Speaker 1: And now watching my my back.
Speaker 2: You're like that journal journalist time we can strikes with
Speaker 2: waters from headquarters behind him and the border.
Speaker 1: If you're just tuning in the civic cipher, I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Ramsis Jock.
Speaker 3: I happily and humbly go by the name of Q Lord.
Speaker 1: Chris Indeed, and please stick around because we've got a
Speaker 1: lot more show coming your way. We are going to
Speaker 1: talk about what I believe to be.
Speaker 3: Some good news.
Speaker 1: You know, I always good to talk about that. But
Speaker 1: the uh Emmett Till Anti Lynching Act of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two has now passed UH the House of Representatives and
Speaker 1: the Senate of the unanimous vote, and that's not nothing. Also,
Speaker 1: stick around because we're gonna speak more about the woman
Speaker 1: we're about to talk about, Mary McLeod Bethune. But first
Speaker 1: and foremost, let's talk about her just a little bit.
Speaker 1: I'll give you the deep dive a little bit later
Speaker 1: as a as a bonus, but we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about her a little bit because it's time to do
Speaker 1: our bibas segment to become a better ally. This comes
Speaker 1: from the Grio dot com of the one of Black
Speaker 1: America's most prominent female figures in the movement for civil
Speaker 1: rights will be honored this month, with the statue placed
Speaker 1: in the United States Capitol Building's Sanctuary Hall. An eleven
Speaker 1: foot statue of Mary McLeod Bethune will soon be installed
Speaker 1: in the National Statuary Hall collection, meant to represent the
Speaker 1: state of Florida. According to the Washington Post, Bathoune will
Speaker 1: be the first Black American to specifically represent any state
Speaker 1: among the collection of statues. Each state is given the
Speaker 1: opportunity to display two statues of prominent citizens in the hall,
Speaker 1: and Bethunes will place one of Confederate General Edmund Kirby
Speaker 1: Smith there since nineteen twenty two. That is why I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about that, because you remember it might
Speaker 1: have been closer to two years ago now everybody was
Speaker 1: yanking down on statues and throwing them in the river.
Speaker 1: I remember I came across something on Instagram that said, remember,
Speaker 1: racists don't have to be statues in order for you
Speaker 1: to throw them in the river. I thought that was
Speaker 1: the illest thing I ever read.
Speaker 3: I mean, it says a lot about our country, right
Speaker 3: that whiteness is such a powerful and.
Speaker 4: Embedded peace of or state of mind, that generals and
Speaker 4: soldiers and people who are for the army who tried to.
Speaker 5: Like it's even weird to say it. There was an
Speaker 5: army fighting against our country, and they all country honors
Speaker 5: the generals of that army that we beat steal like
Speaker 5: this statue is going to replace a Confederate general who
Speaker 5: has a statue in our nation's capital.
Speaker 3: That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: Man, listen, So you might not know the name Mary
Speaker 1: McLeod Bethune, but you will stick around for our way
Speaker 1: black history fact because we were definitely going to talk
Speaker 1: about her. But yeah, shout out to the uh. She
Speaker 1: was the name of the National Statue Statuary Hall Collection
Speaker 1: in the United States Capitol Building for becoming a better ally.
Speaker 1: We'll take it, all right. The Emmitt Till Anti Lynching
Speaker 1: Act of twenty twenty two. First things first, let's talk
Speaker 1: about Emmitt Till. We talked about him on the show
Speaker 1: before because we had to. Makes all the sense in
Speaker 1: the world. This is a show for him. Emmettil lived.
Speaker 1: He's a forever fourteen year old. He was born July
Speaker 1: twenty fifth, nineteen forty one, and his last day was
Speaker 1: August twenty eighth, nineteen fifty five. He was a fourteen
Speaker 1: year old African American who was lynched in Mississippi in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five after being accused of offending a white
Speaker 1: woman in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his
Speaker 1: murder in the fact that his killers were acquitted drew
Speaker 1: attention to the long history of violent persecution of African
Speaker 1: Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon
Speaker 1: of the civil rights movement. Now that is just one
Speaker 1: brief paragraph from Wikipedia about Emmitt Till. I want to
Speaker 1: call him a man because he's my elder, but he
Speaker 1: didn't live past fourteen, so he was very much a boy.
Speaker 1: Forgive us if you've heard this before, but we have
Speaker 1: to kind of make this breathe a little bit. He
Speaker 1: goes into the store. He's visiting from Chicago, I believe right,
Speaker 1: goes down to Mississippi to visit some of his family.
Speaker 1: Goes into a store in Mississippi. The store is owned
Speaker 1: by a white family. He sees the girl in the
Speaker 1: store who's a member of the white family that owns
Speaker 1: the store, and he does like a sort of a whistle,
Speaker 1: like a like a a whistle that shows sort of
Speaker 1: romantic interests. I don't know what it's called, but it's
Speaker 1: like a I don't want to try to whistle on
Speaker 1: the radio because I'll get it wrong. Anyway, he does
Speaker 1: a little whistle and he says something like, you know,
Speaker 1: bye baby, something like that. Right, and then it might
Speaker 1: have been the next day or later that night, a
Speaker 1: group of men break into his house, you know exactly
Speaker 1: where to find him, break into his house, snatch him
Speaker 1: out of the bed, and he was never seen alive
Speaker 1: again by his family. They beat him, of course, I
Speaker 1: believe they dragged his body and they like dumped him
Speaker 1: in the river. And the reason that this became because,
Speaker 1: you know, black people were getting killed a lot. I'm
Speaker 1: not much has changed, but you know, the reason that
Speaker 1: his story got national attention is because how grotesque his
Speaker 1: body looked after the murder. And his mother decided to
Speaker 1: have an open casket funeral, right, and so all the
Speaker 1: photographers and the cameras were there. If you google it,
Speaker 1: if you are you know, trigger warning, because obviously it's
Speaker 1: a dead person person had a lot of promise in
Speaker 1: his life. You can see what that open casket funeral
Speaker 1: look like. And those images were shared everywhere that was
Speaker 1: what started. That's what put the gasoline on the civil
Speaker 1: rights movement, and that's what let you know, our forefathers
Speaker 1: on this fight show the world, Look what they're doing
Speaker 1: to us, Look what they're doing to our babies, and
Speaker 1: they are not held accountable for it. They can just
Speaker 1: do this and everybody's okay with it. Right later, those
Speaker 1: guys actually admitted, Yeah, that's what they did, you know.
Speaker 1: And and the woman on her deathbed, I believe if
Speaker 1: Dave Chappelle's right, because I remember him talking about it,
Speaker 1: go ahead, tell me she's not dead. I don't believe
Speaker 1: she's not, okay, but I remember him saying.
Speaker 3: Something to double check. But but even if it was,
Speaker 3: she lived so many more years.
Speaker 1: Than him, right, But she admitted that she made up
Speaker 1: the stories that she ended up telling them.
Speaker 3: And that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: Yeah, she after living five lifetimes of what he lived,
Speaker 6: finally lets us all know that she made it all
Speaker 6: up right right now, and that her conscience allowed her
Speaker 6: to know that that's truth and carry it for decades.
Speaker 1: And it finally caught up to her on the at
Speaker 1: the tail end of her life. Huh. So you know,
Speaker 1: and this isn't dooming gloom. This is kind of the
Speaker 1: happy part of the show, but you know, a lot
Speaker 1: of times the depths of sadness is you know, a
Speaker 1: great springboard too, you know, a happier day, you know,
Speaker 1: and we don't want to forget this man's sacrifice. But
Speaker 1: you know, Dave Chappelle again, he's a person that one
Speaker 1: of his stand ups, he kind of goes into detail
Speaker 1: about this, and I remember vividly because that's right up
Speaker 1: my alley. Obviously I love this well, I don't love
Speaker 1: this stuff, but I'm you know, you and I we
Speaker 1: share on the show before, but we're the sons of ministers,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times in the black community, the
Speaker 1: minister is the person who is the keeper of not
Speaker 1: just the faith, but the culture. And so being in
Speaker 1: an environment where there's a person who is kind of
Speaker 1: that keeper, we get a heavy dose of our black history. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: eighty eight years ago, by the way, oh she still
Speaker 1: I how about that? Well, Dave Chappelle said that that lie,
Speaker 1: as egregious as it is, might have been the thing
Speaker 1: necessary to change the course of this country because had
Speaker 1: she not told that lie, had em It not been killed,
Speaker 1: had his mom not been a gangster and leave that
Speaker 1: coffin open at the funeral to show the world with
Speaker 1: they did to her baby. Had those pictures not gotten taken,
Speaker 1: you know that civil rights movement that did move us
Speaker 1: forward as citizens in this country, all of us, white
Speaker 1: people included, white women included. You know, we're all here together.
Speaker 1: It's easier to love each other than it is to fight.
Speaker 1: We're going to have happier lives. I promise that. Don't
Speaker 1: let them divide us. Anyway. Had she not told that lie,
Speaker 1: we might not have been able to take that step
Speaker 1: as soon as we did. You know, now, the reason
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell you that is because this Anti
Speaker 1: Lynching Act of twenty twenty two is named after Emmett
Speaker 1: till Right. Those fourteen years of his life are still
Speaker 1: affecting us right now. Again, his last day was August
Speaker 1: twenty eighth and nineteen fifty five. This bills passed this year,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two. So that's not nothing. You know.
Speaker 1: I know that everyone wants to live a full, long life,
Speaker 1: but I think a lot of people want a life
Speaker 1: that matters, that causes something special to come about, you know,
Speaker 1: some sort of legacy, you know, that sort of thing,
Speaker 1: and them naming this bill after him contributes to that legacy.
Speaker 1: You don't want to just be the person who is
Speaker 1: known for dying, you know, and unfortunately that's true here.
Speaker 1: But now his name will stand for rather more. Same
Speaker 1: with George Floyd. You know, nobody wants to you know,
Speaker 1: people want to live. Man, you know you're going to die,
Speaker 1: hopefully accounts or something. He obviously did not die of
Speaker 1: good death, but it was a meaningful one, as it
Speaker 1: ended up turning out. Unfortunately he didn't get to experience that.
Speaker 1: But I'll read this. This comes from CNN. The Senate
Speaker 1: passed the Emitt Till Anti Lynching Act of twenty twenty
Speaker 1: two on Monday night by unanimous consent. The bill, which
Speaker 1: would have made which would make lynching a federal hate crime,
Speaker 1: now hits the President Joe Biden's desk for signature. Legislation
Speaker 1: was approved by the House of Representatives last week. I
Speaker 1: voted four twenty two to three. I means only three
Speaker 1: people voted against it. Three people voted against it. We
Speaker 1: don't have to focus on them, I know.
Speaker 3: Goodness gracious man.
Speaker 1: But how about this. Four hundred and twenty two people
Speaker 1: voted for it. Let's let's focus on them, because you know,
Speaker 1: we know that there's crazy people and out like out
Speaker 1: loud racist people, and you know, the people that love lynching.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a few of those in there as well.
Speaker 1: You know, everybody gets sent our congressmen and women. You
Speaker 1: know Buck Saw, Mississippi, and you know Buck Snort, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: I've actually been to Buck Snort. Shout out to Buck
Speaker 1: Snort and the waffle house. They were kind to me
Speaker 1: there and it looks and sounds exactly like you think.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Bucksnorth Tennessee. But yeah, this place is all
Speaker 1: over the place, and they can elect these people. But
Speaker 1: the Senate, it was unanimous passage of the bill. This
Speaker 1: one might kind of trigger you a bit que but
Speaker 1: passage of the bill is a long sought goal of
Speaker 1: advocates who have been working for years to secure its
Speaker 1: approval in Congress. So yeah, you know, we we we
Speaker 1: know that sometimes our fights are a little bit harder
Speaker 1: than they should be. We know that we are denied
Speaker 1: our humanity often, certainly more often than our less melanated
Speaker 1: brothers and sisters.
Speaker 3: We got to fight to make lynching. I hate crying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, amen, we were playing the game
Speaker 1: on hard mode. You know what I mean? You know,
Speaker 1: and greater is the reward when you reach the finish line.
Speaker 1: And if there is a God and he says, well done,
Speaker 1: my brother, hopefully it's something a little bit more special.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I have to be man. That's my role here.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 1: You got to keep it real. I gotta. I get
Speaker 1: to keep my head above the clouds. So thank you
Speaker 1: for allowing me that. All right, I'll continue buckle. After
Speaker 1: more than two hundred fail attempts to outlaw lynching, Congress
Speaker 1: is finally succeeding. Greatest country in the world, Congress is
Speaker 1: finally succeeding in taking the long overdue action by passing
Speaker 1: the m until Anti Lynching Act. Hallelujah, it's long overdue,
Speaker 1: said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in remarks on the Senate
Speaker 1: floor after the bill's passage. That it took so long
Speaker 1: to pass is a quote bitter stain in quote on America,
Speaker 1: the New York Democrat added. The first anti lynching legislation
Speaker 1: was introduced a century ago, and after so long, the
Speaker 1: Senate has now finally addressed one of the most shameful
Speaker 1: elements of this nation's past by making lynching a federal
Speaker 1: hate crime. He said, Now, the.
Speaker 3: First anti lynching legislation was introduced.
Speaker 1: When that set a century ago, you can have that
Speaker 1: one que.
Speaker 3: Does a century mean one hundred years?
Speaker 1: One hundred years queue? And there's two hundred failed attempts
Speaker 1: in that time. So yeah, but you know, they owned it.
Speaker 1: It's it's long overdue to stay in on our country,
Speaker 1: on and on. They owned it.
Speaker 3: And did they own it? Though the person saying that
Speaker 3: with somebody that was for.
Speaker 1: It, if he's speaking for the majority, which he is
Speaker 1: the majority leader, then I call that the they. The
Speaker 1: majority is the majority, and as you know, fifty that's
Speaker 1: the majority. So but I think the point here is
Speaker 1: also or I think rather I don't want to say
Speaker 1: the point. I think there might be a catalyst here,
Speaker 1: and I don't want to cast any shadow over this.
Speaker 1: This is obviously a huge deal and for the people
Speaker 1: that fought for this and dedicated their life to getting
Speaker 1: this across the finish line that passed away and didn't
Speaker 1: get to see it make its way to the light,
Speaker 1: which at the time that we're doing this show hasn't
Speaker 1: quite made it there yet. But all it takes is
Speaker 1: Biden's signature and everyone knows that he's going to sign it.
Speaker 1: For all those people, I think it's something special. But
Speaker 1: I do have to say, just because I have to
Speaker 1: say it, I have a sneaking suspicion that the reason
Speaker 1: that now it is getting the sort of unanimous vote
Speaker 1: and the overwhelming numbers and the overwhelming amount of support,
Speaker 1: I think it has more to do with the unfortunate
Speaker 1: crimes that have been committed against mine and your Asian
Speaker 1: American and Pacific Islander brothers and sisters over the past
Speaker 1: couple of years than it has to do with Emmett
Speaker 1: Till himself or those types of crimes against What I'm
Speaker 1: saying is crimes against black people have never really resonated
Speaker 1: in the way that black people would have hoped. This
Speaker 1: is part of the reason why we have to say
Speaker 1: our lives matter. The matter to us if no one
Speaker 1: else you know, But I think that you know, because
Speaker 1: of the mistreatment of our AAPI brothers and sisters, that
Speaker 1: this has kind of been given a new renewed interest
Speaker 1: and there's been some invigorated, impassioned momentum behind it. And
Speaker 1: that's all well and good, you know, because we stand
Speaker 1: in solidarity with our aapi, brothers and sisters. We do
Speaker 1: it literally on the show and out in the streets,
Speaker 1: you know. And if that's what it takes to get
Speaker 1: us all to the finish line, then so be it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we got to carry them to the finish line,
Speaker 1: you know, And maybe this time that's that's how we
Speaker 1: got it there. But the point is we got there.
Speaker 1: It just feels like, you know, in the first half
Speaker 1: for the show, in case you missed it, we were
Speaker 1: talking about very much how it feels to be black,
Speaker 1: and how these little tiny things that by themselves are
Speaker 1: easily overlooked, they tend to add up to. Rather more,
Speaker 1: they tend to add up to. We need to affirm
Speaker 1: the value of our lives, that our consciousness should matter,
Speaker 1: that we have. We are entitled to dignity, and we
Speaker 1: are entitled to live full, long, happy lives. And this
Speaker 1: is just a kind of a random thing, but I've
Speaker 1: been saying it a lot lately. I've read it and
Speaker 1: I've been sharing it with my friends. I'm saying this
Speaker 1: because I do believe it's important that we're happy too.
Speaker 1: We weren't just born to fight and struggle and try
Speaker 1: to overcome. We shall overcome you know none of that.
Speaker 1: We should be able to be happy too, and so
Speaker 1: I'll say it up. Black joy is a radical act.
Speaker 1: It's crazy to think about it, but just being happy
Speaker 1: and black at the same time is something that will
Speaker 1: catch a lot of people's attention, Like, what are they
Speaker 1: so happy for? They must be up to something. What
Speaker 1: did they do? You know? Have you ever gone for
Speaker 1: a run?
Speaker 3: How about that?
Speaker 1: I know you have to just being funny, I'm picking
Speaker 1: on you that. Yeah, So all right, let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: talk about the actual law. I guess I'm I'm clearly
Speaker 1: not a law person, but I'll just read the best
Speaker 1: way I know how. All right, So Section two forty
Speaker 1: nine A of Title eighteen United States Code is amended
Speaker 1: by adding at the end the following number five lynching.
Speaker 1: Whoever conspires to commit any offense under paragraph one two
Speaker 1: or three shall if death or serious bodily injury as
Speaker 1: defined in Section twenty two to forty six of this
Speaker 1: title results from the offense be imprisoned for not more
Speaker 1: than thirty years find in accordance with this title or
Speaker 1: both right. The point is that it's now law right.
Speaker 1: And then number six other conspiracies. Whoever conspires to commit
Speaker 1: any offense under paragraph one two or three. Shall if
Speaker 1: death or serious bodily injury as defined in Section twenty
Speaker 1: two to forty six of this Title results from the offense,
Speaker 1: or if the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap,
Speaker 1: aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual
Speaker 1: abuse or an attempt to kill, be imprisoned for not
Speaker 1: more than thirty years, find in accordance with this title,
Speaker 1: or both. So both of those, and pending that signature,
Speaker 1: it will be law.
Speaker 3: I hope we're going to get.
Speaker 1: That. That is all but assured. What we really need
Speaker 1: to focus on now is the John R. Lewis Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act, because that is a separate way that we
Speaker 1: could ultimately become disenfranchised from participating fully in our democracy.
Speaker 1: So that's next. But you know, there's a lot more
Speaker 1: issues there, and I don't I don't mean for this
Speaker 1: to sound the way that it does. But perhaps there
Speaker 1: are less of my aapi brothers and sisters that are
Speaker 1: affected by that, or you know that we don't have
Speaker 1: a real big ally outside of just the people who
Speaker 1: clearly see it, you know, but there's no you know,
Speaker 1: what let me say it this way. The Republicans, because
Speaker 1: that's really where the opposition lies, are very much in
Speaker 1: opposition to it because it represents a loss of power, right.
Speaker 1: And I wish that we had the same type of
Speaker 1: capacity to collaborate with like I said, our AAPI brothers
Speaker 1: and sisters, are you know some other group that was
Speaker 1: affected by this in the same way, and that we
Speaker 1: could have the strength collectively to offset the opposition. But
Speaker 1: we're still working on it and we will continue to
Speaker 1: do so. And we really need to fight back against
Speaker 1: this critical race theory, which is unfortunately wrongly used interchangeably
Speaker 1: with American history, because when they say they don't want
Speaker 1: to teach critical race theory, what they're actually doing is
Speaker 1: removing American history from the schools. And they've used critical
Speaker 1: race theory to kind of blanket over American history and
Speaker 1: remove American history from the schools because effectively, anything it
Speaker 1: has to do with race that makes anybody feel a
Speaker 1: little bit bad now qualifies as you know whatever, and
Speaker 1: they've demonized the term. And so anyway, those are the
Speaker 1: next things that we need to work on. We need
Speaker 1: to educate our youth so that they know better. We
Speaker 1: need to do to grow open fear. We need to
Speaker 1: get our voting rights secured. But for now, we do
Speaker 1: have an anti lynching bill on the books. And you know,
Speaker 1: I say it all the time, but mostly because it's
Speaker 1: true and I mean it. That's not nothing. So in Matil,
Speaker 1: baby boy, you know, thank you very much much for
Speaker 1: your life and I guess your sacrifice. And you know
Speaker 1: now there's there's a rule on the federal books to
Speaker 1: ensure that if somebody does something you know your your
Speaker 1: name is going to live on in the name of
Speaker 1: justice now instead of just being someone who lived and died. Now,
Speaker 1: let's suckle back to Mary McLeod Bethune. This is Women's
Speaker 1: History month, right, yes it is, and.
Speaker 3: Shout out to our sisters are actual sisters, the sisters
Speaker 3: that we grew up and chose, the mothers of our children,
Speaker 3: and just women in general for being the superheroes that
Speaker 3: we are or that they are.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, absolutely absolutely, and it's fitting that we're having
Speaker 1: this conversation or we're rather breathing some life with our
Speaker 1: way Black history fact into Mary McLeod Bethune. Now, for
Speaker 1: those that listen to our Baba segment, become a better ally.
Speaker 1: Her statue is going into the Congressional Building and it's
Speaker 1: replacing some Confederate general. I hope they throw them in
Speaker 1: the river. And we didn't get to tell you fully
Speaker 1: who she was, but we're going to spend a little
Speaker 1: bit of time bringing her to life because that may
Speaker 1: not be a name that you know. Again, we make
Speaker 1: a black show for non black people. So the assumption
Speaker 1: here is that we're sharing some new information with you,
Speaker 1: but if not, it's always great to have a refresher. Obviously,
Speaker 1: this is a way black history fact, so we like
Speaker 1: to make these names live a little bit more if
Speaker 1: we can. This comes from Women's History dot Org, and
Speaker 1: I will read. The daughter of former slaves, Mary Jane
Speaker 1: McLeod Bethune became one of the most important black educators,
Speaker 1: sybil and women's rights leaders, and government officials of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century. The college she founded set educational standards for
Speaker 1: today's black colleges, and her role as an advisor to
Speaker 1: President Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave African Americans an advocate in government.
Speaker 1: Born on July tenth, eighteen seventy five, near Maysville, South Carolina,
Speaker 1: Bethune was one of the last of Samuel and Paste
Speaker 1: Mcloud's seventeen children. Dang After the Civil War, her mother
Speaker 1: worked for her former owner until she could buy the
Speaker 1: land on which the family grew cotton. By age nine,
Speaker 1: Bethune could pick two hundred and fifty pounds of cotton
Speaker 1: a day. Bethune benefited from efforts to educate African Americans
Speaker 1: after the war, graduating in eighteen ninety four from the
Speaker 1: Scotia Seminary, a boarding school in North Carolina. Bethune next
Speaker 1: attended Dwight Moody's Institute for Home and Foreign Missions in Chicago, Illinois,
Speaker 1: but with no church willing to sponsor her as a missionary,
Speaker 1: Bethune became an educator. While teaching in South Carolina, she
Speaker 1: married fellow teacher, albertus Un, with whom she had a son.
Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety nine, the Beathuns moved to Palatka, Florida,
Speaker 1: where Mary worked at the Presbyterian Church and also sold insurance.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh four, her marriage ended, and determined to
Speaker 1: support her son, Bethune opened a boarding school, the Daytona
Speaker 1: Beach Literary and Industrial School for training Negro girls. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Bethune's school became a college, merging with the All Mile
Speaker 1: Cookman Institute to form Bethune Cookman College in nineteen twenty nine.
Speaker 1: It issued its first degrees in nineteen forty three. A
Speaker 1: champion of racial and gender equality, Bethune founded many organizations
Speaker 1: and led voter registration drives after women gained the vote
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty, risking racist attacks. In nineteen twenty four,
Speaker 1: she was elected president of the National Association of Colored
Speaker 1: Women's Clubs, and in nineteen thirty five she became the
Speaker 1: founding president of the National Council of Negro Women. Bethune
Speaker 1: also played a role in the transition of black voters
Speaker 1: the Republican Party the Party of Lincoln, to the Democratic
Speaker 1: Party during the Great Depression. A friend of Eleanor Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty six, Bethune became the highest ranking African
Speaker 1: American women in government when President Franklin Roosevelt named her
Speaker 1: the Director of Negro Affairs and of the National Youth Administration,
Speaker 1: where she remained until nineteen forty four. She was also
Speaker 1: a leader of FDR's unofficial Black Cabinet. In nineteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: Bethune organized a conference on the problems of the Negro
Speaker 1: and Negro youth and fought to indiscrimination and lynching. In
Speaker 1: nineteen forty she became vice president of the National Association
Speaker 1: for the Advancement of Colored Persons NAACP, a position she
Speaker 1: held for the rest of her life. As a member
Speaker 1: of the advisory board that in nineteen forty two created
Speaker 1: the Women's Army Corps, Bethune ensured it was racially integrated.
Speaker 1: Appointed by President Harry S. Truman, Bethune was the only
Speaker 1: woman of color at the founding Conference of the United
Speaker 1: Nations in nineteen forty five. She regularly wrote for leading
Speaker 1: African American newspapers, The Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender,
Speaker 1: and finally, additionally, Bethune was a businesswoman who co owned
Speaker 1: a Daytona, Florida resort, and co founded the Central Life
Speaker 1: Insurance Company of Tampa. Honored with many awards, Bethune's life
Speaker 1: was celebrated with a memorial statue in Washington, d c.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy four, a postage stamp in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 1: and her final residence is a National Historic Site. And
Speaker 1: of course, more recently she got a statue an eleven
Speaker 1: foot tall statue. Let me say it again, Yes, eleven
Speaker 1: foot stall statue in the National Statuary Hall collection, which
Speaker 1: is meant to represent the state of Florida, which she
Speaker 1: spent a good amount of time. So that is, you
Speaker 1: know what. I'm glad that we got to do that
Speaker 1: for Women's History Month too.
Speaker 3: You know, she was quite remarkable.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, at least beast mode like that.
Speaker 3: Wasn't just exceptional black history. You just read that's exceptional
Speaker 3: history period. An incredible scholar, an incredible worker, and able
Speaker 3: to get into rooms that were kind of designed to
Speaker 3: keep us out. I'm blown away hearing the things that
Speaker 3: I knew, but more so the things that I didn't.
Speaker 3: So I just learned some new things today myself.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The thing is how it mentioned that she was working
Speaker 1: with the voter registration drives after women gained the right
Speaker 1: to vote and risking racist attacks. That was a big deal.
Speaker 1: I remember reading about that probably my first year of college.
Speaker 3: And then a black woman being appointed by two separate
Speaker 3: presidentsidents yeah, when they weren't rocking with us back back
Speaker 3: in the early nineteen hundreds. So not just to be black,
Speaker 3: but a black woman appointed by two different presidents that's
Speaker 3: those are major major accomplishments.
Speaker 1: Man. Well, I don't I probably shouldn't say it, but
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, it was black women who were
Speaker 1: the last human in this country that were given the
Speaker 1: right to vote. So everyone else had the right to
Speaker 1: vote before black women. And so to know that she
Speaker 1: was out there registering when the you know, the women's
Speaker 1: rights to vote had just gotten passed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my mother couldn't voting age, she couldn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So then it's that.
Speaker 3: Recent right when my mom, not my great grandmother not
Speaker 3: you know, when my mom reached voting age, she couldn't.
Speaker 1: How about that. I remember you said that to me
Speaker 1: when we were I think we were in Making or
Speaker 1: somewhere in Georgia on our way up to Atlanta. So
Speaker 1: that's that's also some way black history for you. But
Speaker 1: I think we're going to leave it right there. So
Speaker 1: once again, i'd like to thank you for tuning in
Speaker 1: to Civic Cipher. I'm your host, ramses Jaw.
Speaker 7: I go by the name Q Wardes. Indeed do it's
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