Speaker 1: And now.
Speaker 2: Watching my back like that.
Speaker 3: Strike Waters headquarters behind and the BIS.
Speaker 1: In the borders.
Speaker 2: We're just tuning in the civic secern I'm your host, Rams' job.
Speaker 1: I'll go by the name Q War Thursday through Sunday,
Speaker 1: sometimes my Monday.
Speaker 2: This indeed, we should stick around. We got a lot
Speaker 2: more coming away and fruiting conversation about guns. This time
Speaker 2: we're about overdue for a conversation about guns. For those
Speaker 2: listening to the show, you know that Q is I
Speaker 2: wouldn't call you a fan of guns, but you're certainly
Speaker 2: if you understand their place in society a little bit
Speaker 2: more than I do. I'm not a big fan of
Speaker 2: guns at all. And we have to tell a story
Speaker 2: because it's relevant. We're also going to spend a little
Speaker 2: time talking about the Floating Freedom School that is going
Speaker 2: to be our way black history fact, and I promise
Speaker 2: you want to stick on stick around for that because
Speaker 2: it's just a neat little way that a man was
Speaker 2: able to circumvent the law and educate black students at
Speaker 2: a time when black people were not allowed to be educated.
Speaker 2: But first, let's discuss how to become a better ally.
Speaker 2: So this comes from NPR, A new musical, inspired by
Speaker 2: a satirical afro futurist novel called Black No More, opens
Speaker 2: off Broadway. It was presented by the New Group. Set
Speaker 2: during the Depression, both the book and the musical examine
Speaker 2: race in America with an outrageous plot device. An inventor
Speaker 2: comes up with the machines, a machine that turns black
Speaker 2: people white. In a dappursuit to wreak, Trotter aka Black
Speaker 2: Thought of the Roots here center stage to set the scene.
Speaker 2: Sitting in a barbershop chair, he wraps, this is Harlem,
Speaker 2: the big apples core seventy or more years before there
Speaker 2: were any Apple stores. I wish I could heard him
Speaker 2: say that, because that's an adult rolling off his incredible
Speaker 2: yeah man off his voice. So Trotter wrote the lyrics
Speaker 2: so much of the music, which ranges from hip hop
Speaker 2: to R and B to jazz and folk, and he
Speaker 2: plays doctor Junius crookman, inventor of the Black No More machine,
Speaker 2: which will turn any black person white for fifty dollars.
Speaker 2: Trotter says, the doctor believes this Black No More device
Speaker 2: is the solution to race relations to America. I think
Speaker 2: the line is to solve American race problem. As we
Speaker 2: know it. But yeah, you know, I don't think a
Speaker 2: solution is ever reached. And that is the twilight Zone
Speaker 2: like premise of Black No More, which features a script
Speaker 2: by Academy Award winner John Ridley. In nineteen thirty one
Speaker 2: novel by George Schuler has they take no prisoner's attitude
Speaker 2: toward not just why supremacist and politicians, but then the
Speaker 2: veiled figures from the Harlem Renaissance. It goes on to say,
Speaker 2: of course, particularly when they're black, making fun of black people.
Speaker 2: The challenge for the creative team, especially the writers, was
Speaker 2: to move the story from broad satire to something with
Speaker 2: a beating heart. And I think what they've come up
Speaker 2: with is a really fascinating morality tale. So become a
Speaker 2: better ally. Why not check out this musical based on
Speaker 2: the novel Black No More at your earliest convenience?
Speaker 1: How long is it off Broadway?
Speaker 2: That I don't know, but again Google is let's.
Speaker 1: Find let's find out and go see it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go see it. Be better to see it
Speaker 2: than just read about it. But yeah, and I don't
Speaker 2: get to those very often, so yeah, we should do that,
Speaker 2: and you should see it too, if you're listening to us,
Speaker 2: So yeah, now, let's move on. Sorry. Comes from yahoo
Speaker 2: dot com. Colorado police officer who fairly shot a bystanders
Speaker 2: held a hero for stopping a gunman armed with a rifle,
Speaker 2: will not be charged, prosecutor said Monday right. The officer,
Speaker 2: whose identity has not been made public, had objectively reasonable
Speaker 2: grounds to believe the officer and others faced imminent danger
Speaker 2: when the officer opened fire June twenty first in Arvada,
Speaker 2: north of Denver, killing a bystander, John Hurley, forty years old.
Speaker 2: First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King told reporters quote, officers
Speaker 2: saw that day a mass shooter, heard many rounds of gunfire,
Speaker 2: and broad daylight in the heart of old Town, Arvada.
Speaker 2: King said, he continues, Thus, the officer's decision to shoot
Speaker 2: John Hurley was legally justified, despite his heroic actions that day.
Speaker 2: In other words, there was a man who was in
Speaker 2: the middle of a mass shooting, right, and there was
Speaker 2: another man, this man Hurley, who saw this happening, had
Speaker 2: a gun and engaged the mass.
Speaker 1: Shooter, killing him.
Speaker 2: Then the police show up and they kill Hurley. That's
Speaker 2: basically I'll read the rest of the story, but just
Speaker 2: so you can follow it, but they killed Hurley thinking
Speaker 2: he was the mass shooter when he had already shot
Speaker 2: the masshooter.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, you the mass shooter. Amongst the mass shooters
Speaker 1: victims hmm are the police officer Gordon Beasley. So imagine
Speaker 1: this story as Ramsy's just told you. Mass shooter murders
Speaker 1: police officer. Law abiding citizen who's a gun owner kills
Speaker 1: mass shooter who also murdered a police officer. Then the
Speaker 1: police kill him.
Speaker 2: I don't mean to laugh, but the irony slaps you
Speaker 2: in the face. And here's the thing. There's been this narrative,
Speaker 2: this entirely unfounded narrative. No, I can't say that. I
Speaker 2: have to be fair. There have been instances where a
Speaker 2: person was acting crazy, another person had a gun, they
Speaker 2: shot that person, and perhaps some lives were saved. Right,
Speaker 2: so I will be fair. I will see that. But
Speaker 2: this narrative that that exists largely I won't say on
Speaker 2: the right, but largely with gun owners, is that the
Speaker 2: only thing that will stop a good guy with or
Speaker 2: the only thing I will stop a bad guy with a
Speaker 2: gun is a good guy with a gun, right, which
Speaker 2: in this case was true. Until the good guy with
Speaker 2: the gun got shot too. And I'm not here to
Speaker 2: pick apart that argument, but I am here to say,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe there's a gun problem, and maybe these
Speaker 2: overly simplistic solutions that people keep trying to offer for
Speaker 2: they're not realistic right now on this show. I I
Speaker 2: don't want to say we because Q is a different
Speaker 2: man and he's got different opinions, But I ramses who
Speaker 2: has been to New Zealand, who has been to you
Speaker 2: know places, you know, Hong Kong, and you know Q's
Speaker 2: been in all these places too. But I've been to
Speaker 2: some different places and Q's been in some different places.
Speaker 2: But I've seen places where they don't have gun violence
Speaker 2: and guns are just as legal. It's a part of
Speaker 2: their freedoms, right. And then there's places where there's no guns.
Speaker 2: It is not a part of their freedoms. But that
Speaker 2: means nobody has any guns, not the police, not the
Speaker 2: you know, they don't have a Second Amendment as it were.
Speaker 2: But there are places where you are allowed to have
Speaker 2: a gun, and the police are allowed to have guns too,
Speaker 2: and they don't carry it with them. Like the assumption
Speaker 2: isn't like, well, what if something happens. You know what,
Speaker 2: if I need to end someone's life today, you know,
Speaker 2: the assumption is if I need a gun, it will
Speaker 2: be close by. But my day to day activities don't
Speaker 2: require that. So I'm not going to live in fear
Speaker 2: in that way. If I need a gun, I'll go
Speaker 2: get it out of the trunk of my car. Right,
Speaker 2: And so there's that pause, Do I really need to
Speaker 2: end this person's life? Because if I do, I need
Speaker 2: to go to the trunk, get it and then come
Speaker 2: back and then in this person's life. Right. And I
Speaker 2: understand that, you know, sometimes you have to make split
Speaker 2: second decisions and in this country, you know, blah blah blah.
Speaker 2: But the point is not that Ramses has the solutions.
Speaker 2: The point is that that narrative, you know that that
Speaker 2: the only thing that can stop a bad guy with
Speaker 2: a gun is a good guy with a gun, That
Speaker 2: narrative that you know, we need more guns, not less.
Speaker 2: Remember there were a few years or a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago that we were talking about getting teachers guns
Speaker 2: and school in schools.
Speaker 1: And that was the problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what I mean. And then, of course,
Speaker 2: because police have guns, the narrative that police need guns right,
Speaker 2: so that they can save lives and they can you know,
Speaker 2: stop the bad guys or whatever. I feel like police
Speaker 2: can do all those things without guns, you know, or
Speaker 2: the vast majority of them. And you know, we've gotten
Speaker 2: really comfortable in this country with the idea of qualified immunity,
Speaker 2: that there is just some collateral damage. Some people gotta
Speaker 2: die in order for police to do their job. Some
Speaker 2: innocent people just got to die in order for police
Speaker 2: to do their job. And they're, oh, sorry, and they
Speaker 2: call this guy Hurley, they call him a hero for
Speaker 2: stepping in and stopping the gunmen. And of course it
Speaker 2: was an accident. It didn't mean to die. And then
Speaker 2: guess what, nothing changes, The same thing can happen tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: Qualified immunity means that even though this was an accident,
Speaker 2: this officer will not be charged because he didn't know
Speaker 2: any better.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And I'm not here to debate whether or not that's
Speaker 2: right or wrong. I am here to say that we've
Speaker 2: been talking about these things, you know, police have there's
Speaker 2: been a culture, certainly the culture that we've seen on
Speaker 2: the videos. You know, I'm not talking about your uncle
Speaker 2: who's an officer, whoever you are listening I'm not talking
Speaker 2: about this person. I'm talking about a culture overall where
Speaker 2: police can hide behind the idea of fear many times,
Speaker 2: where ready fire aim is a justifiable course of action.
Speaker 2: Life is worth so little, especially black life, It's worth
Speaker 2: so little, and then there's no accountability behind it. And
Speaker 2: that's the part that hurts the most. You know, people
Speaker 2: talk about all kinds of you know, what are black
Speaker 2: people doing about Chicago, you know, and the murder rate there?
Speaker 2: What are black people doing about this and that and
Speaker 2: the other thing? You know, Yeah, you know, something happens there.
Speaker 2: There's the possibility that you could potentially get justice for
Speaker 2: the wrongful that if some person on the street goes
Speaker 2: and takes the life of your child, there's the potential
Speaker 2: for there to be justice there. A police officer does it,
Speaker 2: and they can it doesn't have to it can be
Speaker 2: on video. The police officer does it because of qualified
Speaker 2: immunity because they had a gun at the ready. There's
Speaker 2: no justice in that. It just died and that's the
Speaker 2: cost of doing business. And everyone seems to be okay
Speaker 2: with that. Go ahead to I.
Speaker 1: Want to be clear in those cases, there's not the
Speaker 1: possibility of justice when the evidence of the wrong duel
Speaker 1: is so clear, right, because that sounds like kind of
Speaker 1: vague and kind of no. If the person that murdered
Speaker 1: the other person is on video and that video was
Speaker 1: legally obtained, which is another really really weird part of
Speaker 1: American freedom. We can watch you murder somebody on video,
Speaker 1: but if the video wasn't attained, right, you're still going
Speaker 1: home with no punishment. The criminal justice system and its flaws,
Speaker 1: that's one of the many however, in most cases, especially
Speaker 1: if the gunment is black. When you talk about this
Speaker 1: black on black crime since we brought up Chicago, if
Speaker 1: the people know who committed the crime and it can
Speaker 1: be proven, that person's going to jail unless they're a
Speaker 1: police officer. And that's what Rams is talking about. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's a very face of obvious and compelling evidence.
Speaker 1: This person's going to prison unless they're a police officer.
Speaker 2: And it's that it's in that space that you find
Speaker 2: what your life is worth to the country, to the
Speaker 2: to the society in which you live, right, And that's
Speaker 2: where the affirmations black lives, and that's where those things
Speaker 2: come into play. It's not to say that we don't
Speaker 2: have our own problems.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I think that it's something like eighty percent of crime's
Speaker 2: done or I won't even say the number. But the
Speaker 2: majority of crime committed to white folks is by white folks,
Speaker 2: just like the majority of crime committed to black folks
Speaker 2: by black folks. Because guess what, that's who you live by, right,
Speaker 2: But no one talks about white on white crime or
Speaker 2: tries to use it as a way to, you know,
Speaker 2: change the subject on white people, you know, because it's
Speaker 2: Hispanic or anyone.
Speaker 1: It's based on proximity, not skin color. Like that's just
Speaker 1: the very obvious fact of it. Yeah, and that story rams,
Speaker 1: it's I hate to say, it gets worse, but you're
Speaker 1: reading what the district attorney says here. Had he survived,
Speaker 1: we would have praised his bravery and engaging a mass
Speaker 1: shooter before anyone else was killed. He acted to defend others.
Speaker 1: We will remember him for his selflessness. This is the
Speaker 1: part that kind of shook me.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The victim's mother, Wow, she prayed that no one else
Speaker 1: would have to face the kind of situation her son did.
Speaker 1: And her words, as we pull ourselves together to move
Speaker 1: forward in life, consider using Johnny's commitment to doing the
Speaker 1: right thing, even at the greatest cost. To inspire your
Speaker 1: own actions, this mother has to speak in a forgiving tone.
Speaker 1: She encouraging others to do the same thing her son did,
Speaker 1: even though it resulted in him being murdered by the
Speaker 1: very people he was trying to protect.
Speaker 2: Now, watch this, I'm not going to be foolish here.
Speaker 2: If there is a mass shooter, what is it that
Speaker 2: Ramses wants. It's a fair question. Ramses wants the police
Speaker 2: to show up with guns and take out the mass shooter.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It is urgent, it is happening right now. We need
Speaker 2: to do this before innocent, more innocent people lose their lives.
Speaker 2: Right absolutely, I'm with you one hundred percent. Because Rams
Speaker 2: is saying police shouldn't have guns. Yeah, I'll always say
Speaker 2: that ultimately that's what we want, But in the immediate future,
Speaker 2: I realized that's not realistic because there's a lot of
Speaker 2: guns out here, right, So I get it, I understand.
Speaker 2: But I think that this story illuminates the problem, which
Speaker 2: is why we're talking about it, and I think it
Speaker 2: lets us further know that the problem isn't more guns.
Speaker 2: The problem isn't well, I'm going to carry my gun
Speaker 2: with me everywhere, and I'm going to make a difference
Speaker 2: if I run across a mass shooter or someone being
Speaker 2: taken advantage of, or you know, whatever the case is,
Speaker 2: because there is this psychogun culture that exists, right, and
Speaker 2: black people have certainly been on the receiving end of
Speaker 2: that with respect to police since the beginning of guns
Speaker 2: and police.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: And so anytime that I can challenge a narrative that
Speaker 2: people are trying to establish that is very pro gun,
Speaker 2: you know, I do my best to say, let's keep
Speaker 2: it all in perspective here, right, because what does it
Speaker 2: mean to be a good guy with a gun who
Speaker 2: stops a bad guy with a gun If you get
Speaker 2: killed by the police and then they just that that's
Speaker 2: again just collateral damage, man's cost of doing business. And
Speaker 2: then because of qualified immunity, even if his mom wanted justice,
Speaker 2: like yo, my son was helping out, there's no way
Speaker 2: she could sue. There's no way she could get compensation.
Speaker 2: There's no way that you know, I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: happened here, but I don't know how she's paid for
Speaker 2: the funeral for her child, you know, I don't know
Speaker 2: if he had kids I don't know, you know what
Speaker 2: what's next, right, And so there's a whole system that
Speaker 2: deserves criticism. It deserves it because that's how we make
Speaker 2: it as good as it can be. And those people
Speaker 2: that are holding on to the way it is right
Speaker 2: now are ignoring the realities, which is that it doesn't
Speaker 2: always work. And if you feel like this collateral damage
Speaker 2: is acceptable, then I need you to check your morality.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, you and Ramsey, you're being generous because even
Speaker 1: a point that you've made on other shows, Ramsey is
Speaker 1: saying it doesn't always work. A different and maybe even
Speaker 1: better way to say that is that it almost never works.
Speaker 1: None of these things that they're supposed to be preventing
Speaker 1: or ever prevented. It's always a response to something bad
Speaker 1: that has already happened. The strategies, the training, the whole
Speaker 1: infrastructure is not designed to prevent crime from happening, which
Speaker 1: is the craziest part. With the amount of money being spent,
Speaker 1: the entire infrastructure of what they're doing be crime prevention,
Speaker 1: which would not require the guns and the militarization of
Speaker 1: our police forces. They just respond in the most to
Speaker 1: crimes that already happened and in this case, even when
Speaker 1: you tell them something's gonna happen, they still wait for
Speaker 1: it to happen. If somebody calls and threatens to kill
Speaker 1: you and you call the police on them, the police
Speaker 1: can't do anything to that person until they've already tried
Speaker 1: to kill you. And I say try, hoping it wasn't successful.
Speaker 1: The brother of this man who went on this mass shooting,
Speaker 1: who killed a police officer at least one, there was
Speaker 1: a note found in his home saying he intended to
Speaker 1: kill as many Arvada officers as he possibly could. Earlier
Speaker 1: that day, this gentleman's brother asked the police to him
Speaker 1: because he might do something crazy. I'm guessing they didn't
Speaker 1: because in their minds, well, the idea that he might
Speaker 1: do something crazy doesn't mean anything to us. He hasn't
Speaker 1: done anything yet, so it's all good. And that is
Speaker 1: part of the problem, folks.
Speaker 2: And you know, there's been this push. You know, we've
Speaker 2: been critical about the phrasing, but for better or worse,
Speaker 2: it is the alarming nature of it has gotten a
Speaker 2: lot of attention, but defund the police, which really means
Speaker 2: rethinking what policing means. And I think to your point, QE.
Speaker 2: You know, someone threatens something and the police are powerless
Speaker 2: to do anything because they're just words, you know. And
Speaker 2: I think it illustrates that the function of police is
Speaker 2: to respond to crimes that have already happened. And so
Speaker 2: the case, the argument makes itself. The case makes itself
Speaker 2: because it's like, well, what can we do to prevent
Speaker 2: a crime from happening. Well, let's invest in programs that
Speaker 2: prevent crimes from happening. And then what's the next logical question, Well,
Speaker 2: where does the money come from to make that investment? Well,
Speaker 2: if we're preventing crimes from happening, then we have a
Speaker 2: budget to respond to crimes that have already happened. That
Speaker 2: budget seems like the most logical place to pull from
Speaker 2: to invest in these programs to prevent the necessity of
Speaker 2: that big budget, hence defund the police.
Speaker 1: The crime prevention budget should absolutely come from the crime
Speaker 1: response budget. Like what are we even talking about?
Speaker 2: Hold on one second, watch this. So for those that know,
Speaker 2: you know, I do a show it's called uh if
Speaker 2: you wanted to look it up, the Black Information Network
Speaker 2: Daily Podcast. Right, we call it our Daily Story, But
Speaker 2: the Black Information Network Daily Podcast and It's a show
Speaker 2: that I do on behalf of iHeart Media, so you
Speaker 2: can look it up on their platforms. I did a
Speaker 2: recent episode where I talked to a man black man
Speaker 2: civil rights activists.
Speaker 1: And.
Speaker 2: He was a person that really believed that the police
Speaker 2: needed more money, not less right, And on that show,
Speaker 2: I couldn't say too much of anything because it's not
Speaker 2: the nature of that show that you know, I was
Speaker 2: interviewing him. The episode was about him, that was what
Speaker 2: it was. But everything that he said, as eloquent as
Speaker 2: a masterful of speaker as he was, everything that he
Speaker 2: said wouldn't hold a candle to what you just said.
Speaker 2: Because you're absolutely right. If we can invest in crime
Speaker 2: prevention in that, you know, and we can actually decrease
Speaker 2: the crime or prevent the crime from happening in the
Speaker 2: first place, then what's in this necessity of this this
Speaker 2: budget to you know, go to war against the people
Speaker 2: that we're supposed to, you know, be protecting. There's something
Speaker 2: else too. I came across this. It just reminds me.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit of a tangent. But you know,
Speaker 2: if enough people are breaking a law, it shouldn't be
Speaker 2: a law. You shouldn't arrest all the people and put
Speaker 2: them in jail to change the law. The law is wrong,
Speaker 2: not the people. The people are the people should dictate
Speaker 2: the laws, not the other way around. And again a
Speaker 2: fundamental shift in how we're thinking about what is policing,
Speaker 2: What are laws? What should the laws be?
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Obviously we've seen marijuana laws change marijuana. It hasn't really
Speaker 2: hurt anybody unless it was illegal and people were able
Speaker 2: to monetize it and people fought over the money, you
Speaker 2: know what I mean. And then of course we have
Speaker 2: to rethink guns, and so this is the show where
Speaker 2: we have to talk about that. You know. Obviously, we
Speaker 2: implore you listeners to get active in your communities and
Speaker 2: take action, write your legislator, legislators and so forth, and
Speaker 2: we'll change the world together. Before we end, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Before we move on, I just wanted to speak to
Speaker 1: a point that rams Is made earlier about my thoughts
Speaker 1: and my thoughts on guns and their place in society.
Speaker 1: I've been terrified of guns my whole life. If there
Speaker 1: was a national ban on guns and it needed votes,
Speaker 1: I'd be vote one and two, I'd be early. I
Speaker 1: would camp out, you know when the new iPhone comes out,
Speaker 1: I would camp out at the site like I'd be
Speaker 1: first and second. Sure, my becoming a gun owner was
Speaker 1: a response to very, very extreme and urgent circumstances. That's
Speaker 1: fair at a time when the country was not just
Speaker 1: hyper polarized against black and brown people. In my home
Speaker 1: where everybody there is black and brown, and I mean
Speaker 1: black and Mexican specifically because our country was our pregnant
Speaker 1: had become president on the basis of keeping Mexican people
Speaker 1: out of our country. Build that wall was his actual
Speaker 1: quote unquote war cry. So when my daughter and my
Speaker 1: son and my fiance who were Mexican and black, my
Speaker 1: children being both, and on top of there being this
Speaker 1: radical polarization of our country, there being a pandemic where
Speaker 1: food and necessities for the home started to become in
Speaker 1: short supply. Being the person in our open carry state
Speaker 1: of Arizona that did not own a gun when almost
Speaker 1: everyone else does. And to be fair, Ramses has been
Speaker 1: to my home. My home looks like the place where
Speaker 1: the people who have stuff live. It's use we might
Speaker 1: not have stuff, but the people that live in that
Speaker 1: house have stuff. It would have been irresponsible for me
Speaker 1: to not be a gun owner under those circumstances. I
Speaker 1: am not a person that celebrates or wants there to
Speaker 1: be guns. Ever. I'm scared that I have guns and
Speaker 1: I have kids. Right. I was just put in a
Speaker 1: position as the head of my household, the provider and
Speaker 1: the protector of my family, where I could not be
Speaker 1: the person in the event that nobody had anything and
Speaker 1: it appeared that I did. It was the have versus
Speaker 1: the have nots. You guys were going to continue to
Speaker 1: be the have nots if it came at the cost
Speaker 1: of my family not having it. So it was not
Speaker 1: let me hit these streets of my guns. I've never
Speaker 1: left my house with my guns except for to go
Speaker 1: to the range so that I could be better prepared
Speaker 1: to use them if I ever had to. I don't
Speaker 1: carry a gun. I don't have a gun holster. There's
Speaker 1: no place in my car to put my gun. My
Speaker 1: guns remain locked safe in my home so that everybody
Speaker 1: if anyone ever came to my home looking to cause
Speaker 1: harm or to take from the people who I love
Speaker 1: and I am there to protect, then it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been a good day for them. Outside of that, I
Speaker 1: hope to never ever use a gun. Ever, and the
Speaker 1: day that our country says y'all can't have them, trust me,
Speaker 1: I am first to tell them y'all can come get them.
Speaker 1: I'll bring them to y'all. Y'all let me know which
Speaker 1: one works better for you.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for saying that, because you know it's
Speaker 2: important to be clear about where you stand with that.
Speaker 2: You know, obviously there's nothing wrong with that at all.
Speaker 2: So way black history fact. We're a little bit lay
Speaker 2: punching in here, but will knock this out. The Floating
Speaker 2: Freedom School was an educational facility for free and enslaved
Speaker 2: African Americans on a steamboat on the Mississippi River. Was
Speaker 2: established in eighteen forty seven by the Baptist minister John
Speaker 2: Barry meetscham Asitis comes from Wikipedia. As a young man,
Speaker 2: he guided seventy five enslaved people from Kentucky to their
Speaker 2: freedom in Indiana Free State. Once established in Missouri, he
Speaker 2: and his wife Mary Meecham were conductors on the underground railroad.
Speaker 2: They also purchased enslaved people and took them into their home.
Speaker 2: The Meechum's employed the enslaved people that they purchased and
Speaker 2: emancipated them when they had saved enough to repay their
Speaker 2: purchase price. In the meantime, they were also educated and
Speaker 2: learned skills to be self sufficient once free. John and
Speaker 2: Mary also helped run away enslaved people across the Mississippi
Speaker 2: and into the Illinois into Illinois along the underground railroad.
Speaker 2: The Mary Meecham Freedom Crossing in Saint Louis, the first
Speaker 2: side in Missouri to be accepted in the National Park
Speaker 2: Services National Underground Railroad Network with Freedom, was named after Mary.
Speaker 2: Beginning in eighteen twenty two, Meacham taught religious and secular
Speaker 2: classes for free. It was the first known school for
Speaker 2: blacks in Missouri. Called the Candle Talau School, It charged
Speaker 2: those who could pay one dollar per pupil intuition. Classes
Speaker 2: were held secretly in the basement of a church. In
Speaker 2: eighteen forty seven, he was forced to close the school
Speaker 2: he had been operating in the Saint Louis church basement.
Speaker 2: Earlier that year, the miss Missouri legislature had passed a
Speaker 2: law that made it illegal to provide quote the instruction
Speaker 2: of negroes or mulattoes in reading or writing. In Meatcham
Speaker 2: and one of his teachers were arrested by the sheriff
Speaker 2: and threatened to circumvent the new state law in Missouri.
Speaker 2: Reverend Meacham bought a steamboat, which he anchored in the
Speaker 2: middle of the Mississippi River, thus placing it under the
Speaker 2: authority of the federal government. The new floating Freedom School
Speaker 2: was outfitted with desks, chairs, and to library. Students were
Speaker 2: ferried back and forth between Saint Louis and the Freedom
Speaker 2: School and small skiffs. The school eventually attracted teachers from
Speaker 2: the East. Hundreds of black children were educated at the
Speaker 2: Freedom School in the eighteen forties and eighteen fifties. Those
Speaker 2: who could pay recharge one dollar a month. One of
Speaker 2: the early students was James Milton Turner, who would go
Speaker 2: on to establish thirty new schools for African Americans in
Speaker 2: Missouri after the Civil War. Another was John R. Anderson,
Speaker 2: received much of his reading and religious training from the school.
Speaker 2: Reverend Anderson later took over management of the school after
Speaker 2: Meechum's death in eighteen fifty four. And there's a lot
Speaker 2: more here, but because of the time, I can't really
Speaker 2: go into it, but necessary to remind people that did
Speaker 2: he want us to read, He want us to write,
Speaker 2: and he want us to learn and.
Speaker 1: Was a crime for us to read write it was illegal?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm crazy.
Speaker 1: Could be the law talking about the laws. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: the laws are wrong.
Speaker 2: So yeah, just funny how you know something like this
Speaker 2: is a part of our history and you know to
Speaker 2: you know, we mentioned critical race theory earlier in the
Speaker 2: show and on a lot of shows. But it's funny
Speaker 2: how they can make an argument that says that white
Speaker 2: students would be ashamed of this. How do you think
Speaker 2: it feels to be a black student? But the difference
Speaker 2: is we know it's important to know this, right, It's
Speaker 2: just kind of built into the culture, like, yeah, well
Speaker 2: this is where we come from. And you hold your
Speaker 2: head up, you stay strong, you get with it, you
Speaker 2: get out there, you get busy, you do what you
Speaker 2: gotta do, you figure it out, you know, but this
Speaker 2: is where you come from. I wish that I had
Speaker 2: like a G eight story. Yeah, ancestors came over on
Speaker 2: some boat from Europe, and you know that sounds like
Speaker 2: a great story. We came over its slave chains and well,
Speaker 2: you know, singing spirituals and we shall overcome. But I'm
Speaker 2: proud of it. I'm proud to teach it. I'm proud
Speaker 2: to know it. I had to learn to be proud
Speaker 2: of it. But it's hard for me to listen to
Speaker 2: someone else talk about how it makes them feel bad,
Speaker 2: because anybody gets deserves to feel bad, how uncomfortable they are.
Speaker 2: Because but but that's going to do it for us
Speaker 2: today here on Civic Cipher. So once again I'm the host.
Speaker 2: Fransis Josh go by the name qbred website, civi exacker
Speaker 2: dot com. Listening with PEPs episodes. Be sure to make
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