Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
Speaker 1: and there's Chuck and Jerry's out there somewhere. Uh, and
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should Know N double A CP edition.
Speaker 1: That's right. I was thinking about this, well, I was researching, Chuck.
Speaker 1: No one ever says N A A c P. I've
Speaker 1: never heard anybody say everyone says N double A c P,
Speaker 1: which I think kind of gives the whole thing, Uh,
Speaker 1: kind of like a like an old friend kind of
Speaker 1: feel to it, you know what I'm saying. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean since you brought that up. Um, there have
Speaker 1: been people questioning the name in modern times of National
Speaker 1: Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and some people
Speaker 1: have floated African Americans, so in in double A double
Speaker 1: A I guess could be a way that you would
Speaker 1: say that, but um, they this was I think from
Speaker 1: two thousand seven, So the leader of the Double A
Speaker 1: CP at the time, I think there's a there's so
Speaker 1: much in the name, so much currency at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that switching it is kind of tough. And also, um,
Speaker 1: he said, you know, we're kind of about the rights
Speaker 1: of many kinds of people, UM, so we don't want
Speaker 1: to just say African Americans. So yeah, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot lots of lengthy articles, but it seemed to make sense.
Speaker 1: And from actually what i've what I've read is the UM,
Speaker 1: the double A CP is kind of in this lengthy
Speaker 1: process of UM kind of reinventing itself or re establishing itself.
Speaker 1: And it seems like one of the things that they
Speaker 1: are starting to kind of go for is UM, especially
Speaker 1: economic equality for all people. So that really kind of
Speaker 1: jibes with you know this uh that it's almost like
Speaker 1: they grew into the name finally now in the twenty
Speaker 1: one century, which is surprising. It's kind of neat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it should be hot back in the old way back machine.
Speaker 1: It's been a little while. We gotta put some air
Speaker 1: in the tires first. But yes, did we get in
Speaker 1: that thing at all last year? I don't think so,
Speaker 1: which is surprising. You know, we should have been getting
Speaker 1: that thing every day. Yeah, I know, and we totally didn't.
Speaker 1: But okay, so here we go. We're getting in the
Speaker 1: way back and all right, well we're gonna go back
Speaker 1: to uh, let's go back to nineteen o nine. Who
Speaker 1: might as well go back to when the organization was founded,
Speaker 1: and the reason why was because, well, for lots of reasons,
Speaker 1: but I think this sort of inciting incident was in
Speaker 1: August of nineteen o eight when in Springfield, Illinois, there
Speaker 1: were two gentlemen arrested on suspicion of rape and attempted
Speaker 1: rape and murder, and the cops there were a little
Speaker 1: afraid of what might happen because, as you will see
Speaker 1: in this episode, there was a tendency for extra judicial
Speaker 1: violence a k a. Lynchings to happen if people got
Speaker 1: worked up. So they said, let's get these guys out
Speaker 1: of here, let's take them to another town. The mob
Speaker 1: of people show up and realized that they have been
Speaker 1: moved and did not take kindly to that and rioted
Speaker 1: in Springfield. Yeah. So, like as a result of this
Speaker 1: this Springfield riot, there were like two thousand black residents
Speaker 1: of Springfield, Illinois who were displaced. They just didn't have
Speaker 1: homes anymore because they've been burned to the ground. Um.
Speaker 1: Six people were murdered. Um. Two people were lynched. Two
Speaker 1: innocent men were lynched basically as stand ins for the
Speaker 1: two men that they had originally intended to lynch. Yeah,
Speaker 1: sixteen people ended up UM losing their lives over those
Speaker 1: three days, and nine black people UM, seven white people.
Speaker 1: Five died from conflict with the state militia that was
Speaker 1: called in in two white people died by suicide. And
Speaker 1: for many many years up until I think semi recently,
Speaker 1: the seven white people that died, those deaths were attributed
Speaker 1: to UM to being killed by black people that were there,
Speaker 1: and that is not the case. They were literally rewriting
Speaker 1: history in that case. One of the other big things
Speaker 1: about this too is UM aside from the fact that
Speaker 1: it happened, and this was you know, these happened with
Speaker 1: enough frequency like that it was a it was a
Speaker 1: real problem. UM. But one of the other things about
Speaker 1: these these you know, race riots or UM massacres of
Speaker 1: black residents you know usually that evolved out of a
Speaker 1: lynching UM, was that they went unpunished. UM. Oftentimes they
Speaker 1: were uninvestigated. There just wasn't much, if anything done about them.
Speaker 1: So the kind of UM it became clear that this
Speaker 1: is a larger issue was already very clear among the
Speaker 1: African American community in the United States, but it UM
Speaker 1: kind of caught the the attention of UM some connected
Speaker 1: white um social justice activists who were working at the
Speaker 1: time too, that's right. Uh So in nineteen o nine,
Speaker 1: a man named W. E. B. Du Bois, which is
Speaker 1: one of the great all time names if you've got
Speaker 1: three initials and that's what you're gonna roll with in
Speaker 1: Duba is a pretty killer name too. But he was
Speaker 1: a humanities professor, he was a writer. Um, he was
Speaker 1: the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from
Speaker 1: a university in the United States, Harvard. That's right. He
Speaker 1: got together with forty other social activists in New York
Speaker 1: and uh, it was you know, it was it was
Speaker 1: mixed races. It was a group of black people and
Speaker 1: white people, mixed religions. There were Jewish people there. Um.
Speaker 1: That was described as a group of black and white activist,
Speaker 1: Jews and Gentiles in the Library of Congress. And they
Speaker 1: chose February twelve to get together because that was Abraham
Speaker 1: Lincoln's birthday and that is where they established their first
Speaker 1: charter as a group. Yeah. The first time they met, um,
Speaker 1: they were not considered the n double a CP. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until their second meeting the first time they called
Speaker 1: themselves the National Negro Committee, and then in nineteen ten
Speaker 1: when they met again, they said, well, let's call ourselves
Speaker 1: the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and
Speaker 1: the n double a CP was officially born, although they
Speaker 1: consider the actual founding back in nineteen o nine, and
Speaker 1: like you said, yeah, there was. It was multi racial,
Speaker 1: multi ethnic, UM, and white people were involved because they
Speaker 1: were very much concerned about the quality of life and
Speaker 1: the um viability of getting ahead for African Americans in
Speaker 1: in the United States at the time. And for UM
Speaker 1: this organization to really kind of find its legs and
Speaker 1: find its footing and survive, it's like crucial first few years. UM,
Speaker 1: it needed very well connected, very wealthy white supporters, and
Speaker 1: so there was an integration at the highest levels. And
Speaker 1: then eventually within a few years it was kind of
Speaker 1: like okay, it's it's you know, we it's time for
Speaker 1: us to step back. We've we've established this thing UM
Speaker 1: and and it can kind of go indefinitely from here. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So getting back to that charter, I think it's the
Speaker 1: words are pretty important. It said it was to promote
Speaker 1: equality of rights and eradicate cast or race prejudice among
Speaker 1: citizens in the United States. To advance the interest of
Speaker 1: colored citizens, to secure for them impartial suffrage, and to
Speaker 1: increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education
Speaker 1: for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete
Speaker 1: equality before the law. And I think it's pretty import
Speaker 1: and because it really kind of laid the groundwork for
Speaker 1: what UM. I mean, you know, there have been all
Speaker 1: sorts of activist groups over the years in the African
Speaker 1: American community, and there's was always sort of about let's
Speaker 1: attack this in the courts, and let's attack it from
Speaker 1: let's attack these systems in the courts that are you know,
Speaker 1: where the cards are so stacked against us by law,
Speaker 1: and let's get some of these laws overturned. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that was I mean, that's still been their strategy basically
Speaker 1: throughout it was. It was the strategy from the beginning
Speaker 1: and it still is today, which is UM and not
Speaker 1: an opposition, but it's it's complementary to other strategies like
Speaker 1: direct action, which is like UM, you know, going to
Speaker 1: UH counter and sitting in and protest to segregated lunch
Speaker 1: counter or not giving your seat up on a bus. UM.
Speaker 1: And you know, during the civil rights ares, we'll see
Speaker 1: like the n Double A c P had an involvement
Speaker 1: direct action, but it's always been known as like this
Speaker 1: like just shooting for the biggest trophies of all, you know,
Speaker 1: like change, fundamental change at the national level legislatively. Um,
Speaker 1: that's what they've always kind of been about, the Double
Speaker 1: A CP. Yeah. So some of these, uh, some of
Speaker 1: the folks in the very first group, um, the first
Speaker 1: president was a constitutional lawyer named Moore Field story great man.
Speaker 1: There was a woman named Florence Kelly who was also
Speaker 1: an attorney who worked a lot in uh an employment reform.
Speaker 1: Do you remember her from the Francis Perkins episode. She
Speaker 1: was the woman who inspired Francis Perkins. Yeah, she is great.
Speaker 1: Who else? Uh, Well, they were you know, they needed
Speaker 1: to um make some way in the press. That was
Speaker 1: sort of one of the big problems at the time
Speaker 1: is you know, lynchings weren't being covered in the press.
Speaker 1: A lot of their rights that were being trampled on
Speaker 1: weren't covered in the mainstream press. So they had a
Speaker 1: good group of writers, um essayist, journe list that would
Speaker 1: get in there and they would, you know, they would
Speaker 1: they founded their own paper, which was huge. The crisis
Speaker 1: which is still around today their magazine, but mainly just
Speaker 1: trying to get recognized in mainstream newspapers with their work. Yeah. Again,
Speaker 1: some of the early supporters and UM people who were
Speaker 1: founding members had big time connections in the press, like
Speaker 1: one guy Oswald Garrison Villard. He was the publisher of
Speaker 1: the New York Evening Post and the Nation magazine, so
Speaker 1: he could very easily get stories about things like lynchings
Speaker 1: into his his paper and his magazine UM, where other
Speaker 1: other places wouldn't print that kind of stuff. And then yeah,
Speaker 1: as the subscribership of the Crisis Crew, UM had a
Speaker 1: bigger and bigger impact. So yeah, kind of part and parcel.
Speaker 1: It seemed like with this legislative action was generating public
Speaker 1: support through the press. It's kind of like this two
Speaker 1: pronged approach. All right, should we take a little pause
Speaker 1: for the cause. Yeah, alright, we're gonna take a break
Speaker 1: and be right back to talk about some of their
Speaker 1: early successes right after this. So if you look at
Speaker 1: some of the early successes in the first part of
Speaker 1: the twentieth century, one of the big ones you can
Speaker 1: point to is in Oklahoma in nineteen ten, where they
Speaker 1: had a state regulation, uh that limited the rights of
Speaker 1: black citizens to vote. It was a grandfather clause basically
Speaker 1: where they said, you need and I think we talked
Speaker 1: about this in the Voter Suppression EPP. But um, you
Speaker 1: need to be able to pass a literacy tests and
Speaker 1: order to be eligible to vote unless you had a
Speaker 1: grandfather who voted in eighteen sixty six. And side note,
Speaker 1: this is before black people were allowed to vote in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: So they basically were saying, if you're illiterate and you're white,
Speaker 1: you can vote. If you're illiterate and you're black, you can't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that Oklahoma law was particularly agreed to say. It was
Speaker 1: one of I think like seven or eight states that
Speaker 1: had a grandfather clause. But Oklahomas said, um, not only
Speaker 1: if your grandfather could vote in eighteen sixty six, if
Speaker 1: he lived in another country in eighteen sixty six and
Speaker 1: would have been eligible to vote or could vote in
Speaker 1: that country, you your grandfathered in. So basically, as long
Speaker 1: as you weren't black, you could you could vote, even
Speaker 1: if you were illiterate. So UM, the n double a
Speaker 1: CP filed suit against this um in a very famous
Speaker 1: case called Gwyn versus the US. UM and Gwyn was
Speaker 1: named after Frank gwyn And who, along with J. J. Bale,
Speaker 1: where a couple of elections officers who had who had
Speaker 1: basically been charged with disenfranchising black voters through the grandfather clause.
Speaker 1: And the Supreme Court heard this and said, you know
Speaker 1: what this is. Uh, this n Double A CP group.
Speaker 1: I've not heard of them before, but they present a
Speaker 1: pretty good case. So we're going to go ahead and
Speaker 1: overturn this grandfather clause. And you know, this is nineteen fifteen.
Speaker 1: The Double A CP had only met for the very
Speaker 1: first time six years before, and all of a sudden
Speaker 1: they're overturning UM race based discrimination laws about voting at
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. And that definitely caught the attention of
Speaker 1: people in the civil rights UM community for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's why. I mean, it's when you look back through history,
Speaker 1: this the state's rights argument that we still here today
Speaker 1: is such a tricky thing because you know, states should
Speaker 1: be allowed to do a lot of things as they
Speaker 1: see fit, but you can't you can't disenfranchise voters, willfully
Speaker 1: disenfranchise voters, Uh, And that's when the federal government comes
Speaker 1: in and people start crying foul that they want to
Speaker 1: be able to run their elections their way, which means
Speaker 1: we don't want black people to vote, and you just
Speaker 1: can't do that. You know. I've been thinking about this
Speaker 1: recently since we did our Clan episode, because I noticed
Speaker 1: that every time the clan went away, it was after
Speaker 1: the federal government intervened because the states wouldn't write. And
Speaker 1: something I came up with, like just a good rule
Speaker 1: of thumb or a good litmus test, is does this
Speaker 1: law discriminate against anybody's right anybody? It doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: group it is. Forget the group, take the group out
Speaker 1: of it. Is it a discriminatory law? And I cannot
Speaker 1: think of a single instance where a discriminatory law would
Speaker 1: be beneficial for the greater good of of the country
Speaker 1: um or for the health of the of democracy. I
Speaker 1: just I can't think of one. Um unless you're you're discriminating,
Speaker 1: discriminating against somebody's right to discriminate against somebody, maybe that
Speaker 1: would be the case. But that seemed to be a
Speaker 1: pretty good rule of thumb to me that I just
Speaker 1: came up with, does the law discriminate yes, well, then
Speaker 1: it's probably a pretty bad law. Hey, Josh, Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: about how far into the future, I should try my
Speaker 1: hand and what is that but years that I I
Speaker 1: don't know, but we're all just basically whisps of ones
Speaker 1: and zeros. I think by then. Another big thing that
Speaker 1: kind of happened early on it was we talked about
Speaker 1: Birth of the Nation in our episode on the Clan,
Speaker 1: and they in Double A CP got together and they said,
Speaker 1: let's boycott this terrible movie. And the boycott didn't do
Speaker 1: a lot in terms of shutting anything down in terms
Speaker 1: of Birth of a Nation, but it did draw them
Speaker 1: some finally some mainstream publicity, and um got them written
Speaker 1: up in newspapers at least, right, So, I mean they
Speaker 1: had some early successes, um, and especially with overturning the
Speaker 1: grandfather clause. But I don't know if it was after
Speaker 1: this or around this time they really kind of redoubled
Speaker 1: their efforts back onto the original intention, which was to
Speaker 1: do something about lynching, to get an anti leg anti
Speaker 1: lynching law, national federal law passed in the United States.
Speaker 1: And UM, what's crazy is that that still hasn't happened,
Speaker 1: and that is recently, is June of we we failed
Speaker 1: to do it yet again, um, which is just nuts
Speaker 1: to me. But the the n double A cp UM
Speaker 1: was really trying to get this to get legislation passed.
Speaker 1: You know, even back then it just made sense. Now
Speaker 1: today it's just shameful that we don't have something. But
Speaker 1: the thing that kind of redoubled or refocused the double
Speaker 1: A CPS efforts on UM anti lynching legislation was the
Speaker 1: lynching of a teenager named Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixteen. And even as far as lynchings go,
Speaker 1: this was particularly gruesome. Yeah. I mean, not only was
Speaker 1: the act gruesome, which was he was tortured, um, hanged,
Speaker 1: set on fire, uh and beaten, but it was in
Speaker 1: front of oh. Estimates range from eight to seventeen thousand
Speaker 1: people like basically the size of a small, you know,
Speaker 1: hockey arena, medium, medium sized hockey arena. You're like, I'm
Speaker 1: not going above medium. Well, I'm trying to think these days,
Speaker 1: how much does like your average NBA hockey arena. Hold,
Speaker 1: it's more like, how I don't I'm such a terrible
Speaker 1: judge of anything like that. So well, let's just say
Speaker 1: a medium sized hockey arena. I think they got it across.
Speaker 1: And the only reason I'm saying that is because it's
Speaker 1: if you try and if you go to a pro
Speaker 1: sports game or a big concert, try to imagine that
Speaker 1: many people gathered together to watch a man, a human
Speaker 1: being beat burned and hanged in front of your face.
Speaker 1: And I tried to put myself in the not in
Speaker 1: the mindset, but out of all those people, like how
Speaker 1: many of those fifteen thousand people were fully charged do this?
Speaker 1: Do this? And how many as it happened, were like,
Speaker 1: my god, what is happened to us as human beings
Speaker 1: and Americans? Were there any people there that regretted what
Speaker 1: was going on? I'm sure some, And if they didn't
Speaker 1: regretted during they I'm sure some regretted it afterward. But
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that made Jesse Washington's
Speaker 1: lynching so disturbing to the rest of the nation was
Speaker 1: that it was reported that there was a carnival like
Speaker 1: atmosphere where people were enjoying themselves and enjoying their time,
Speaker 1: gathered together with Um all the other residents of Waco
Speaker 1: and and lynching this this teenager. UM and the n
Speaker 1: double a c P sent an investigator there to to
Speaker 1: basically document the whole thing, and she came back with
Speaker 1: this report that became something called the UM the Horror
Speaker 1: of Waco or the Waco Horror and UM the n
Speaker 1: double A CP said we're going to we're gonna get
Speaker 1: this out there. We're gonna tell the world about this,
Speaker 1: and they definitely did, and it had a really big impact.
Speaker 1: You know, what it reminds me of is is the
Speaker 1: only thing I can compare it to these days is
Speaker 1: when a UM, a high profile death row inmate is
Speaker 1: executed and outside the prison they have those parties and stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I don't want to wait into the capital
Speaker 1: punishment debate here, but there's something about that blood lust
Speaker 1: that just feels really gross to me. Yeah, and that's
Speaker 1: my official statement. You're talking about somebody's life and vengeance.
Speaker 1: Anytime vengeance is driving things, it's usually time to take
Speaker 1: a pause and reflect on what you're doing. You know,
Speaker 1: I've got all the rules of coming out today, Josh. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, So they put out these pictures, like you said, Um,
Speaker 1: we're covered in mainstream newspapers in you know, I think
Speaker 1: it shocked the country. Um, obviously not enough, but it
Speaker 1: was a big wake up call. I think to a
Speaker 1: lot of people. What happened in Waco and the end
Speaker 1: in double a CP was able to UM to really
Speaker 1: pivot on this and bring up something like the Dire Bill,
Speaker 1: which I think was the first piece of anti lynching
Speaker 1: legislation UM sponsored by Leonidas another great name, Leonidas Dire,
Speaker 1: Republican Congressman from Missouri, UM that died in the Senate.
Speaker 1: I think it passed the House in two and then
Speaker 1: died in a Senate after a filibuster from the Southern Democrats, Yes,
Speaker 1: the Dixiecrats UM. And that was just the first of
Speaker 1: many many ato. Yeah, apparently over like by the middle
Speaker 1: of the century, there were two hundred anti lynching bills
Speaker 1: that were introduced and died in Congress just by the
Speaker 1: mid century. And like I was saying, as recently as
Speaker 1: m June of there was a h anti lynching law
Speaker 1: that was that passed the Senate unanimously one zero, and
Speaker 1: then it went over to the House where it passed
Speaker 1: four hundred and fifteen four and ten to four. Then
Speaker 1: the only thing the House did was changed the name
Speaker 1: to the Emmett Till Anti Lynching Law, which means then
Speaker 1: it had to go back to the Senate to be
Speaker 1: passed again. Because that one change has had been made,
Speaker 1: the name had been changed, and when it got back
Speaker 1: to the Senate, Ran Paul from Kentucky said, I don't
Speaker 1: feel good about this, even though he was part of
Speaker 1: the unanimous Senate that had passed it unanimously just before,
Speaker 1: and no other change was made except for the name. Um,
Speaker 1: and that really ticked a lot of people off. But
Speaker 1: still to this day that law was blocked and the
Speaker 1: United States still does not have a law that makes
Speaker 1: lynching a federal crime. Yeah, so if you want to,
Speaker 1: I mean, this was really big news. Um. So I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of people know about this, But if
Speaker 1: you're curious about Ran Paul's defense was he said, quote,
Speaker 1: this bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining
Speaker 1: it so broadly as to include a minor bruise or abrasion.
Speaker 1: Our national history of Rachiel terrorism demands much more serious
Speaker 1: than seriousness than that. So what he was contending was, uh,
Speaker 1: he wanted he wants the language changed, um, because in
Speaker 1: the language now it says the standard in federal hate
Speaker 1: crimes is serious or I'm sorry, is um bodily injury.
Speaker 1: And I think he wants it changed to serious bodily injury.
Speaker 1: In other words, if someone gets punched in the ace,
Speaker 1: it would be called and considered a lynching in the
Speaker 1: way it's written now. And he said there should be
Speaker 1: substantial risk of death and extreme physical pain in order
Speaker 1: to qualify as lynching. Otherwise, he said, it disrespects what
Speaker 1: real lynchings were. Uh, so take that for what it is, Um,
Speaker 1: for what it's worth. The Senate formally apologized in two
Speaker 1: thousand five for failing to outlaw lynching. So they apologize
Speaker 1: into thousand five, and still it hasn't been put forward
Speaker 1: on the books. Yeah. So, UM, the like we said,
Speaker 1: the the n double a c p UM for decades
Speaker 1: and decades leading up to the Civil rights era, UM
Speaker 1: was very much, uh focused on preventing lynching, on getting
Speaker 1: lynching outlawed. I'm bringing attention to the huge, massive issue
Speaker 1: of lynching in the United States. UM. They had a
Speaker 1: flag that they would unfurl outside of their headquarters in
Speaker 1: New York whenever, UM a lynching was reported, and it
Speaker 1: just said a man was lynched yesterday, UM, which I
Speaker 1: read it. Yeah, I read it, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's you know, that must have been something that I
Speaker 1: saw a picture of it and it's one of those
Speaker 1: ones where a picture is worth a thousand words, Like
Speaker 1: don't you see it? It really drives home what they
Speaker 1: were doing, um and really kind of makes you really
Speaker 1: like the n double a C P. Like, yeah, go
Speaker 1: get them, you know, let's get lynching outlawed. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean you talked about the numbers over that time period.
Speaker 1: The four thousand plus comes out to uh more than
Speaker 1: one lynching a week in the United States over that
Speaker 1: period that was like verified, known and reported, so clearly
Speaker 1: you know, probably more than that. Um. So yeah, this
Speaker 1: is happening literally on a weekly basis in the United States.
Speaker 1: Someone is going out on their own vigilante style and
Speaker 1: hanging uh. Not always hanging a black man, sometimes worse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean if you can. There were sometimes they would
Speaker 1: just burn the whole black section of town down, like
Speaker 1: in in nineteen seventeen St. Louis saw um a race massacre,
Speaker 1: just like there had been in Springfield not too long before.
Speaker 1: So um, like, yeah, it wasn't just lynching, it was
Speaker 1: just mob violence and enforcement of segregation. I think the
Speaker 1: thing that set off um the St. Louis uh riot
Speaker 1: was a black family moved into a white neighborhood. If
Speaker 1: I'm not mistaken, that was the instance that set it off.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it was a yeah, that was a real problem.
Speaker 1: Racial violence was an even bigger problem than it is
Speaker 1: today back before the Civil rights eara right, So during
Speaker 1: the civil rights era, obviously the in A CP is
Speaker 1: going to be very active. Um saw some really great successes.
Speaker 1: They're sort of leading the way, lobbying in the capitol,
Speaker 1: trying just scores and scores of cases in the courts, UM,
Speaker 1: helping people register to vote, taking part in Mississippi's Freedom
Speaker 1: Summer in nineteen sixty four. Um, if you don't know,
Speaker 1: if you know the name Rosa Parks and know what
Speaker 1: she did, you may not know that she was the
Speaker 1: Montgomery in Double a CP secretary, so she actually worked
Speaker 1: for the organization. Yeah, I don't remember. Did we do
Speaker 1: a whole episode on Rosa Parks in the bus boycott
Speaker 1: or was it part of another episode we did. I
Speaker 1: can't remember all of our videos and everything is just
Speaker 1: a big stew in my head at this point. Well,
Speaker 1: we did. We did the one on the freedom schools
Speaker 1: for sure, UM, and I don't remember what we did,
Speaker 1: but we talked a lot about Rosa Parks. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was her own episode or not.
Speaker 1: If not, she deserves her own episode. But yeah, she
Speaker 1: she was a secretary for the Double A CP in
Speaker 1: Birmingham or Montgomery. I'm sorry. And if you start to
Speaker 1: look at some of the big events of the civil
Speaker 1: rights Sarah, you start to realize that, oh, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: that was an in Double A CP field officer or
Speaker 1: those purse those but were um, you know, uh, members
Speaker 1: of the local in Double A CP branch. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of like legal strategies and cases that were
Speaker 1: launched by the Double A CP that appeared to just
Speaker 1: be direct action like Rosa Parks had had enough and
Speaker 1: wasn't going to get up that day. Um that that
Speaker 1: when you peel back the layer a little bit. This
Speaker 1: is part of a larger strategy of trying to force
Speaker 1: lawsuits in court cases so that they can um go
Speaker 1: all the way up to the Supreme Court. And sometimes
Speaker 1: they were very very effective. Yeah, I mean notably, uh
Speaker 1: in the in the mid nineteen fifties, they set their
Speaker 1: sights on the school system and separate but equal. They
Speaker 1: wanted to take that down and Brown versus versus Board
Speaker 1: of Education, you know, one of the landmark cases in
Speaker 1: the history of this country. UM Thorogood Marshall in in
Speaker 1: Double a CP lawyer who was actually later on in
Speaker 1: the late sixties became the first black Supreme Court justice.
Speaker 1: He argued, um, that segregation in public school rules is
Speaker 1: I mean, it is flat out, very clearly unconstitutional. And
Speaker 1: this is one of those times where every justice on
Speaker 1: the Court agreed and said, yeah, that that that is
Speaker 1: not constitutional in any way. Right. Um, so I think
Speaker 1: they said that we uh, that we need to desegregate
Speaker 1: with all all haste. I can't remember the exact wording,
Speaker 1: but it was. It was vague enough that it was, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're like, what exactly constitutes lickity split? Like, sure, it's
Speaker 1: faster than a turtles crawl, but is it as fast
Speaker 1: as a hair running? Um? And the Supreme Court but
Speaker 1: that there was a huge backlash to that. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just like, you know, especially the Southern States were like,
Speaker 1: all right, you know, we had a pretty good run
Speaker 1: at a segregated school system. It's you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: run its course, and now it's time to disegregate. That's
Speaker 1: not at all how it went. At the very least
Speaker 1: local municipalities and even states tried to come up with
Speaker 1: new laws that provided loopholes to segregation. UM. Some states said, well, fine,
Speaker 1: maybe we'll just abolish public schools altogether and then we
Speaker 1: don't have to follow this this federal law any longer. UM.
Speaker 1: There were there was physical violence. There was just a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of pushback to the idea of desegregating schools,
Speaker 1: and the whole thing like really kind of found its
Speaker 1: fruition at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, UM,
Speaker 1: which was I don't I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: the first high school to be desegregated, UM or if
Speaker 1: it was just the one that that was the most
Speaker 1: nuts or the first one that was the most nuts.
Speaker 1: But the the governor of Arkansas said not on my watch,
Speaker 1: and he called out something like ten thousand National Guard
Speaker 1: troops to be there on the first day of school,
Speaker 1: I think September four, even to block the entry of
Speaker 1: the kids who are known as the Little Rock nine
Speaker 1: nine African American high school students whose bravery is just
Speaker 1: breathtaking when you stop and think about it, who were
Speaker 1: trying to go into this newly desegregated high school to
Speaker 1: go to class and they were blocked for something like
Speaker 1: I think twenty days before they could finally make their
Speaker 1: way in. Yeah. This was after the Little Rock school
Speaker 1: Board unanimously voted to integrate their schools. They were going
Speaker 1: to start with high school that year, uh, and then
Speaker 1: followed the following year with junior high and elementary school.
Speaker 1: And like you said, those nine and not only brave kids,
Speaker 1: but you know, families of those kids, because they all
Speaker 1: had to endure what was coming obviously, Um, they tried
Speaker 1: and it got Uh. This is the part that's really confusing,
Speaker 1: because Governor Falbos went to Newport, Rhode Island to meet
Speaker 1: with President Eisenhower about this. It's described as a brief meeting,
Speaker 1: and Eisenhower supposedly thought that Falbos had agreed to enroll
Speaker 1: these students and said that, you know, to go ahead
Speaker 1: and keep those troops there to keep everything safe. And
Speaker 1: I don't know if that was a genuine misunderstanding. UM.
Speaker 1: I read lots of accounts of this, and it seems
Speaker 1: to have been a misunderstanding. Uh. He got back to
Speaker 1: a Little Rock, though, and there was a court order
Speaker 1: on September from a federal judge that said you got
Speaker 1: to get those troops out of there and let these
Speaker 1: kids go to school. And they slipped him in, literally
Speaker 1: slipped him in the side door, and a full scale
Speaker 1: riot erupted. And uh, he you know, he allowed this
Speaker 1: violence to happen, couldn't stop it, and they called up
Speaker 1: for federal help at that time, and that's when Eisenhower
Speaker 1: had to step in an issue Executive Order one oh
Speaker 1: seven three zero, which called him the hundred and first Airborne.
Speaker 1: The white troops of the one first Airborne, they withdrew
Speaker 1: the Black troops. And um, they they didn't stay there
Speaker 1: all year, but there were army units there for the
Speaker 1: remainder of the academic year. Um. And one, one of
Speaker 1: the Little Rock nine, UM was a senior and he graduated,
Speaker 1: became one of the first African American students to graduate
Speaker 1: from public high school in the US or from an
Speaker 1: integrated high school. UM. I think four of the nine
Speaker 1: who didn't four of the eight who didn't graduate, we're
Speaker 1: willing to go back the next year. The others are like,
Speaker 1: forget that, man, this is crazy. We literally need the
Speaker 1: army to enforce it. Yeah. I mean when one girl
Speaker 1: was pushed down the stairs, one girl had acid thrown
Speaker 1: on her face. Um, they were berated and harangued on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, not just by like students, but by
Speaker 1: parents and stuff. It was just one of the ugliest
Speaker 1: chapters of American history was UM desegregation of schools and
Speaker 1: desegregation in general, but school was in particular because we're
Speaker 1: talking about kids here, you know what I'm saying, kids
Speaker 1: who are being subjected to that is about enough for
Speaker 1: adults too, but for for you know, even teenagers on doubt,
Speaker 1: it's just disgusting. Should we take another break? Yes, all right,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a break, and we're going to
Speaker 1: come back and wrap it up with the post civil
Speaker 1: rights area years and where we stand today with the
Speaker 1: a c P right after this, So chuck. The Double
Speaker 1: a CP definitely had a huge hand along with a
Speaker 1: bunch of other groups including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Speaker 1: and the Student Non Lenk Coordinating Committee, just a lot
Speaker 1: of different groups UM to help get some massive legislation
Speaker 1: pass Remember we said from the outset, the Double a
Speaker 1: CP had always been UM focused on social justice and
Speaker 1: change improvement in the lives of African Americans through legislation
Speaker 1: through basically federal government intervention saying Okay, everybody's equal. Now
Speaker 1: we're going to enforce that. And they did it. They
Speaker 1: got it passed with the Civil Rights Act, the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, um, the sweeping UH
Speaker 1: reforms that were passed in the sixties. They basically achieved
Speaker 1: their goal. And what's ironic is from almost that point
Speaker 1: forward they were like, Okay, well, how do we how
Speaker 1: do we proceed from here? And there's been a lot
Speaker 1: of um opportunity for people to take pop shots at
Speaker 1: the nub a CP in question the relevancy and the
Speaker 1: post civil rights era UM, which I think when you
Speaker 1: really kind of dig into it, is generally unfair, but
Speaker 1: in some cases it's been warranted too. And you can
Speaker 1: make a case that the a CP is still to
Speaker 1: this day trying to figure out their their bearings again
Speaker 1: in a post civil rights era. Yeah, this kind of
Speaker 1: started in the seventies when there was a bit of
Speaker 1: an ideological shift in protest and how that looks um
Speaker 1: and instead of in the courtroom, we did great episode
Speaker 1: on the Black Power or no, we did a Black Panther,
Speaker 1: but it was part of the black power movement UM,
Speaker 1: and that was a little more in fashion at the time,
Speaker 1: a little more in your face kind of activism. The
Speaker 1: indelible in double a CP I think was sort of
Speaker 1: looked at a little bit is like, well, you know
Speaker 1: that your that your grandfather's organization impression too. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: like we wanna we want to get up in your
Speaker 1: face and really make some news and make some change
Speaker 1: that way. UM. I think revenue stayed pretty high, uh
Speaker 1: in the mid seventies until they started getting hit with
Speaker 1: a lot of lawsuits. There were always in court defending
Speaker 1: things as well as is trying to get UM legislation
Speaker 1: passed and and prosecuting things. But that left them on
Speaker 1: the verge of bankruptcy at one point. Uh, there were
Speaker 1: a couple of high profile presidents that were fired. UM,
Speaker 1: there were allegations of financial mismanagement. UM. They had to
Speaker 1: lay off a lot of its workforce in two thousand seven,
Speaker 1: and so it's just it's been a little bit tougher
Speaker 1: ROADAHO since the civil rights era. UM. In two thousand four,
Speaker 1: the I R S Gun involved because they are a
Speaker 1: nonprofit and they said you're supposed to be a nonpartisan
Speaker 1: group here, and you're saying things in particular, UH, this
Speaker 1: speech in two thousand four, which is um pretty much
Speaker 1: very anti Bush and you can't do that as a nonprofit.
Speaker 1: So it's been sort of a more um irregular path
Speaker 1: that they've been on, and they've been trying to find
Speaker 1: their way. I think, yeah, the n double a c
Speaker 1: P has kind of been stuck in between a rock
Speaker 1: and a hard place thing where they're accused on one
Speaker 1: side of being way too moderate and not really active enough.
Speaker 1: On the other side, they're accused of being anti republican,
Speaker 1: you know, And they actually came out against that i
Speaker 1: r S threat and investigation. There was a two year
Speaker 1: investigation into whether or not they should hold their five
Speaker 1: oh one C three status um, and they they came back.
Speaker 1: They blasted back. Rather than just kind of taking it.
Speaker 1: They said, well, wait a minute, Um, this is the
Speaker 1: Bush Administration's i r S saying we shouldn't be talking
Speaker 1: smack about President Bush or criticizing President Bush. That seems
Speaker 1: fairly politically motivated. And the i r S ended up
Speaker 1: dropping that investigation and they kept their five O one
Speaker 1: C three status. So good for them on that tip.
Speaker 1: But one of the other big problems I read, um,
Speaker 1: you kind of said, like there was this especially during
Speaker 1: the Black Power movement of the seventies, they were criticized
Speaker 1: as not being in your face enough, of being just
Speaker 1: too bureaucratic and slow moving. The same exact accusations are
Speaker 1: being leveled against them still today. UM very much in
Speaker 1: the face of the Black Lives Matter movement. UM. And
Speaker 1: one of the big problems that the Double A c
Speaker 1: P has is there's a it's a really centralized organization.
Speaker 1: There's like, I think, branches across the United States. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of different branches to keep up with. There's
Speaker 1: a sixty four member board. It's amazing that they get
Speaker 1: anything done, but that that huge UM, that that large
Speaker 1: board has a big a lot of control over the
Speaker 1: individual branches. Like apparently, if you're a branch, if you
Speaker 1: want to go out and join like a march, you know,
Speaker 1: against the death of George Floyd or against police brutality
Speaker 1: or something like that, you want to get into the streets,
Speaker 1: you have to get permission from the Double A CP
Speaker 1: board first. UM. And that board is aging as well.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of criticism about it being slow moving,
Speaker 1: about being out of touch, and about it being way
Speaker 1: too bloated a bureaucracy to have a big impact like
Speaker 1: it needs to have on the immediat lives of black
Speaker 1: people and people of color in general today. So there's
Speaker 1: a huge transition that the Double A CP is undergoing
Speaker 1: right now. And um, I don't know that they have
Speaker 1: found their way, but they seem to be rather aware
Speaker 1: that they do need to find their way again. Um,
Speaker 1: because it's an organization that depends largely on membership dues,
Speaker 1: and if people think you're relevant or don't even realize
Speaker 1: you're still around, they're not going to join and give
Speaker 1: you membership dues. And it's going to make it harder
Speaker 1: to actually get anything done. Do I need to say it?
Speaker 1: Please do Josh Clark streamline get rid of that red
Speaker 1: tape Josh Clark instead of like that Nixon like like
Speaker 1: peace sign for victory thing, I'm gonna somehow replace my
Speaker 1: fingers with all thumbs. This is gonna be like rule
Speaker 1: of thumbs every which way. I love it. Uh. In
Speaker 1: tw eleven, uh in Double A CP really kind of
Speaker 1: formalize their march into the twenty one century. Uh. I
Speaker 1: guess about eleven years too late. Uh, not too late,
Speaker 1: but calendar wise. And they said that their focus were
Speaker 1: what they call the six game changers, which right now
Speaker 1: are economics, sustainability, education, health, public safety and criminal justice,
Speaker 1: voting rights and political representation, and youth and young adult engagement.
Speaker 1: And they're still at it these days. You can see
Speaker 1: them protesting, litigating, lobbying. It might be over Confederate statues
Speaker 1: in public squares. It might be in the form of
Speaker 1: doing a sit in in the office of former Attorney
Speaker 1: General Jeff Sessions. UM, it might be you know, reaching
Speaker 1: out to Black Lives Matter and and people who were
Speaker 1: part of that organization to see how they can work together. Uh,
Speaker 1: They're they're trying, They're doing their best. I think now
Speaker 1: it's about a half a million members, about twenty nine
Speaker 1: million dollars as an organization in what did you say,
Speaker 1: it's more than two thousand branches. Yeah, yeah, which is
Speaker 1: that's a big lumbering organization, you know it is. Um.
Speaker 1: One of the other problems I saw that they were
Speaker 1: running into is that, like I said, they were kind
Speaker 1: of victims of their own success. When you're agitating for legislation,
Speaker 1: when the legislation gets past, what do you do next?
Speaker 1: And one of the things that they're the double A
Speaker 1: CP is credited for is paving the way for African
Speaker 1: American office holders. And I was reading um something from
Speaker 1: Wan Williams, who I guess is conservative now he defected
Speaker 1: from MPR over to Fox years and years ago, but
Speaker 1: he was saying that, Um, the irony of the election
Speaker 1: of Obama and um other black office holders is that
Speaker 1: it makes the N double A CP seem less relevant
Speaker 1: because then people say, Okay, well, you know, the N
Speaker 1: double A CP got these these guys into power, and
Speaker 1: now we we can rely on them to make the
Speaker 1: changes that the double A c P has been trying
Speaker 1: to make. And so it's kind of like, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: there there, They're they've achieved the changes that they've wanted to,
Speaker 1: but now they have to figure out, Okay, what what's left?
Speaker 1: What what what else needs to be UM focused on?
Speaker 1: And how do we change that following the course that
Speaker 1: we've plotted in the organization that we've we've structured for ourselves.
Speaker 1: So thing's gonna be really interesting to see what the
Speaker 1: double A CP does over the next like ten or
Speaker 1: twenty years. I think the six Game Changers is uh
Speaker 1: pretty good foundation. I agree, So hazzah to the Double
Speaker 1: A c P. We're glad that we live in a
Speaker 1: world that they're around, although we're sad that we live
Speaker 1: in a world where they're needed. You know, Wow, boy,
Speaker 1: do I need to say it? I just grew an
Speaker 1: extra thumb. Think. Okay, Well, since chucked his laugh like that,
Speaker 1: I think everybody's time for listener mail. This is from
Speaker 1: a six year old and if you want to get
Speaker 1: the listener mail, just be six mm hmm. That's my advice. Yeah. Uh, hi,
Speaker 1: Josh and Chuck. My name is Christopher. I'm six years
Speaker 1: old and from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My mommy introduced me
Speaker 1: to your show recently because I am very interested in
Speaker 1: learning about everything and I love your podcast. Um, this
Speaker 1: kid is like basically my daughter's age, by the way,
Speaker 1: who could not care less about what I do. Well,
Speaker 1: that's that's actually not true, but she certainly doesn't listen.
Speaker 1: I had a movie question on the car the O day.
Speaker 1: She said, is that Josh? She didn't. It's awesome. I
Speaker 1: can't remember who I was interviewing, but did she say
Speaker 1: that every time? No, she wondered if it was you.
Speaker 1: Was it Mark Ruffalo because people say it sound like
Speaker 1: Mark Ruffalo. No, but he tweeted about us once didn't
Speaker 1: he no Navajo co talkers. Okay, I need to get
Speaker 1: him on the show. Yeah you do. I really liked
Speaker 1: the episode in Oregami. It's one of my favorites. I
Speaker 1: also really like the one on Monopoly, and also the
Speaker 1: one about peanut Butter. I think the more I listen,
Speaker 1: the more favorites I'll have. Have you done an episode
Speaker 1: on Harry Potter? If you have it, maybe you should.
Speaker 1: I'm reading through the books now with my mommy. It's adorable.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that you might read my letter on listener
Speaker 1: mail and I'll get to hear it. If you do,
Speaker 1: can you tell me which episode? But if not, that's okay.
Speaker 1: I just want to let you know that I think
Speaker 1: you guys are really interesting and smart. Love love Christopher
Speaker 1: mckelcher in. And then get this. My mom had to
Speaker 1: type this for me, but I told her what to right.
Speaker 1: Very nice dictated by Christopher. That's pretty great. Thanks a lot, Christopher.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you. Um we have not done a Harry
Speaker 1: Potter episode, and maybe we will some day, and if
Speaker 1: we do, it will be because you asked for how
Speaker 1: about that? Great? And Chuck, we just got to introduce
Speaker 1: a six year old to the history of the N
Speaker 1: double a CP I love it. Yeah. So if you
Speaker 1: want to be like Christopher and get in touch with
Speaker 1: us and tell us that you're six, you better be
Speaker 1: six if you say that. Um. You can hit us
Speaker 1: up via email at stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
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