WEBVTT - Messiah 0:00:02.080 --> 0:00:04.960 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are solely 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:08.840 those of the podcast author or individuals participating in the podcast, 0:00:09.119 --> 0:00:12.400 and do not represent those of iHeartRadio or their employees. 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:15.840 This podcast also contains subject matter which may not be 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:16.880 suitable for everyone. 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:18.919 Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:21.560 --> 0:00:25.439 Radical was released every Tuesday and brought to you absolutely free, 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:28.639 But if you want ad free listening and early access 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:33.199 to next week's episode, subscribe to tenderfoot Plus. For more information, 0:00:33.680 --> 0:00:36.599 check out tenderfootplus dot com. 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:42.760 Enjoy the episode. 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:43.120 Gamsite Media. 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:50.440 After he was arrested in Lowndes County, a ma'am Jamil 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:54.440 Elamine was taken to a jail in Montgomery, Alabama. He 0:00:54.480 --> 0:00:56.880 had been free for twenty five years, but now he 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:00.760 was back behind bars and back in the court system. 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:03.440 His first appearance would be the next morning at a 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.200 courthouse named for a man whose career in politics started 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.960 with the KKK and ended on the US Supreme Court. 0:01:10.280 --> 0:01:14.960 It was Alabama. Armed marshals drove a Mamjamial there. Shackled 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:18.319 and handcuffed. He emerged from a van into public view, 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:23.119 wearing loose fitting gray sweats pants, pockets hanging inside out disheveled. 0:01:23.680 --> 0:01:27.400 He said just a few words to a gaggle of reporters. 0:01:27.720 --> 0:01:30.800 The governmental conspiracy. Man, this is a governmental conspiracy. 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:32.720 Weren't involved in news. 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:37.240 This is a governmental conspiracy, he said, and he denied 0:01:37.240 --> 0:01:42.399 being involved in the shooting. US Marshal James Ergus was 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:46.119 also still in Alabama. He had stuck round after helping 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:48.960 to capture a Mamjamil, and he was among those waiting 0:01:49.080 --> 0:01:51.600 inside the courtroom when a Mam Jamil was brought in. 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:56.320 James was standing at the entrance when he felt something. 0:01:57.000 --> 0:01:59.360 It was just a horrible energy and I didn't know why, 0:01:59.520 --> 0:02:01.560 and then I and then I realized that he was 0:02:01.600 --> 0:02:02.160 right behind me. 0:02:04.640 --> 0:02:05.160 It was just a. 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:10.800 Very unusual I just felt bad. I mean, I don't know. 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:12.560 I don't know how sixplained it is. I went from 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:17.720 feeling great and fine to just feeling bad for a second. 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.280 You know, they went away, But it was it exactly 0:02:22.280 --> 0:02:23.639 correlated with his. 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:34.800 Closeness to me, James said, he since the force of evil, 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.200 I won't argue with the fact that he felt something. 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:42.360 I imagine that we can pick up on phenomena that 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.560 we might call energy. Everyone has walked into a room 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:51.480 and said something feels off, But those perceptions are subjective. 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.440 I bet I would have picked up on something different 0:02:54.480 --> 0:02:57.880 if I'd been in the courtroom that day and Ma'am 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.720 Jamil had been in a cell all night, forced into 0:03:00.760 --> 0:03:03.040 a moment of stillness after four days on the run, 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:07.160 his mind must have been racing, and he emerged from 0:03:07.200 --> 0:03:09.600 whatever darkness that was into the glare of the press, 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:12.840 and then suddenly he was at the mercy of the court. 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.960 Who's to say that in that moment something wasn't radiating 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:20.240 off of him, something that we don't really have words. 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:22.000 For, but evil. 0:03:23.160 --> 0:03:25.240 I don't really use the word, and so I'm not 0:03:25.280 --> 0:03:29.000 sure I would have felt it. We perceive what we 0:03:29.120 --> 0:03:35.440 focus on. James everyone, we're all moving through slightly different realities. 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:38.480 Crazy to think about that in the context of a 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:39.360 court case. 0:03:44.640 --> 0:03:45.320 In Alabama. 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.200 There was some legal bureaucracy that needed to play itself 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.320 out issues not directly related to the shooting in the 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:56.160 West End. Ammamdmil was indicted in Fulton County relatively quickly, 0:03:56.520 --> 0:03:59.120 in a little over a month, and so it was 0:03:59.120 --> 0:04:01.960 time for him to be brought back to Georgia. The 0:04:01.960 --> 0:04:06.240 news media TV especially had been following the legal procedures closely, 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.560 and a mam Jamil's trip back was something of a climax. 0:04:10.560 --> 0:04:14.400 There was a bajillion news cruise that wanted to follow 0:04:14.560 --> 0:04:18.119 the motorcade back, but if the motorcade was a trick, 0:04:18.360 --> 0:04:19.800 he was never in the motorcade. 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:24.839 Instead, a mam Jamil was taken in a helicopter. James 0:04:24.839 --> 0:04:28.480 said he was quiet on the trip, no supervillain vibes. 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.559 We put him in an suv without a motorcade, drove 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.880 him to a landing site, and they flew him directly 0:04:35.960 --> 0:04:38.280 to the prison and unloaded him in Atlanta. 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:44.320 Before that first appearance in court, when a mam Jamil 0:04:44.440 --> 0:04:47.640 called out a conspiracy, he wanted people to see a 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.960 government capable of trickery and deceit, for people to shift 0:04:52.000 --> 0:04:56.440 their focus. I'm not sure many were convinced. I'm not 0:04:56.520 --> 0:04:59.640 sure I'm convinced, but there's no doubt that a mam 0:04:59.680 --> 0:05:03.200 Jmi in his days as a revolutionary was the target 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:07.559 of a government conspiracy at the highest levels. The press 0:05:07.600 --> 0:05:09.640 were none the wiser, and it would take decades for 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:11.880 the public to come to grips with what happened to him. 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.120 The force of evil, James said he felt in the courtroom. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.080 Maybe it was just the anger of the old h 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:28.360 Rap Brown from Campside Media, Tenderfoot TV, and iHeart podcasts. 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:50.040 This is Radical, I'm Mostly Secret, Episode three, Messiah. If 0:05:50.120 --> 0:05:53.440 Rap Brown was larger than life, there's one moment that 0:05:53.520 --> 0:05:57.320 supersized him, that landed his name in the newspaper headlines 0:05:57.360 --> 0:06:00.240 and on the evening news. It was a speed she 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.200 gave in nineteen sixty seven at a rally and a 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.880 town in Maryland called Cambridge. The irony is that few 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.720 people seemed to know for sure what actually happened at 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:14.039 this rally, like what really happened on the ground, But 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:18.400 stories about Rap took flight afterwards, stories that forced people 0:06:18.440 --> 0:06:22.159 to pick sides and to reinforce narratives that weren't necessarily true. 0:06:23.160 --> 0:06:25.240 The late sixties was a time when white people were 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:28.359 scared and black people were angry, and people saw in 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:29.000 Rap who. 0:06:28.839 --> 0:06:30.520 They needed to see. 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:34.120 He emerged as this phantasm with a shaky foundation in reality, 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:43.600 not that there was even a consensus on reality. Cambridge, Maryland, 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.280 is an industrial city of about ten thousand on Maryland's 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:50.760 eastern shore. Peter Levy, a historian, wrote a book about it. 0:06:51.440 --> 0:06:54.520 So in the early sixties. From roughly nineteen sixty two 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.880 through nineteen sixty four, Cambridge had been really one of 0:06:57.880 --> 0:07:01.520 the hotbeds of civil rights activism in the country. Though 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.560 not as well known as a place like Birmingham or Selma, 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:06.919 it garnered a great deal of attention. 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:10.320 In Cambridge, there was an all white fire company that 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:14.280 basically ran the city. It was technically private, but the 0:07:14.320 --> 0:07:17.679 fire company was funded with public money and the members 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:22.000 usually decided who held political office in city government. Civil 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:25.320 rights activists in Cambridge had some wins, though They pushed 0:07:25.320 --> 0:07:28.280 the city to pass a disegregation ordinance, but it was 0:07:28.280 --> 0:07:31.800 a victory that stoked the backlash. White residents who wanted 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:34.600 to maintain the status quo began to raise their voices. 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:40.760 The fire company operated the community pool, and instead of desegregating, 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:42.000 they just shut it down. 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:45.520 It would rather have no community pool than how blacks 0:07:45.960 --> 0:07:49.080 swim with them in a desegregated fashion. So it is, 0:07:49.280 --> 0:07:51.960 you know, it is the power broker, and it had 0:07:52.000 --> 0:07:55.160 been at juggernauts with the black community for years. 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:59.440 George Wallace, the staunch segregationist and governor of Alabama, was 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.680 running for president, and he held a rally at the 0:08:01.720 --> 0:08:03.520 building operated by the fire company. 0:08:04.680 --> 0:08:06.520 The percentage of whites who showed up for that was 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.360 really really high. And in fact, the political leadership in 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:13.840 Cambridge changes after that, and now more conservative elements took. 0:08:13.680 --> 0:08:17.880 Over the right word shift in Cambridge among the white community. 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:20.920 Is it fair to call that like a more open 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.160 embrace of white supremacist ideology. 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:29.880 Yeah, I mean, it's the whole difficulty with the term backlash. 0:08:29.920 --> 0:08:31.640 It's more of a maybe I wish I called as 0:08:31.680 --> 0:08:36.320 a retrenchment. I see it as partly it's almost a 0:08:36.360 --> 0:08:40.400 premonition of the times we're in today, of a populist 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.040 white populist upsearch that takes place. 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:46.959 And in nineteen sixty seven, the National States Rights Party 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:48.119 held a white power. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:49.000 Rally in Cambridge. 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.360 The organization had ties to the KKK and the American 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:57.520 Nazi Party. After the event, the Cambridge police chief Bryce Kinneman, 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.880 he walked off with the party's leader appearing to protect him. 0:09:02.440 --> 0:09:04.880 About a week later, rap would come to town. 0:09:05.800 --> 0:09:08.080 He was chairman of SNAK at the time, the Student 0:09:08.120 --> 0:09:11.600 on Violent Coordinating Committee and some activists in Cambridge invited 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:12.400 him to come speak. 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.280 He's really relatively unknown until he goes to Cambridge in 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:21.120 nineteen sixty seven. Brown, like a lot of black activists, 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.280 thinks that there is a lot of change taking place, 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:26.719 and if he can foster that change, he's going to 0:09:26.760 --> 0:09:30.319 do it. I mean, he understood, having been in the South, 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.640 that sometimes the change would take place first and foremost 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:36.079 at the community level, and he's trying to help community 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:36.840 activists out. 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:42.200 Before Rap got to Cambridge, the police chief Kinneman, he 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:46.199 ordered his officers into the streets. State troopers were mobilized too, 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.920 and the National Guard was on standby. Rap arrived at 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:52.600 around eight forty five at night. A crowd of at 0:09:52.679 --> 0:09:54.720 least three hundred and fifty people had gathered in the 0:09:54.720 --> 0:09:57.880 city's Black neighborhood. He climbed on top of a car. 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:04.120 Rap stood tall above the crowd. He had a small afro, 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:07.760 black sunglasses, looked like he was wearing jeans and a 0:10:07.840 --> 0:10:11.440 denim jacket. When he spoke, he jabbed his right corner 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.839 finger in front of him. No microphone, no megaphone. 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:17.560 Animals, Monkeys are animal. 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:27.600 We got this recording from the Maryland State Archives. It's incomplete, 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:30.680 and it seems to only include the most inflammatory parts 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.800 of Rap's speech. He's using a lot of language that 0:10:33.840 --> 0:10:36.400 I wouldn't use, and then I don't like, but I'm 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:38.360 going to use some of it here just to make 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:39.959 sure you can understand what he's saying. 0:10:40.360 --> 0:10:41.480 We're going to carry you. 0:10:41.760 --> 0:10:48.679 And the only thing I have to respects first. 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:44.920 The. 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:48.200 Man is moving to kill you. He said. 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:54.000 The only thing that the honky respects this force. In 0:10:54.080 --> 0:10:57.120 nineteen sixty seven, the epithets and the naked calls for 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.720 violence grabbed most of the attention, but in the less 0:11:00.720 --> 0:11:03.440 traffic parts of the speech that we don't have audio of, 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.679 there's a pretty clear eyed assessment of the hypocrisy of 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:10.800 the white establishment. You call us lazy, but you built 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:14.840 a country with slave labor. You kill over in Vietnam 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:18.160 for your cause. Send black people to kill for your cause, 0:11:18.679 --> 0:11:21.840 but we shouldn't kill for our cause. You talk about 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:24.880 black people looting, but you looted this land from its 0:11:24.960 --> 0:11:29.760 native inhabitants. Rapp's response to the double standard was pragmatic. 0:11:30.720 --> 0:11:33.160 What gives them power over us is their willingness to 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:36.040 use violence, so we should use it to What he 0:11:36.080 --> 0:11:38.360 seemed to overlook were the ways that brute force wasn't 0:11:38.360 --> 0:11:42.200 sustainable for white people. For one thing, they had a 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:46.520 major revolt on their hands. Violence as an idea was spreading. 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.959 Because that's what he about to do to you, believe me, 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:56.880 unlike he would do to you. 0:11:56.920 --> 0:11:57.840 But do it to him first. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:03.600 Rap said, don't try to love the honky to death. 0:12:04.240 --> 0:12:06.040 Shoot him to death before he shoots you. 0:12:07.400 --> 0:12:10.880 He also spoke about what was happening in Cambridge. Nearby 0:12:11.120 --> 0:12:14.440 there was a dilapidated school, a symbol of unequal education 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:15.120 in the city. 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:17.760 Rap said it should have been burned all. 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.440 The way down a long time ago. Burn that school 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:30.960 down and take over the white school. If America don't 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:37.320 come around, he said, we should burn it down. Rap 0:12:37.360 --> 0:12:40.880 spoke for about an hour, and afterward the crowd mostly dispersed. 0:12:41.760 --> 0:12:46.520 There's no riot, no fire. Law enforcement and the police 0:12:46.559 --> 0:12:49.880 chief Keneman, they got a recording of the speech, probably 0:12:49.880 --> 0:12:50.720 the same one we have. 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.200 I think you have to see. Keineman is a kind 0:12:56.240 --> 0:12:59.240 of a boiling cattle and kind of a pressure cooker, 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:01.440 and the pressure has been building. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:01.920 Up for years. 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.560 He's getting really really angry. And other authorities at the 0:13:06.600 --> 0:13:09.480 state attorney General, the head of the state police, they're 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.920 actually trying to calm Bryce Kineman down. You know, he 0:13:12.960 --> 0:13:14.960 wants to just go in and clean the place up. 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.000 At this point, it's late at night, and the story 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:21.360 goes that Rap and a few other activists are walking 0:13:21.360 --> 0:13:24.960 a woman home a deputy sheriff fired what he alleged 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:28.520 were two warning shots, one on the ground and one 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:32.120 in the air. It's a shotgun, though book shot and 0:13:32.160 --> 0:13:33.760 a pellet hit Rap in the head. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.120 Brown scared for his life, maybe rightfully so. 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.040 Rap wasn't there for long though There's. 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:41.920 Some people actually said that he was actually secreted out 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.480 in a casket and he leaves town now. I'm not 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.000 sure if the police officers knew that, but he's gone. 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.440 Many of the people who heard Raps speak, they. 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:53.400 Went back to their homes on the Black side of town. 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:58.600 Cambridge was relatively quiet, but a fire was about to catch, 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:01.840 a fire that draw the attention of the most powerful 0:14:01.840 --> 0:14:04.400 men in the country, and even though Rap was on 0:14:04.480 --> 0:14:07.560 his way out of Cambridge, those men would decide to 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:34.720 come after him. In nineteen sixty seven, the same year 0:14:34.760 --> 0:14:37.960 that Rapp spoke in Cambridge, Maryland, there were more than 0:14:38.080 --> 0:14:40.800 one hundred and fifty uprisings of black people and cities 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:42.000 around the country. 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:43.960 And one hundred places Detroit is a fired. 0:14:44.080 --> 0:14:46.320 One hundred square blocks are now under sea. 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.720 Looting and shooting by both police and rooftop snipers, and 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:52.120 three Negroes were killed. 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:52.920 And still the. 0:14:52.920 --> 0:14:54.960 Sirens whine and the victims come in. 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.880 The fire has been raging for more than thirty. 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:58.640 Minutes for then. 0:14:58.840 --> 0:15:03.400 This is where the riot in the city hospital WCBSTV 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:04.600 news in Newark. 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:09.600 Forty three people killed in Detroit, twenty six killed in Newark, 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:13.080 thousands arrested. The period came to be known as the 0:15:13.160 --> 0:15:16.880 Long Hot Summer. Black people were angry and white people 0:15:16.920 --> 0:15:20.560 were scared. Everyone was watching, not least of all the 0:15:20.600 --> 0:15:24.400 President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson. He was concerned, 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.520 maybe even angry. A few years earlier he had signed 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.640 the Voting Rights Act, but that hadn't really eased the tension. 0:15:31.160 --> 0:15:32.640 America was still in distress. 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:38.200 We will not tolerate lawlessness. We will not endure violence. 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:43.200 This is Johnson speaking at a press conference about the uprisings. 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:49.520 It will not be tolerated. This nation will do whatever 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:55.440 it is necessary to do to suppress and to punish 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:57.920 those who engage in it. 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:05.320 He meant black people, especially black leaders of the uprisings. 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:10.600 The rebellions because President Johnson's government, the FBI in particular, 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.280 would set law and order aside when it came to 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:18.280 and I'm using Johnson's words here, suppressing and punishing those involved. 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.920 The FBI would employ covert, extra judicial, many would say, 0:16:23.080 --> 0:16:26.640 illegal actions to target Rap and other black leaders whatever 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:32.040 was necessary. Rap would feel the effects of this for years. 0:16:33.920 --> 0:16:37.440 The night that Rap delivered his speech in Cambridge, Johnson 0:16:38.000 --> 0:16:41.000 and lots of other powerful white men in Washington, they 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:44.320 would have been watching TV reports about uprisings around the country. 0:16:45.360 --> 0:16:49.240 In Cambridge, after Rap had left town, maybe in a casket, 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:56.920 a fire was about to catch the historian Peter Levy, 0:16:57.600 --> 0:17:01.080 he spent years looking into how things went down. Cambridge 0:17:01.120 --> 0:17:03.040 was quiet that night until a bunch of white men 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:05.600 night writers drove through the black. 0:17:05.440 --> 0:17:10.840 Neighborhood, and there are disputes about what they were doing, 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:14.159 but many in the black community thought that they were 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.879 being fired upon. Generally speaking, the police would not stop 0:17:17.960 --> 0:17:21.280 these night riders. Later on in the evening, they did 0:17:21.320 --> 0:17:23.880 stop him and claim they found no weapons, but many 0:17:23.920 --> 0:17:27.000 of the black community didn't believe that. Some police reported 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.040 that they were actually shooting off fireworks, and at one 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:34.480 point some black individuals began to arm themselves, and two 0:17:34.600 --> 0:17:38.560 black men were later arrested for firing back, and one 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:42.600 of those shots hit an officer. Didn't seriously do any harm, 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.040 but when the police chief, Rice Kunnerman, heard that his 0:17:45.119 --> 0:17:47.800 officer officer wrote and had been hit, he just goes 0:17:48.280 --> 0:17:54.760 you know, he goes crazy. 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.399 Meanwhile, a small fire had started in that old elementary 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:02.960 school that it spoken about, the symbol of unequal education 0:18:03.600 --> 0:18:07.000 that he said should burn to the ground. It took 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.439 forty five minutes for that all white fire company to 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.280 even be alerted, and when the company got there, the 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:15.199 firefighters kept their distance just beyond the border of the 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:18.400 black section of town for at least an hour, if 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:19.040 not longer. 0:18:20.000 --> 0:18:21.639 The head of the fire companies said his men. 0:18:21.560 --> 0:18:24.480 Didn't feel safe enough to go into the neighborhood, even 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:26.280 though other white people had gone in that night. 0:18:26.960 --> 0:18:30.159 The black city councilmen and leading business leaders asked for 0:18:30.200 --> 0:18:33.080 the right to put the fire out. You know, said 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:36.840 give us. The equipment wasn't given to him, and the 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:40.399 response essentially of the police chief was you know you 0:18:40.640 --> 0:18:43.639 and he used the N word started this fire. You know, 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:46.160 you guys can put it out. But then they weren't 0:18:46.160 --> 0:18:47.560 wouldn't help him put it out. 0:18:47.840 --> 0:18:50.959 Finally, the state attorney General got involved, and he convinced 0:18:51.000 --> 0:18:52.800 the fire company to extinguish the fire. 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:57.200 And by then two whole square blocks of the black community, 0:18:57.280 --> 0:19:00.639 including a number of businesses and a church of homes, 0:19:00.720 --> 0:19:02.960 had been burned to the ground. 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.280 The night of the fire, President Johnson called an emergency 0:19:07.320 --> 0:19:10.440 meeting at the White House about the uprisings. There was 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:14.240 a small gathering of powerful men. The Secretary of Defense 0:19:14.359 --> 0:19:18.320 was there, the Attorney General, a Supreme Court justice, and 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:21.800 maybe most importantly, j Edgar Hoover, the director of the FBI. 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.800 Hoover had been leading the bureau for decades, and he 0:19:25.880 --> 0:19:29.000 was the one who launched the notorious counterintelligence program known 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.720 as Cointel pro. It was aimed at surveilling and disrupting 0:19:32.840 --> 0:19:37.600 American political organizations, mostly on the left. According to Hoover, 0:19:38.040 --> 0:19:40.639 in this meeting at the White House, President Johnson was 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:42.920 of the opinion that the uprisings of the Long Hot 0:19:42.960 --> 0:19:47.800 Summer they were coordinated by black activists. The next day, 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:53.080 Hoover from the FBI called Johnson. Even with all the 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.359 intelligence at his disposal, Hoover wasn't able to point to 0:19:56.400 --> 0:20:00.119 any coordinated conspiracy, but he named a Trap Brown that 0:20:00.200 --> 0:20:04.400 someone the President might blame and called him, quote, one 0:20:04.400 --> 0:20:07.120 of the worst in the country. A warrant was put 0:20:07.119 --> 0:20:10.560 out for Rap's arrest. The government would do whatever it 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:16.399 took to stop him. FBI agents visited Rap's lawyer. 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:19.280 Afterward. The lawyer called Rap. 0:20:19.560 --> 0:20:21.800 And they made plans for Rap to fly from Washington, 0:20:21.880 --> 0:20:24.600 DC to New York City, where he would turn himself in. 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:28.000 But Rap's lawyer alleged the FBI was listening in on 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:31.400 that call because when Rap went to the airport, he 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:35.040 was arrested and charged with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. 0:20:37.840 --> 0:20:42.960 My fellow Americans, we have endured a week such as 0:20:43.000 --> 0:20:48.000 no nation should live through a time of violence and tragedy. 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:53.520 Three days after Cambridge, President Johnson delivered a televised address. 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:56.200 It was like he was speaking directly to Rap. 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:01.040 The apostles of violence were their ugly drum beat of hatred. 0:21:01.960 --> 0:21:07.960 Must know that they're now heading for a ruin and disaster, 0:21:09.359 --> 0:21:14.960 and every man who really wants progress, our justice, our 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:22.920 equality must stand against them and against their miserable virus 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:23.439 of hate. 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:28.520 Targeting Rap. It was an easy way to shift a 0:21:28.640 --> 0:21:31.280 tension from the crappy condition to police violence that often 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:33.080 spark black people to take to the streets in the 0:21:33.119 --> 0:21:38.640 first place. Then a month after Cambridge, the FBI Director 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:41.840 j Edgar Hoover kicked off a new operation under the 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:45.800 Cointel pro umbrella. It would target what he called black 0:21:45.880 --> 0:21:47.680 nationalist hate groups. 0:21:48.920 --> 0:21:53.280 And so it begins to launch efforts to and this 0:21:53.400 --> 0:21:57.280 is Hoover's words, to neutralize black radicals. Another definition of 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:00.760 black radicals is quite expansive because in that includes Martin 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:05.040 Luther King, who had been disliked by Hoover, disliked as 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:07.359 a wrong term, hated by Hoover for years. 0:22:09.000 --> 0:22:14.280 Expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize. 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:16.639 Those were the goals Hoover and. 0:22:16.640 --> 0:22:19.080 The FBI wanted to prevent the rise of what they 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:23.760 called a messiah. The FBI paid informants who infiltrated civil 0:22:23.840 --> 0:22:27.600 rights and black power organizations. Regular reports came in to 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:33.080 FBI headquarters from agents surveilling leaders like Rap reading the 0:22:33.119 --> 0:22:36.560 documents that have been declassified. It looks like the FBI 0:22:36.760 --> 0:22:39.800 was trying to secretly create conflict between Rap and other. 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:41.080 Black power leaders. 0:22:41.760 --> 0:22:44.720 And then there's this wild one which actually got approval 0:22:44.720 --> 0:22:48.639 from FBI headquarters to make a comic book vilifying Rap. 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.480 From what I can tell for Rap, at least, none 0:22:53.520 --> 0:22:56.480 of these dirty tricks amounted to much. What was truly 0:22:56.560 --> 0:22:59.440 damaging was a scheme among federal and local law enforcement 0:22:59.760 --> 0:23:02.880 to Rapp caught up in the legal system. This unfolded 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:10.480 over years. It began in Cambridge, where Rap was charged 0:23:10.480 --> 0:23:13.359 with arson the same day. I should point out that 0:23:13.400 --> 0:23:17.040 Hoover mentioned Rap to the President. The county prosecutor in 0:23:17.040 --> 0:23:19.760 Maryland later told a reporter that he charged Rap to 0:23:19.840 --> 0:23:22.400 quote get him on the FBI Most Wanted list. 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:25.000 The charges weren't based on any evidence. 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:28.800 A few days after Rap was indicted on those charges, 0:23:29.359 --> 0:23:32.000 he flew to Louisiana to visit his family in Baton Rouge, 0:23:32.119 --> 0:23:34.680 and he took a gun with him, an M one carbine. 0:23:36.720 --> 0:23:37.520 You could do that kind of. 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:39.960 Thing back then, take a gun on a plane, check 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:42.560 it in with the crew. The whole time he was 0:23:42.560 --> 0:23:45.720 in Louisiana, a Rap was followed by local police, and 0:23:45.760 --> 0:23:47.639 when he got back to New York, he was arrested 0:23:47.640 --> 0:23:50.240 by the FBI for carrying a gun across state lines. 0:23:50.600 --> 0:23:55.040 A while under indictment, and the judge in the gun 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:57.600 case appeared to hardly even pretend to play by the rules. 0:23:58.280 --> 0:24:00.760 He was a former FBI agent, and at some point 0:24:00.840 --> 0:24:02.880 he was overheard saying that he was going to quote 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:09.120 get that nigger, referring to Rap. On top of that, 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:14.680 the legal bureaucracy took its toll filings and hearings. Rapp 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:17.280 actually spent some time in jail for violating his bond. 0:24:18.040 --> 0:24:20.159 It was a lot, and he stepped down as chairman 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:24.080 of SNICK. To survive as a leader in a black 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:27.120 activist at the time, it was something like a small miracle. 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:31.200 Malcolm X was assassinated in nineteen sixty five and the 0:24:31.240 --> 0:24:35.200