0:13:01.556 --> 0:13:04.236 If I didn't tell you that Sammy was black. Would 0:13:04.276 --> 0:13:07.436 you know he could as easily be white, he could 0:13:07.476 --> 0:13:10.636 be Jewish. In fact, he was. He's Jewish. He converted 0:13:11.036 --> 0:13:13.796 the lone black person at Temple Israel in Hollywood. 0:13:14.476 --> 0:13:19.156 Sammy's mind worked like this, whatever it takes to survive, 0:13:19.916 --> 0:13:21.236 I have to do it. 0:13:21.956 --> 0:13:24.116 That's Will Haygood, Sammy's biographer. 0:13:24.996 --> 0:13:29.796 Now, many of my friends are Jewish and they love 0:13:29.916 --> 0:13:36.476 me and they support me. Huh, So that's interesting. I 0:13:36.516 --> 0:13:39.676 think I'm going to go to Israel. I think I'm 0:13:39.716 --> 0:13:43.636 going to become Jewish, and then I'm going to make 0:13:43.676 --> 0:13:47.116 some jokes about it, and I know people will laugh. 0:13:48.036 --> 0:13:52.796 But right now, in this moment, this is where my 0:13:52.876 --> 0:13:53.396 heart is. 0:13:59.876 --> 0:14:03.756 Sammy meets Nixon in nineteen fifty four. Nixon was the 0:14:03.836 --> 0:14:06.596 vice president at that point, and Sammy was playing the 0:14:06.636 --> 0:14:09.796 Kopa when the copa was the hottest ticket Manhattan. 0:14:10.156 --> 0:14:14.836 So he got Nixon in his wife seats up front 0:14:15.396 --> 0:14:20.036 and they never forgot it. Shortly thereafter, Sammy gets invited 0:14:20.116 --> 0:14:24.196 to the White House to visit Vice President Nixon. Now 0:14:24.316 --> 0:14:28.716 just think of that, a kid born poor, who had 0:14:28.756 --> 0:14:32.076 been scuffling out on the road, who had been playing 0:14:32.876 --> 0:14:37.156 nasty looking nightclubs, who never had a teacher, who never 0:14:37.236 --> 0:14:43.676 had classmates, all of a sudden, sliding around the White. 0:14:43.476 --> 0:14:48.476 House, they stay in touch. When Nixon becomes president in 0:14:48.556 --> 0:14:51.236 nineteen sixty eight, he asks Sammy to join a White 0:14:51.236 --> 0:14:55.356 House advisory Council. When the gospel singer Mahelia Jackson died, 0:14:55.716 --> 0:14:58.916 Nixon asks Sammy to represent him at the funeral and 0:14:58.996 --> 0:15:01.836 sent a government jet. Nixon asked Smmy to go to 0:15:01.956 --> 0:15:09.556 Vietnam and entertain the troops. Sammy puts together a massive 0:15:09.676 --> 0:15:25.116 traveling entourage and plays his heart out. If you look 0:15:25.156 --> 0:15:28.756 at the back cover of Sammy's autobiography, Why Me, there's 0:15:28.756 --> 0:15:32.556 a blurb from Alex Haley, who wrote Roots, another from 0:15:32.596 --> 0:15:35.236 Aaron Spelling, the creator of nine O two one zero 0:15:35.476 --> 0:15:39.676 among a million other things. Another from Frank Sinatra and 0:15:39.716 --> 0:15:43.116 Michael Jackson and Liza Minelli. It's maybe the greatest blurb 0:15:43.156 --> 0:15:47.636 lineup in the history of publishing. And then there's Richard Nixon, 0:15:47.956 --> 0:15:51.636 who writes, Sammy is one of the great living Americans. 0:15:52.076 --> 0:15:55.836 It wouldn't matter what color he was. With his intelligence, 0:15:56.076 --> 0:16:01.276 he could make it at anything anywhere. It wouldn't matter 0:16:01.356 --> 0:16:04.796 what color he was. That sounds like something you would 0:16:04.796 --> 0:16:08.956 say about someone who comes from privilege to flatter them 0:16:08.956 --> 0:16:12.796 into thinking they would have succeeded even without their privilege. 0:16:12.956 --> 0:16:15.516 It wouldn't matter if Mark Zuckerberg were an orphan from 0:16:15.516 --> 0:16:18.476 a remote village in the Himalayas. He's so smart he 0:16:18.476 --> 0:16:22.556 would still be a billionaire. It's totally nuts to say 0:16:22.916 --> 0:16:26.396 it wouldn't matter if he hadn't had those privileges about 0:16:26.396 --> 0:16:29.036 a black man born in Harlem in nineteen twenty five 0:16:29.436 --> 0:16:34.556 who never had any privileges. Sammy comes to Nixon pretending 0:16:34.596 --> 0:16:38.596 he isn't black, and Nixon comes to Sammy forgetting he's black. 0:16:39.356 --> 0:16:47.676 Their relationship is a kind of delusional post racial fantasy. 0:16:49.076 --> 0:16:52.876 So Nixon says, come to Miami for the convention. We'll 0:16:52.916 --> 0:16:55.716 put you up at the Playboy Hotel. Why not play 0:16:55.756 --> 0:16:58.516 for the kids at the youth rally. Of course, Sammy 0:16:58.556 --> 0:17:01.916 says yes, and Nixon stands in front of the crowd 0:17:02.356 --> 0:17:06.036 on National TV and starts talking about how Sammy's critics 0:17:06.076 --> 0:17:08.836 accuse him of selling out by being a Nixon supporter. 0:17:09.756 --> 0:17:11.516 That Nixon says, you're. 0:17:11.396 --> 0:17:17.276 Gonna you're gonna buyd by enjoying something. 0:17:22.636 --> 0:17:25.796 Nixon waits for the applause to die down, he's looking 0:17:25.876 --> 0:17:30.036 the other way. Sammy sneaks up from behind, wraps his 0:17:30.196 --> 0:17:37.636 arms around him. The hate mail Sammy gets over the 0:17:37.676 --> 0:17:41.236 next few months is so vicious that he hands over 0:17:41.316 --> 0:17:44.956 some of the letters to the FBI. Eartha Kit comes 0:17:45.036 --> 0:17:48.796 up to him and hisses, did you have to kiss him? 0:17:49.076 --> 0:17:53.396 Sammy is blindsided. He's desperate to salvage his reputation. He 0:17:53.476 --> 0:17:56.156 calls up Jesse Jackson, who every year has a big 0:17:56.196 --> 0:17:59.516 conference in Chicago for his civil rights group, Operation. 0:17:59.196 --> 0:18:07.756 Push Um Somebody, Alm Somebody. 0:18:08.436 --> 0:18:11.916 In nineteen seventy two, Jackson had lined up virtually every 0:18:11.996 --> 0:18:16.396 motown and gospel star, The Temptations, Marvin Gay, the Ojys, 0:18:16.676 --> 0:18:22.116 Curtis Mayfield, ROBERTA. Flack. Sammy says, I want to perform. 0:18:22.996 --> 0:18:27.236 Jackson says yes, brings him out on stage. 0:18:27.676 --> 0:18:31.676 I am here because I have come home as a 0:18:31.716 --> 0:18:36.796 black man. Disagree if you will, with my politics, but 0:18:37.636 --> 0:18:43.116 I will not allow anyone to take away the fact 0:18:43.316 --> 0:18:45.996 that I am black. Now, That's all I can say, 0:18:46.036 --> 0:18:47.556 except that I would like to sing. 0:18:47.916 --> 0:18:51.436 But who is he kidding? It's September twenty eighth, nineteen 0:18:51.556 --> 0:18:54.396 seventy two, a little over a month since he was 0:18:54.516 --> 0:18:58.236 hugging the enemy in Miami. For the rest of his life, 0:18:58.436 --> 0:19:00.356 Sammy would be haunted by his reception. 0:19:00.916 --> 0:19:02.596 He said, maybe one of the worst things that happened 0:19:02.596 --> 0:19:05.276 to you, I read was being booed by people, and 0:19:05.316 --> 0:19:06.716 she was. I think it was in Chicago. 0:19:07.476 --> 0:19:09.836 This is Sammy in an inch of few years later 0:19:09.916 --> 0:19:12.916 with Tom Caddle on the Boston ABC affiliate. 0:19:13.196 --> 0:19:14.756 Hey, but the first time that I had ever been 0:19:14.796 --> 0:19:16.996 rejected by my own by my own people, because it 0:19:17.116 --> 0:19:18.476 was predominantly. 0:19:17.836 --> 0:19:21.156 A black audience, because of your embracing her. 0:19:21.276 --> 0:19:26.956 Yeah, they embracing her. Nixon and Jesse was there as 0:19:26.956 --> 0:19:30.356 he always had been before prior tone as he's been since, 0:19:30.796 --> 0:19:34.596 to be supportive as a friend. And I was about 0:19:34.636 --> 0:19:37.556 ready to run or literally run off the stage, and 0:19:37.596 --> 0:19:40.236 he said no, and he made me stay, and he 0:19:40.396 --> 0:19:46.076 talked to the audience and made me perform. 0:19:46.196 --> 0:19:47.396 And what did Sammy sing? 0:19:48.476 --> 0:19:50.636 Whether I'm right. 0:19:52.316 --> 0:19:57.356 Or whether I wrong, You can't make this up. 0:19:57.356 --> 0:20:02.076 Whether I find a place in this world or never belong. 0:20:04.396 --> 0:20:09.476 I gotta be me, got me? 0:20:12.716 --> 0:20:13.956 What else skin? 0:20:14.436 --> 0:20:19.796 But the hurt I'm being booeded. So I know I 0:20:19.916 --> 0:20:21.596 want to experience that kind of hurt again. 0:20:22.196 --> 0:20:28.236 I want to live not merely survived. 0:20:29.356 --> 0:20:32.636 Afterwards, Sammy went home and got drunk. 0:20:36.276 --> 0:20:39.516 Well, now you had a twentieth century tight coin. 0:20:39.596 --> 0:20:42.676 He grow today a twentieth century Uncle Tom. 0:20:43.116 --> 0:20:45.076 He's dead as much an Uncle. 0:20:44.876 --> 0:20:47.196 Town today said, Uncle Tom was one. 0:20:47.156 --> 0:20:48.596 Hundred and two hundred years ago. 0:20:48.876 --> 0:20:50.476 Oh, he's a modern Uncle Tom. 0:20:50.676 --> 0:20:52.716 Then Uncle Tom wore a handkerchief around his head. 0:20:52.716 --> 0:20:54.796 This Uncle Tom were a tap had. 0:20:59.036 --> 0:21:02.316 Sammy sold his own people out in the middle of 0:21:02.316 --> 0:21:04.716 a life and death struggle. He put on a top 0:21:04.756 --> 0:21:09.556 hat and tap danced for the master. And there's nothing 0:21:09.636 --> 0:21:15.716 so unforgivable as that, is there, Except I'm not so sure. 0:21:28.236 --> 0:21:32.636 I had been given at the opportunity through a company 0:21:32.676 --> 0:21:36.676 that I was consulting to to interview the first women 0:21:37.036 --> 0:21:38.236 entering their sales force. 0:21:38.636 --> 0:21:42.396 That's Rosabeth Canter. She's a professor at the Harvard Business School, 0:21:42.796 --> 0:21:45.116 talking about a research project she did back in the 0:21:45.196 --> 0:21:49.756 nineteen seventies. It was for a big industrial firm headquartered 0:21:49.756 --> 0:21:52.116 at the time in New York City. They had a 0:21:52.116 --> 0:21:55.836 sales force of three hundred people, all men, and they 0:21:55.996 --> 0:21:57.476 just hired twenty women. 0:21:57.916 --> 0:22:00.676 And so here was a batch of people who all 0:22:00.796 --> 0:22:04.836 had advanced degrees and were very technically talented, and yet 0:22:04.836 --> 0:22:08.236 they were walking into technical sales in a place that 0:22:08.316 --> 0:22:10.356 had never seen people like them before. 0:22:13.116 --> 0:22:16.516 The women were struggling. That's why the company brought in 0:22:16.596 --> 0:22:20.356 Cantor to diagnose the problem. She showed up with her 0:22:20.396 --> 0:22:24.196 notebook and began talking with the new hires, and after 0:22:24.236 --> 0:22:28.436 many interviews, Canter tells the company, the reason the women 0:22:28.476 --> 0:22:31.756 you hired aren't doing well is that you haven't hired 0:22:32.036 --> 0:22:36.196 enough of them. This isn't about the women and their abilities, 0:22:36.836 --> 0:22:42.156 this is about numbers. The company had its salesforce spread 0:22:42.196 --> 0:22:46.236 across the country. A typical office was eight people, which 0:22:46.276 --> 0:22:50.076 meant seven men and only one woman. And Canter's point 0:22:50.276 --> 0:22:52.996 was that it's really really hard to be the lone 0:22:53.116 --> 0:22:54.996 woman in an office of eight people. 0:22:56.036 --> 0:22:59.316 And I thought, that's really the issue. Are you alone 0:23:00.116 --> 0:23:02.236 or are there many of you like you? 0:23:03.716 --> 0:23:06.836 Kant wrote up her findings in a classic essay called 0:23:07.276 --> 0:23:11.516 Some Effects of Proportion on Group Life. Being the only 0:23:11.556 --> 0:23:15.036 one of your kind, she said, being a token creates 0:23:15.116 --> 0:23:19.316 a special set of problems for both sides, for the 0:23:19.316 --> 0:23:24.156 majority and for the token. The women told Canter that 0:23:24.276 --> 0:23:26.316 the minute they showed up in a room, the men 0:23:26.356 --> 0:23:30.156 on the sales team would become almost exaggerated versions of themselves, 0:23:30.676 --> 0:23:34.156 telling dirty jokes, war stories, being aggressive, as if the 0:23:34.156 --> 0:23:37.756 presence of an outsider reinforced what they all had in common. 0:23:39.236 --> 0:23:42.636 At the same time, the women felt their behavior changing. 0:23:43.356 --> 0:23:47.596 They felt scrutinized not as individuals, but as members of 0:23:47.636 --> 0:23:53.636 their category, which left them self conscious uneasy. In one 0:23:53.756 --> 0:23:56.956 brilliant section of her paper, Canter talks about the four 0:23:57.076 --> 0:24:01.076 roles that token women get pushed into, the mother, the pet, 0:24:01.436 --> 0:24:05.876 the seductress, and the iron maiden. They couldn't be themselves, 0:24:06.516 --> 0:24:08.996 not until the proportions of the group turned more of 0:24:09.196 --> 0:24:09.756 their favor. 0:24:10.356 --> 0:24:14.596 So you put that same lone woman in a group 0:24:14.676 --> 0:24:17.996 that has more women in it, and she can relax. 0:24:18.076 --> 0:24:21.076 She's not on the spot. She can be friends with some. 0:24:21.516 --> 0:24:23.916 She doesn't have to be friends with all of them. 0:24:24.156 --> 0:24:26.516 She can find things in common with the men. 0:24:27.516 --> 0:24:30.956 To fit in. The token has to pass a loyalty test, 0:24:31.556 --> 0:24:37.156 Kenta writes. If tokens collude, they make themselves psychological hostages 0:24:37.236 --> 0:24:40.796 of the majority group. For token women, the price of 0:24:40.876 --> 0:24:43.756 being one of the boys is a willingness to turn 0:24:43.756 --> 0:24:48.676 occasionally against the girls. The token woman, in other words, 0:24:49.036 --> 0:24:53.556 is required to sell out her own kind required. That 0:24:53.756 --> 0:24:56.996 was the cost of admission to the Master's house. Being 0:24:57.236 --> 0:25:00.596 one of the boys was not who they were, it 0:25:00.756 --> 0:25:03.996 was what they were forced to be. So why is 0:25:04.036 --> 0:25:06.476 Sammy Davis Junior's position any different? 0:25:08.316 --> 0:25:12.636 In his mind, he was pushing aside white black for 0:25:12.756 --> 0:25:14.756 green green bean money. 0:25:15.196 --> 0:25:17.716 Will Haygood, Sammy's biographer. 0:25:17.836 --> 0:25:22.316 He started his career with really literally having to put 0:25:22.436 --> 0:25:26.996 food on the table to keep his daddy surviving and 0:25:27.036 --> 0:25:31.516 to keep will Maston surviving. He did not want to 0:25:31.636 --> 0:25:36.996 let them go. And so who would Sammy talk to 0:25:37.716 --> 0:25:42.516 every day? Who signed his checks? White businessman? 0:25:43.436 --> 0:25:46.556 And who was in the audience in those Las Vegas nightclubs, 0:25:47.436 --> 0:25:52.316 rich white people. Sammy does Laurence Olivia impressions because that's 0:25:52.396 --> 0:25:56.316 what white audiences wanted to hear. He becomes friends with 0:25:56.436 --> 0:25:59.996 Richard Nixon, and who is Richard Nixon? Richard Nixon is 0:26:00.036 --> 0:26:03.836 the political embodiment of those people in his Las Vegas audience. 0:26:04.476 --> 0:26:07.036 He didn't know the kind of judges who Nixon was 0:26:07.076 --> 0:26:10.676 appointing to the federal courts or to the Supreme Court. 0:26:11.036 --> 0:26:15.876 He didn't know Nixon's Southern strategy to divide and conquer 0:26:16.436 --> 0:26:22.956 all Sammy knew was Nixon welcomed me wherever I was at. 0:26:23.436 --> 0:26:26.836 By the way, Sammy campaigned for John Kennedy ten years 0:26:26.876 --> 0:26:30.596 before he campaigned for Nixon. But did Kennedy ever invite 0:26:30.636 --> 0:26:33.316 him to stay at the White House like Nixon did. No, 0:26:33.796 --> 0:26:38.196 Kennedy disinvited him from his inauguration because he worried about 0:26:38.236 --> 0:26:40.676 what it would look like if Sammy brought his white 0:26:40.796 --> 0:26:44.676 wife to the White House. Sammy had to make strategic 0:26:44.796 --> 0:26:49.916 decisions out of necessity. These are the steps the token 0:26:50.036 --> 0:26:58.436 takes to survive, but they aren't who he is. Sammy 0:26:58.476 --> 0:27:02.116 marched on Washington, he marched at Selma. He shut down 0:27:02.156 --> 0:27:05.316 a Broadway show to make the trip. Will Haygood says 0:27:05.596 --> 0:27:09.516 that when he interviewed Harry Belafonte, Bellefonte made up point 0:27:09.596 --> 0:27:12.956 of stressing how generous Sammy was to the civil rights movement. 0:27:15.436 --> 0:27:22.356 Whenever Keen was in trouble or was jailed, or whenever 0:27:22.596 --> 0:27:28.556 Keen needed bail money, Martin would turn to me and 0:27:28.636 --> 0:27:34.436 he would say, get Sammy, and the next day Sammy 0:27:34.516 --> 0:27:39.796 Davis Junior would wire them ten thousand dollars or seven 0:27:39.836 --> 0:27:44.196 thousand dollars or however much money Keen needed. You know, 0:27:44.276 --> 0:27:46.636 and that was a lot of money. Back in the sixties. 0:27:49.116 --> 0:27:51.836 When Sammy Davis comes on stage at the Push Expo, 0:27:52.436 --> 0:27:55.716 what does Jesse Jackson say, in an attempt to quiet 0:27:55.756 --> 0:28:00.956 the crowd, Brothers, if it wasn't for people like Sammy Davis, 0:28:01.476 --> 0:28:05.236