Speaker 1: Coming up on the AID Building.
Speaker 2: Nineteen sixty eight, the murder of doctor King, which traumatized everyone.
Speaker 3: State patrol came to campus. They were beating students, they
Speaker 3: were shooting tear gas into the dorm rooms of Clark.
Speaker 1: It's not just killing us as a humanity, but it's
Speaker 1: killing our neighbor's.
Speaker 4: Globally, the FBI had a role in the murder of
Speaker 4: a black panther leader.
Speaker 2: Sam Jackson was exploring his future on the Moorhouse campus.
Speaker 5: To be in what we really thought was a revolution
Speaker 5: or was a revolution. I mean people were die. I
Speaker 5: remember when doctor King was assassinated. I flew from Atlanta
Speaker 5: to Memphis in March with you know those people that night.
Speaker 1: I'm Hans Charles.
Speaker 4: I'm in Lechlamomba.
Speaker 1: And this podcast is about the student lock in of
Speaker 1: the board of trustees at Morehouse College in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: Samuel L. Jackson was one of those students. Martin Luther
Speaker 1: King Senior was on the board of trustees.
Speaker 4: It's a story about protest, the struggle for black rights
Speaker 4: and freedom of speech that echoing today's world far louder
Speaker 4: than they should. It's a lesson to us now more
Speaker 4: than ever and it will blow your mind.
Speaker 1: The A Building Episode one, thirty nine years old.
Speaker 4: What is the Perfect tist?
Speaker 1: Not of money, not of possessions, but of ideas.
Speaker 4: In the nineteen sixties, America found itself in war of
Speaker 4: ideas with high stakes. The stakes were the soul of America.
Speaker 1: Leaders like Malcolm X spoke to these times in these issues.
Speaker 6: Look at the American Revolution in seventeen seventy six.
Speaker 3: That revolution was for what for lane? Why did they
Speaker 3: want land independence?
Speaker 4: How was it carried out? Bloodshed?
Speaker 6: Right number one? That was based on land the basis
Speaker 6: of independence, and the only way they could get.
Speaker 4: It was bloodshed.
Speaker 6: You haven't got a revolution that doesn't involve bloodshed. And
Speaker 6: you're afraid to bleed. I saw you were afraid to bleed.
Speaker 6: As long as the white man send you to Korea,
Speaker 6: you bled. He sent you to Germany, you bled. He
Speaker 6: sent you to the South Pacific to fight the Japanese.
Speaker 4: You bled. You bleed for white people.
Speaker 6: But when it comes times to seeing your own churches being.
Speaker 7: Bombed in little black girls who murd you haven't gotten
Speaker 7: no good.
Speaker 4: February twenty first, nineteen sixty five. Malcolm xis killed during
Speaker 4: this speech in New York City. He was thirty nine
Speaker 4: years old.
Speaker 1: Doctor Martin Luther King Junior, a more houseman, a freedom fighter,
Speaker 1: another soldier in the war against oppression. At the end
Speaker 1: of his life, his rhetoric becomes more militant, a far
Speaker 1: cry from the hopeful optimism of the I have a
Speaker 1: dream speech.
Speaker 8: Strangely enough, I would turn to the Almighty and say,
Speaker 8: if you allow me to live just a few.
Speaker 9: Years in the second half of the twentieth century, I
Speaker 9: will be happy. And that's a strange statement to make,
Speaker 9: because the world.
Speaker 4: Is all messed up.
Speaker 9: The nation is sick, trouble is in the land, confusion
Speaker 9: all around.
Speaker 8: That's a strange statement. Something is happening in our world.
Speaker 4: The masses of people.
Speaker 9: Arising up.
Speaker 4: And wherever they.
Speaker 8: Are the symbol today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nairobi, Kenya,
Speaker 8: Acro Ghana, New York City, Atlanta, Georgia, Jackson, Mississippi.
Speaker 9: Are Memphis, Tennessee. The cry is always the same, we
Speaker 9: want to be free.
Speaker 8: It is no longer the choice.
Speaker 9: Between violence and nonviolence in this world is nonviolence on
Speaker 9: non existence.
Speaker 4: That is where we are today.
Speaker 1: April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, Doctor King is killed in Memphis,
Speaker 1: Tennessee's nine years old. Here's Samuel L. Jackson discussing exactly
Speaker 1: that on the Henry Wallin show back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven.
Speaker 5: I remember the night Doctor King was assassinated. I was
Speaker 5: at a campus movie. Me and revolutionary because I still
Speaker 5: like movies. But so I was at a campus movie
Speaker 5: and the movie was John GoFar Police come home. And
Speaker 5: a guy came in and said, Doctor.
Speaker 4: King has been killed. You motherfucker's sitting in here and
Speaker 4: watch a fucking movie.
Speaker 3: We need to be in the streets tan some shit.
Speaker 5: Up, no, And everybody's like, all right, all right, all right,
Speaker 5: we will just let us finish watching the movie.
Speaker 4: On April nineteenth, nineteen sixty nine, a group of Morehouse
Speaker 4: College students hijack the Board of trustees meeting. They held
Speaker 4: the board hostage for two days. They made demands for
Speaker 4: improved student services and curriculum. Martin Luther King, Senior is
Speaker 4: one of the hostages. Samuel L. Jackson is one of
Speaker 4: the students. The students planned the heist a heist of idea.
Speaker 1: Before you hear this story, you need to know the
Speaker 1: state of black America. After the assassinations of Malcolm X
Speaker 1: and Martin.
Speaker 4: Luther King, we wanted to speak with students were at
Speaker 4: Morehouse during the time of the Locke in so.
Speaker 1: We spoke to doctor Michael Lomex, Morehouse alum, nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: president and CEO of the United Negro College Fund and
Speaker 1: former president of Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Speaker 2: I think about one of the people who did lock
Speaker 2: up the trustees, Sam Jackson. Sam was from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Speaker 2: He was exploring his future on the Moorhouse campus. No
Speaker 2: one would have ever thought that he was going to
Speaker 2: become a worldwide recognized film actor.
Speaker 10: And you will know my name is the law when
Speaker 10: I lay my vengeance upon the.
Speaker 2: But his whole career and the approach that he's taken
Speaker 2: to his career, as I've never said this to him,
Speaker 2: I'm saying this to you, has been informed by the
Speaker 2: events of nineteen sixty eight, the murder of doctor King,
Speaker 2: which traumatized everyone. You know, doctor King was in many
Speaker 2: ways prior to sixty eight, obviously a leader, but not
Speaker 2: revered in the way that he became after his martyrdom,
Speaker 2: and elements of his voice were not really attended to
Speaker 2: his opposition to the war in Vietnam, his focus on
Speaker 2: poor people, those were not the integrating of the establishment
Speaker 2: institutions that most people had signed on for. So after
Speaker 2: he gets killed, there's not only a void in leadership,
Speaker 2: but there are other voices that begin to be heard
Speaker 2: that hadn't got and the kind of attention when he
Speaker 2: was on the stage. So you're beginning to hear the
Speaker 2: voices of Stokely Carmike.
Speaker 3: Violence is a part of America's culture as American as.
Speaker 1: Cherry pie and black power.
Speaker 2: You're beginning to hear the voices of other post colonial
Speaker 2: African leaders and theorists about a more global, pan African
Speaker 2: approach to liberation. Black people begin to at some level
Speaker 2: connect with other oppressed people, like the Vietnamese, like the Palestinians.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the A buildings. To gain a better
Speaker 1: understanding of what might have motivated these students, we speak
Speaker 1: to Professor Philosophy at Morehouse College, doctor Elia Davis.
Speaker 4: First of all, Doctor Davis, I want to thank you
Speaker 4: for going to do this with us. This story has
Speaker 4: been an obsession for Hans and I for God going
Speaker 4: on five six years now. You know the folklore behind it.
Speaker 4: We've been talking about, I mean literally since we met
Speaker 4: twenty years ago. We would just love to hear about you,
Speaker 4: your background at Morehouse, What brought you to Morehouse as
Speaker 4: a student, and what kept you there as an educator
Speaker 4: all these years?
Speaker 3: Am I supposed to be honest?
Speaker 4: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we will be honest absolutely.
Speaker 3: I was born in July, the month before the Watch
Speaker 3: Riot nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 11: Six days of rioting in the Negro section of Los
Speaker 11: Angeles left behind the scenes reminiscent of war torn cities.
Speaker 11: More than one hundred square blocks were decimated by fire
Speaker 11: and looters, and few buildings were left intact.
Speaker 3: They blew up my grandfather's home, and interestingly enough, his
Speaker 3: home was on the front of newsweek magazine Ablaze. And
Speaker 3: so because of that impetus, my mother quickly returned to
Speaker 3: her home of Atlanta, Georgia, and so I was reared
Speaker 3: here from about a year and a half until my
Speaker 3: mother said you will attend Morehouse College. And I didn't
Speaker 3: want to because I didn't know what Morehouse College was.
Speaker 3: I had no idea where it was. I lived two
Speaker 3: miles away from the campus. So I went to Morehouse
Speaker 3: had no money. Few government funds assisted me. But after
Speaker 3: my first semester there after having joined the Morehouse College
Speaker 3: Glee Club, I was given a full talent grant, which
Speaker 3: meant that they covered my all of my tuition, and
Speaker 3: I owed them singing until I graduated. So I'm in
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty nine philosophy graduate of Morehouse College, and I've
Speaker 3: been at Morehouse ever since then, teaching political philosophy, Africano philosophy,
Speaker 3: intro the philosophy critical thinking, and now my position, I'm
Speaker 3: pretty much the dean director of freshman and seniors academic success.
Speaker 3: So I bring them in and the hope is that
Speaker 3: I'll take them out.
Speaker 4: When did you first hear about this lock in at
Speaker 4: Morehouse or this particular incident of what was some of
Speaker 4: the kind of general folklore behind it.
Speaker 3: Just like behins, I'm sure it was apocryphal at best.
Speaker 3: So it's not even about whether that is true. It
Speaker 3: was just a wonderful more House story when you get
Speaker 3: to Morehouse, true or not? No, no, because the fundamental
Speaker 3: point was motivating us to be radical. See that was
Speaker 3: the kicker. They don't give a damn whether or not
Speaker 3: it's true. We want you all to be radical, and
Speaker 3: it normally came from students. Matter of fact, I don't
Speaker 3: think I ever heard a professor talk about it. It
Speaker 3: was always upperclassmen. And not until Sam Jackson became Sam
Speaker 3: Jackson did we even include his.
Speaker 4: Name to be in.
Speaker 5: What we really thought was a revolution or was a revolution.
Speaker 4: I mean people were dying.
Speaker 5: I remember when doctor King was assassinated. I flew from
Speaker 5: Atlanta to Memphis in March with you know those people
Speaker 5: that night.
Speaker 3: Because when out the school he was a Sam Jackson.
Speaker 3: Sam Jackson, So nineteen eighty five, eighty six, eighty so
Speaker 3: who is he?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Right, So it wasn't like now or they'll say Sam
Speaker 3: Jackson held the board. Yeah, we didn't have that. What
Speaker 3: we did have was a story of Martin Luther King's senior.
Speaker 3: That was funny to us, especially those of us who
Speaker 3: grew up in Atlanta with the bourgeois sensibilities that associated
Speaker 3: with them, is that, oh wow, they even locked up.
Speaker 3: Daddy came and I even went back. I read Gloss's
Speaker 3: evaluations of what he called student protesting.
Speaker 1: Doctor Hugh Gloucester was more House College president during the
Speaker 1: lock in. He had a conservative approach to managing the
Speaker 1: student body compared to his predecessor, Doctor Benjamin Emains more
Speaker 1: on these two men later.
Speaker 3: And Gloucester was a very refined scholar. And so on
Speaker 3: one occasion there was a group of students who were
Speaker 3: trying to protest and decided to go to Gloucester's house
Speaker 3: to protest. And he was infuriated and came out and
Speaker 3: told them it wasn't that important, and I fired, it
Speaker 3: offensive for you all to have come to my house
Speaker 3: to protest, all right. It always amazes me how, like,
Speaker 3: you know, what a protest is supposed to really create
Speaker 3: this sense of, you know, antagonism towards we're not on
Speaker 3: your team. It was just funny when I hear people say,
Speaker 3: don't do that. That bothers me, irritates me.
Speaker 1: It's it's fascinating that you make that point. Because in
Speaker 1: the research Melican, I found a letter that doctor Mays
Speaker 1: wrote sort of in the moment, and he's taking notes,
Speaker 1: he's sort of taking a diary.
Speaker 4: And the title is Prisoner in Heartness, Hall Black and Daily.
Speaker 4: He's writing from inside the lock in and he all
Speaker 4: he's pissed, and.
Speaker 1: I quote some of the group of students were most insulting.
Speaker 1: So he curse and used vulgar language. And this was
Speaker 1: fascinating to me because they're you know, like there's a
Speaker 1: quote and they were doctor Doctor King Senior says that
Speaker 1: he doesn't want the name of his son to be
Speaker 1: hijacked for for whatever these radical students are doing.
Speaker 4: One of the demands that the student has was to
Speaker 4: have the school's consolidates and to be named m o
Speaker 4: K University, and an m o K senior was Adam
Speaker 4: Lee against this.
Speaker 1: And I didn't understand how these distinguished scholars who we
Speaker 1: you know, revered you know, I revered doctor Mays, you
Speaker 1: know he has he has the memorial on campus, how
Speaker 1: there was no reconciliation of this moment of protests from
Speaker 1: from King MegaR Evers, Malcolm and to these students that
Speaker 1: there that that this distinguished scholar did not make this
Speaker 1: through line m hm.
Speaker 3: And that's the question I.
Speaker 1: Have for you, like, what is your analysis of this disconnect,
Speaker 1: this this lack of reconciliation.
Speaker 3: He grounded his life in certain principles such that he
Speaker 3: would sacrifice any and everything to maintain them. Example, going
Speaker 3: to I believe it was a board meeting and it
Speaker 3: was getting on the elevator with the white gentleman he
Speaker 3: was with black guy. Cleaner couldn't get on the elevator.
Speaker 3: Maze's response was, I will not ride the elevator until
Speaker 3: he can, and he would walk the stairs. Another thing, Hans,
Speaker 3: you never see Mays with a hat on. It is told,
Speaker 3: maybe apocryphally, but it was told somebody slapped the hat
Speaker 3: off his head one time. He said, I'll never wear
Speaker 3: a hat. Want it allow you to knock.
Speaker 4: A hat off my head.
Speaker 3: That's a very strong principal person, you understand. So it's like, hmm. Now,
Speaker 3: when we came to Moorhouse and we were trying to protest,
Speaker 3: because we did some minor protest, they told us the
Speaker 3: story of students were protesting the food in the dining
Speaker 3: hall and had gone to the office Harkness Hall to
Speaker 3: complain and Mays was coming back in town and he
Speaker 3: looked at them. He said, I'm ashamed of you all.
Speaker 3: Just left the country where people were fighting for the
Speaker 3: rights to vote for democracy, and this is what you
Speaker 3: all came in with the food. That's it. And it
Speaker 3: was always important for me to realize that's his principle, right,
Speaker 3: that's unfair. That's what he was looking at this is
Speaker 3: not fair. It's not fair. I think he cultivated that
Speaker 3: since in Martin, Luther King, Junior, Maynard Jackson, Laron Bennett,
Speaker 3: I mean, you name it. From nineteen forty to nineteen
Speaker 3: sixty seven he was president. And so for us that
Speaker 3: stood out like damn, we need to be down with
Speaker 3: you know. And again that's the same way we heard
Speaker 3: about the story of Hartin's Hall with the boy being
Speaker 3: held captive. They were trying to motivate us, to let
Speaker 3: us know, you can't be at more House and not
Speaker 3: get with the program. And so even if you were,
Speaker 3: you all probably already read many of the nineteen sixty
Speaker 3: nine Maroon Tigers. They are replete with story of the
Speaker 3: story of rebellion. It is a ma and I have
Speaker 3: several of them that I downloaded. I mean, these brothers,
Speaker 3: they're calling each other out in ways that I wish
Speaker 3: my students were today. I mean, one guy says he
Speaker 3: didn't even know who he is at Morehouse because the
Speaker 3: teachers aren't letting him be who he should be. He
Speaker 3: was having an overwhelming impact on these guys, thinking about
Speaker 3: when you commit yourself to a certain way of being
Speaker 3: in the world. So unlike I think Gloucester. I think
Speaker 3: Mays might have had a little more wiggle room for
Speaker 3: certain types of protests, because you remember the funt where
Speaker 3: you know, one of the biggest problems was just having
Speaker 3: white people on the board. May's had a certain position
Speaker 3: about there. Remember when May's was given the opportunity to
Speaker 3: write articles. I think he wrote somewhere fifteen hundred articles
Speaker 3: while he was president of Morehouse and all of the
Speaker 3: black periodicals, Daily World, you name it, Pittsburgh Courier, and
Speaker 3: he was making an argument for integration. His point was,
Speaker 3: if you all think integration is what you have claimed,
Speaker 3: if you think it's going to satisfy the social organization,
Speaker 3: you think, why don't you bust white kids to our
Speaker 3: black schools? Because you said it was the same right.
Speaker 3: So obviously they weren't going to do that. But Mays
Speaker 3: was also interested in hiring white professors because this point was,
Speaker 3: how then do we turn and ask them to hire
Speaker 3: our graduates. So he had some strategy here, and I'm
Speaker 3: associating that with the Board of trustees. His belief was,
Speaker 3: you don't limit it that way. We're trying to live
Speaker 3: in a world that has to embrace a certain type
Speaker 3: of diversity, because when we leave Morehouse, we're going to
Speaker 3: ask to be members of these organizations that are dominated
Speaker 3: by white people, And how do we do that when
Speaker 3: we say, we don't do it? And that's again, that's
Speaker 3: a principal position. Whatever you're doing the left, you're doing
Speaker 3: the right. What is fan for one should be fair
Speaker 3: for the other.
Speaker 1: But that seems to be in the detail a of
Speaker 1: Morehouse because when I was a student there, this is
Speaker 1: the exact thing that we wrestled against. We felt that
Speaker 1: we were we.
Speaker 4: Were just a part of the Morehouse man thing.
Speaker 1: This is That is kind of what I want you
Speaker 1: to speak to, doctor Davis, is this feels like the
Speaker 1: mystique of the more House man. This this person who
Speaker 1: comes in and with this radical energy, but then has
Speaker 1: a framework, leaves with the framework of how to integrate,
Speaker 1: and then just decides on their own when they leave.
Speaker 3: Can you speak to that?
Speaker 4: Is that?
Speaker 1: Am I reading that correctly?
Speaker 4: What are your thoughts on there?
Speaker 3: Well? Oftentimes, especially because of my present position, it's difficult
Speaker 3: to disabuse students of what they came to Morehouse with.
Speaker 3: So I'll say it this way. So I think Morehouse
Speaker 3: might be and I can't prove it, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to say it. It's the only school in the country
Speaker 3: where people send their sons to be saved. To be saved.
Speaker 3: We get these guys in, but they're filled with apocryphal stories.
Speaker 3: They're filled with myths that aren't most productive about Morehouse
Speaker 3: and then, believe it or not, I will get students
Speaker 3: every year who will come in my office and say
Speaker 3: things like, I don't think I belong here, I can't
Speaker 3: do it, can't do what. I don't think I can
Speaker 3: be a Morehouse man.
Speaker 4: Huh.
Speaker 3: One kid comes to me and says, I can't be
Speaker 3: here anymore. I'm not black enough. What do you mean
Speaker 3: not black enough? He's like, I have two white mothers.
Speaker 3: She adopted me and my sister. And I just left
Speaker 3: a class where the stories the students were telling I
Speaker 3: wasn't familiar with. I said, stop, I know your class demographics.
Speaker 3: They ain't made like that either. Now you off see,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you all have seen some nice movies, You've
Speaker 3: heard some stories, some rap lyrics. I know your class demographics. Dog,
Speaker 3: I know they're not and they shouldn't be made that way.
Speaker 3: Do you understand it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, huwork, I know you know.
Speaker 3: What I've never celebrated. That's nothing to be celebrated. Stop
Speaker 3: walking around here celebrating poverty and danger. I will switch
Speaker 3: places with you. You all have to embrace the sacrifices
Speaker 3: your families have made. So all of this goes into
Speaker 3: the Morehouse Man.
Speaker 1: Let's sidebar here for one second. Whenever people talk about
Speaker 1: Morehouse College, the conversation eventually turns to the Morehouse bestique.
Speaker 1: That energy, that aura the student's faculty and alumni seemed
Speaker 1: to personify. Doctor Benjamin E. Mays, a distinguished former president
Speaker 1: of Morehouse, was once quoted saying of the school, over
Speaker 1: the heads of her students, she holds a crown that
Speaker 1: she challenges them to grow tall enough to wear. Doctor
Speaker 1: Mays conceived of a set of ideals to build a
Speaker 1: campus culture and the characters of his students. He felt
Speaker 1: these ideals would help them succeed in and transform the world.
Speaker 1: He coined these ideals the more House mystique. Some of
Speaker 1: these ideals include leadership, fearlessness, honor in a deep rooted
Speaker 1: sense of morality, and if you met the challenge and
Speaker 1: reach these standards, you could call yourself a more Houseman.
Speaker 3: Even with the protests during you know what twenty twenty one.
Speaker 3: A lot of those students were motivated because they felt
Speaker 3: left out. They really felt left out, even if they
Speaker 3: were just intellectual gymnastics for them, as in they've heard
Speaker 3: about and now they want.
Speaker 1: To welcome back to the A building. Here's more from
Speaker 1: our conversation with doctor Eliot Davis.
Speaker 3: And even that happened to me in nineteen ninety three
Speaker 3: when Rodney King verdict came out and I was in
Speaker 3: grad school, but over at Morehouse Belman Cau. You know,
Speaker 3: they had we had our own little uprising where the
Speaker 3: police came, State patrol came to campus. They were beating students.
Speaker 3: They were shooting tear gas into the dorm rooms of Clark.
Speaker 3: They came a Moorhouse class. I had never been burned
Speaker 3: by tear gas until that day. They were shooting tear
Speaker 3: gas bottles at us YadA, YadA, YadA. Students Morehouse started
Speaker 3: covering their faces with bandanas, putting on hats, making Molotov cocktails.
Speaker 4: Hunh wow exactly.
Speaker 3: So as we were standing over in front of Sale
Speaker 3: Hall and the police had covered the entire gate area
Speaker 3: that led out, some of these students ran around the
Speaker 3: back of them, got an Atlanta police car, flipped it
Speaker 3: over and threw and blew it up with a Molotov contail.
Speaker 3: And this is my point about wanting to feel like
Speaker 3: I can do it partally. Yeah, I blew it out.
Speaker 3: I blew it out. They were throwing we were throwing
Speaker 3: rocks at the police. I mean they kept it off
Speaker 3: television because had it been seen, it would have been
Speaker 3: reupted in ways across black campuses. They weren't prepared for,
Speaker 3: because I'm telling you there were probably two three hundred
Speaker 3: state troopers on our campuses at Clark beating. I heard
Speaker 3: the beat. They literally were beaten. One guy, stay down, nigga,
Speaker 3: no beating them saying this right. All of this was
Speaker 3: going on, and I was in grad school, the CAU
Speaker 3: in African American Studies. I was the vice president of
Speaker 3: the Graduate Students. I ran over the Heartness Hall back
Speaker 3: to Hertness Hall. I running the Heartness Hall up to
Speaker 3: the floor with the president's office and the provosts. I
Speaker 3: knew them. I'm yelling I won't say here, come out
Speaker 3: this dam. I'm cursing, like, get out of here.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: The police are on our campus. They're beating our students.
Speaker 3: The provost comes out or Elliot was wrong. I said, dude,
Speaker 3: you need to get out of the president Cole. He
Speaker 3: comes out, He was like, I am now, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: tied down, sleeves rolled up. He goes out of the
Speaker 3: middle of the street. Get them off my blank of
Speaker 3: the blank campus. They had not been on our campuses.
Speaker 3: Do you know in the sixties they always wanted to
Speaker 3: have in roads and they never could. This was the
Speaker 3: first time, yes, that they came on our campus. Because
Speaker 3: our campus was supposed to be the safe haven.
Speaker 4: It was the safe spot.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's where the good crows are.
Speaker 3: It was gone Cole. I loved him so much that
Speaker 3: man stood out there in the middle of the street,
Speaker 3: which was Fair Street.
Speaker 4: Now now.
Speaker 3: He was yelling, get off my campus. How dare you?
Speaker 3: And Martin Portly, you didn't call me, you came on
Speaker 3: my campus. So that protests just, oh my god. Everybody
Speaker 3: felt good after that one because everybody got a little
Speaker 3: piece of history.
Speaker 4: Do you think that was part of some of the
Speaker 4: tension in nineteen sixty nine at that lock in?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, that's why I told you. If you look
Speaker 3: at the articles from sixty nine, they were merely acting
Speaker 3: out what had been written about that whole year. They
Speaker 3: are constantly saying, we need to do this. We're not radical,
Speaker 3: gotta be radical. Where's the radicality? Dude? This is one
Speaker 3: This is a student here, Drake, and he wrote an article,
Speaker 3: as I see it, a deep injustice by the American
Speaker 3: press has caused me to pin my final article of
Speaker 3: the year. The American press has created monster which has
Speaker 3: caused politicians and sociologists to toil night and day. I
Speaker 3: call it the Hustler's carnival. Others call it a riot.
Speaker 3: But again, this paper is from May nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 4: So okay, before yeah, yeah, but it's right after Martin Luther.
Speaker 3: The King is dumb, Yes, April fourth, he's out.
Speaker 4: So it really was this kind of a powdered keg
Speaker 4: of emotions just in general. You have Malcolm assassination, you
Speaker 4: have Doctor King's assassination, You're kind to have the end
Speaker 4: of the sixties, you have this cultural shift happening, and
Speaker 4: then it's like, okay, you have this again, this educated class,
Speaker 4: and where's our role in this? What are we going
Speaker 4: to do to affect the change in this A great
Speaker 4: example of the complexities of this debate among the black
Speaker 4: community can be found. I guess that since nineteen eighty
Speaker 4: seven play The Meeting. This play is a fictitious account
Speaker 4: of a historical meeting between Doctor King and Malcolm X
Speaker 4: where they discuss their political differences. Here's an excerpt from
Speaker 4: that play. Welcome. You want to free Bloods. I want
Speaker 4: to free America. It is the only way any of
Speaker 4: us can be free.
Speaker 1: Martin kent to see what's happening to us.
Speaker 6: Five years from our tenant, the most racists won't have
Speaker 6: to do anything to.
Speaker 1: Us, will be doing it to ourselves.
Speaker 7: So these these brothers who sit peacefully and your demonstrations
Speaker 7: and allow their hair is to be split open, don't
Speaker 7: you know, they come right back to their own.
Speaker 3: Communities and come in violent access.
Speaker 2: The rage, just the hurt that's all balled up.
Speaker 1: A said, It makes them strike out and the only
Speaker 1: way they can the only way that's acceptable. Now.
Speaker 7: I cannot free us from that rage, but at least
Speaker 7: I can direct it to the race, so us we don't.
Speaker 4: We both want the same things.
Speaker 1: You want us to be able to buy a cup
Speaker 1: of coffee. I want us to sell it. You want
Speaker 1: us to integrate a coffee shop. I want us to
Speaker 1: own it. You want white people to hire us, I
Speaker 1: want us to hire our own down self.
Speaker 4: No, we know what the same thing.
Speaker 12: I'm afraid that this quest that you have for integration
Speaker 12: will wind up being a white man's solution for control.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 5: Those of us that don't agree with your definition of
Speaker 5: power and control, I suppose where to be called Uncle.
Speaker 1: Tom's Here's more from doctor Michael Lomax.
Speaker 2: What happened by going to Morehouse is that I encountered
Speaker 2: an institution unlike any I'd ever encountered before. I met
Speaker 2: students like me from all over the South by in
Speaker 2: large because there weren't a lot of people from California
Speaker 2: at Morehouse. When you walked onto that campus, you were
Speaker 2: entering a community with which was safe, and there could
Speaker 2: be all kinds of other things happening on the other
Speaker 2: side of those gates that were hostile. If I went
Speaker 2: off of the Moorhouse campus as I did, into the
Speaker 2: west End, and there was a series Roebuck and that
Speaker 2: was the first place I got called the N word
Speaker 2: by a white person. When I went and protested in
Speaker 2: behalf of the people who had been assaulted in Selma
Speaker 2: by marching around the Federal building. The Atlanta police would
Speaker 2: call you offline and take down your information and take
Speaker 2: your photograph. I could be intimidated, but when I stepped
Speaker 2: on that campus, where black and white, Christian and Jew.
Speaker 4: Were all equal, you were safe.
Speaker 2: The only purpose that that institution was there for was
Speaker 2: to prepare you and give you the credentials, the capabilities,
Speaker 2: the confidence to become what was an emerging concept, a
Speaker 2: Morehouse man, and take your place as a leader in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 4: Historically, Black College has essentially missed the protest era of
Speaker 4: the nineteen sixties. In this context, it was time for
Speaker 4: a revolt. It was time for a protest, It was
Speaker 4: time for a heist. But this heights had to be
Speaker 4: more than about one thing. At this point, two great
Speaker 4: civil rights icons have been murdered in the prime of
Speaker 4: their lives in front of the world. The Black experience
Speaker 4: was literally on trial.
Speaker 1: It's April ninth, nineteen sixty eight. Doctor King has a
Speaker 1: small funeral at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Mostly friends and family aren't attendants. After the private service,
Speaker 1: a three mile procession led to Morehouse College for the
Speaker 1: public memorial. Several Morehouse students serve as ushers for the event.
Speaker 1: One of the ushers on that day was future superstar
Speaker 1: Samuel L.
Speaker 4: Jackson.
Speaker 1: You were usher, It is few well what was that daylight?
Speaker 4: Wow? Pretty solemn. More House, like many historic GUBAC cologies,
Speaker 4: was a socially conservative space with limited services and access
Speaker 4: to academic freedom. This serves as a sharp contrast to
Speaker 4: the resistance scene at predominantly white cologies during the sixties.
Speaker 1: Doctor King's death would serve as an extreme reminder of
Speaker 1: how much work was left a true American progress. After
Speaker 1: the service, the students at Morehouse would approach the Administration
Speaker 1: for reform. Morehouse would have to be the center of
Speaker 1: this new wave of resistance. Malcolm and Martin.
Speaker 4: Both lie dead.
Speaker 1: Their eulogies represent great pieces of oratory, legend, history, and storytelling.
Speaker 1: Here is the eulogy of Malcolm X, delivered by screen
Speaker 1: actor Assi Davis Pierre.
Speaker 7: At this final hour, in this quiet place, Harlem has
Speaker 7: come to bid farewell to one of the brightest hopes,
Speaker 7: extinguished now and gone from us forever. For Harlem is
Speaker 7: where he worked and where he struggled and fought. There
Speaker 7: are those who will consider it their duty as friends
Speaker 7: of the Negro people to tell us, to revile him,
Speaker 7: to flee even from the presence of his memory, to
Speaker 7: save ourselves by writing him out of the history.
Speaker 4: Of our turbulent times.
Speaker 7: Many will ask what Harlem finds to honor in this stormy, controversial,
Speaker 7: and bold young captain, And we will smile.
Speaker 4: Many will say, turn away away from.
Speaker 7: This man, for he is not a man but a demon,
Speaker 7: a monster, a wider, and an enemy of the black man,
Speaker 7: and we will smile. They will say that he is
Speaker 7: of hate, a fanatic, a racist, who can only bring
Speaker 7: evil to the cause for which you struggle, And we
Speaker 7: will answer and say, unto them, did you ever talk
Speaker 7: to brother Malcolm? Did you ever touch him or have
Speaker 7: him smile at you? Did you ever really listen to him?
Speaker 4: Did he ever do a mean thing?
Speaker 7: Was he ever himself associated with violence or any public disturbance?
Speaker 7: For if you did, you would know him, And if
Speaker 7: you knew him, you would know why we must honor him.
Speaker 7: Malcolm was our manhood, our living black manhood.
Speaker 4: This was his meaning to his people.
Speaker 7: And in honoring him we are another best in ourselves.
Speaker 7: However much we differed with him or with each other
Speaker 7: about him and his value as a man, let his
Speaker 7: going from us serve only to bring us together. Now
Speaker 7: consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common Mother of all,
Speaker 7: secure in the knowledge that what we place in the
Speaker 7: ground is no more now a man, but a seed, which,
Speaker 7: after the winter of discontent, will come forth again to
Speaker 7: meet us.
Speaker 13: And we shall know him then for what he was
Speaker 13: and is, a prince, our own, black, shining prince, who
Speaker 13: did not hesitate to die because he loved us.
Speaker 4: So Minister Benjamin May's cave, Doctor King's ulithy. He was
Speaker 4: a president of Moorhouse College while doctor King was a student.
Speaker 4: His word was speak to the moment and the weight
Speaker 4: of his death.
Speaker 12: My dearest friend is now in the hands of the
Speaker 12: eternal God. We therefore commit his body to the ground.
Speaker 12: The cemetery is too small for his spirit, but we
Speaker 12: commit his body to the ground. The grave is too
Speaker 12: narrow for his soul, but we commit his body.
Speaker 4: To the ground.
Speaker 12: No coffin, no crip, no vault, no stone can hold
Speaker 12: his greatness, but we commit his body to the ground.
Speaker 12: We commend his deeds to all mankind, his services and
Speaker 12: sacrifices to all generations. We commend his legacy of courage
Speaker 12: and love to ourselves, our children, and our children's children.
Speaker 12: We commend his life to the universe. We give thanks
Speaker 12: to God who gave us a leader to heal the
Speaker 12: white man's sickness and the black man's slavery. We give
Speaker 12: thanks to God who gave us a peaceful warrior, who
Speaker 12: built an army and a movement that is mighty without missiles,
Speaker 12: able without anatomic arsenal ready without rockets, real without bullets,
Speaker 12: an army tutored in living and loving and not in killing.
Speaker 12: We thank God forgiving us a leader who was willing
Speaker 12: to die but not willing to kill. Peace be to
Speaker 12: his ashes, and rest to his soul.
Speaker 4: How do you plan a heist when the stakes are
Speaker 4: the future of black America?
Speaker 1: The students weren't just asking for change, they were making it.
Speaker 1: But what happens when you hold a college hostage? Next
Speaker 1: time on the A Building?
Speaker 3: Would you love to see one of these NFL owners
Speaker 3: when somebody disrespects our flag to say, get that son
Speaker 3: of a bitch off the field right now out. He's fired.
Speaker 3: He's fired.
Speaker 1: The A Building is produced by Imagine Audio for iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It is written and hosted by me Hans Charles and
Speaker 1: my co host menelike La Mumba.
Speaker 4: It is executive produced by Karral Welker and Nathan klok Me,
Speaker 4: menelik Wamomba and Hans Charles.
Speaker 1: Executive producers at iHeart Podcasts ar Katrina Norville and Nikki Torre.
Speaker 1: Marketing lead is David Wasserman.
Speaker 4: It is produced, directed, and edited by Timothy Fernara with
Speaker 4: producer John Asanti, Sound design and music by Alloy.
Speaker 1: Trex and special thanks to April Ryan, Doctor, Elia Davis,
Speaker 1: Kim vc Ada, Bobby Know and James Early. If you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this episode, be sure to rate and review the
Speaker 1: A Building on Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5: Yuh