Speaker 1: I am Brother Cornell West. This is Chris Hedges hundreds
Speaker 1: of comments. Hey what's up. This is Chuck D Public
Speaker 1: Enemy property rage. And this. Is Newton.
Speaker 2: Everyone. This is Manny faces producer and host of News
Speaker 2: beat today.
Speaker 3: We're doing something a little different in light of the
Speaker 3: horrific slayings of African-Americans in recent months. We've decided to
Speaker 3: rerelease one of our most powerful drops to date. It's
Speaker 3: called Why We riot. It's our first award winning episode
Speaker 3: an examination of the racist institutionalized inequalities threaded into the
Speaker 3: very fabric of American society that forces historically oppressed and
Speaker 3: tormented communities of color to inevitably rise up in rebellion
Speaker 3: it features activists. Rosa Clemente former Green Party vice presidential
Speaker 3: candidate renowned intellectual and Harvard University professor Dr. Cornell West
Speaker 3: and Lawrence Larry Hamm chairman of the north New Jersey
Speaker 3: based nonprofit The People's Organization for Progress. The stories they
Speaker 3: tell are sadly hugely relevant today. And just as the
Speaker 3: pent up pain and torment erupted into the streets of
Speaker 3: Baltimore New York and dozens of other cities across the
Speaker 3: United States in the 1960s Minneapolis is currently the scene
Speaker 3: of large scale protests and demands for justice in the
Speaker 3: wake of the recent killing of George Floyd an unarmed
Speaker 3: handcuffed black man by a white police officer since fired
Speaker 3: but not charged with any crimes as of this release
Speaker 3: Officer Derek Colvin kept his knee on Floyd's neck for
Speaker 3: several minutes while the 46 year old gasped for air
Speaker 3: and howled in pain crying I can't breathe the same
Speaker 3: desperate plea repeated by Eric Garner an unarmed black man
Speaker 3: strangled to death by New York City Police Officer Daniel Pantaleo.
Speaker 3: Nearly six years ago. Floyd's demise is among a string
Speaker 3: of horrific African-American deaths sparking widespread outrage nationwide. In March
Speaker 3: Brianna Taylor was fatally shot at least eight times by
Speaker 3: cops in Louisville Kentucky who barged into her home while
Speaker 3: she was sleeping. And in February a model Aubrey was
Speaker 3: pursued and gunned down by a father and son duo
Speaker 3: while jogging through a South Georgia neighborhood.
Speaker 4: It took three months for authorities to charge the man
Speaker 4: with his murder. George Floyd Brianna Taylor Ahmad Aubrey all
Speaker 4: victims of what many consider to be modern day lynchings.
Speaker 3: The incredible New Jersey based Fusion outfit the band called
Speaker 3: Fuse provided the musical underbelly of why we riot while
Speaker 3: its frontman and our artist in residence hip hop firebrand
Speaker 3: Silent Night delivered incendiary verses along with bandmates soul clock
Speaker 3: and Kay desert Ray on vocals.
Speaker 4: This is an important episode. It's one we wish we
Speaker 4: didn't have to make in the first place and it's
Speaker 4: certainly one that we wish we'll never have to rebroadcast again.
Speaker 4: Something tells me that we will. For now please support
Speaker 4: news beat by subscribing on your favorite podcast app. Also
Speaker 4: take a moment to leave a rating and review it.
Speaker 4: It always helps gets us noticed. And for more social
Speaker 4: justice coverage in our unique compelling musically fueled way. Visit
Speaker 4: us at U.S. News beat dot.com.
Speaker 5: Once again this is why we riot as a kid
Speaker 5: who is 13 years old.
Speaker 6: I had no idea this was coming. I had no
Speaker 6: idea that upright. You know I wasn't politically conscious at
Speaker 6: that age and I didn't come from a politically active family.
Speaker 6: My family were not activists. My father passed when I
Speaker 6: was 4 years old. My mother lived with her parents
Speaker 6: I lived with them. We lived a regular life. I
Speaker 6: did live in what at that time was called the
Speaker 6: ghetto and it became the inner city now just north.
Speaker 6: By 1967 the community that I lived in was all
Speaker 6: black and it was that summer. I was across the
Speaker 6: street at my friend's house. When we were having a
Speaker 6: little house party.
Speaker 7: And somebody ran upstairs says Springfield Avenue was on fire.
Speaker 8: Newark New Jersey became a city of race riots violence
Speaker 8: looting and hate for five days. It was a battleground
Speaker 8: and the looters paradise. Colored Citizens clashed with police National
Speaker 8: Guardsmen and state troopers. Twenty four people were killed and
Speaker 8: twelve hundred. Nearly half the city was in the grip
Speaker 8: of a new flare ups. Similar riots in other medical
Speaker 8: centers with hatred near danger point between white and black
Speaker 8: extremist groups. In Europe. There was an uneasy tension punctuated
Speaker 8: by minor outbreaks of violence. After five days of bloody
Speaker 8: fighting the rebellion started on 17th Avenue.
Speaker 6: In front of what is today called the West District precinct.
Speaker 6: My house was roughly a mile as the crow flies.
Speaker 6: The police arrested a black cab driver named John Smith.
Speaker 6: They took him into the precinct that precinct had a
Speaker 6: notorious reputation.
Speaker 9: People being beaten and killed in there. Initially when Smith
Speaker 9: was arrested. And keep in mind that that precinct set
Speaker 9: in the heart of a major housing project. At that
Speaker 9: time was the Hayes Homes project and right across the
Speaker 9: street was the Stella Wright project and right below that
Speaker 9: was the Scudder home project.
Speaker 6: Within that area that was said to have been the
Speaker 6: most densely populated black community in the United States at
Speaker 6: that time. I mean there were literally thousands of. I
Speaker 6: mean it was like a city unto itself. Those three
Speaker 6: because you couldn't even tell they were different housing pride
Speaker 6: just looked like one great area of projects. All of
Speaker 6: them about 13 stories high. So the precinct was right
Speaker 6: in the heart of that.
Speaker 10: And so people could see from their windows John Smith
Speaker 10: being dragged in there drag them into the streets and
Speaker 10: that's evident land since they are people of a community
Speaker 10: and a rumor got started that Smith had died.
Speaker 11: Even though representatives of civil rights organizations came to the
Speaker 11: precinct and met with the police and knew that Smith
Speaker 11: had not been killed but he had been beaten and
Speaker 11: so there was a demonstration in front of the West
Speaker 11: District precinct which led to a confrontation with the police.
Speaker 11: And that's how the uprising of 1967 began.
Speaker 12: Inured.
Speaker 13: Twenty six people were killed and almost all of them
Speaker 13: conclusively were killed either by the police the state troopers
Speaker 13: or the National Guard. The author Ron Rambo wrote a
Speaker 13: book called No cause for indictment. And in that book
Speaker 13: he chronicles how no police guard no one was indicted
Speaker 13: or went to trial for the murder of the people
Speaker 13: that took place during not during the rebellion. The police
Speaker 13: were saying they were firing because they were being fired
Speaker 13: upon by snipers. But all the evidence shows that there
Speaker 13: were no snipers that what they thought was snipers were police.
Speaker 14: Oh my God. You want to travel. Cyprus shot out
Speaker 14: a shot of the National Guard without calling a sniper
Speaker 14: firing at each other. You know people not familiar with
Speaker 14: the city and they kill people they kill Ella Spellman.
Speaker 13: You know while she was standing at her window. Like
Speaker 13: on the seventh or eighth floor of the building that
Speaker 13: she lived in.
Speaker 9: You know we used to have a saying in the
Speaker 9: in the black power movement at that time we call
Speaker 9: it right around the corner is because all of this
Speaker 9: was happening and some people were under the impression that
Speaker 9: a revolution literally was around the corner when money came
Speaker 9: King Junior was shot for example April 4th 1968.
Speaker 15: We had over one hundred and fifty mass rebellions around
Speaker 15: the country killing.
Speaker 16: Martin just was it was too much too much you
Speaker 16: couldn't take it anymore. Something snapped and some snapped inside
Speaker 16: of all of it. You know with those signs please.
Speaker 17: I have some very sad news for all of you.
Speaker 17: And that is that Martin Luther King was shot and
Speaker 17: was killed tonight.
Speaker 18: So you just don't know when that's going to happen.
Speaker 18: But it is true all around the world. Had various
Speaker 18: riots in terms of rebellions against forms of oppression.
Speaker 19: And it's hard to know what the catalyst is the
Speaker 19: deeper causes usually accumulative the structural their institutional the economic
Speaker 19: political and cultural vicious stereotypes against peoples and so on
Speaker 19: yet Jewish resistance in Poland. Well of course it was
Speaker 19: back to being pushed against the wall. Palestinians in Gaza
Speaker 19: against Israeli occupation. Back to being pushed against a wall.
Speaker 19: Each one of these you have distinctive conditions and circumstances
Speaker 19: but there's one button push.
Speaker 20: She can't take it no more that history starts the
Speaker 20: moment there was a year Pan who took an African
Speaker 20: and that Africans fought back.
Speaker 21: Our level of civil disobedience is nothing compared to what
Speaker 21: we used to do almost hundreds of years ago. Whether
Speaker 21: it was on the continent via a bag. On a
Speaker 21: slave ship through the middle passage to women throwing themselves off.
Speaker 21: Balconies and draft or committing fratricide so their children wouldn't
Speaker 21: have to face the horrors of being kidnapped being enslaved like.
Speaker 21: The civil disobedience the little bit that we see now
Speaker 21: is an expression of.
Speaker 20: People being fed up at one point. But it doesn't
Speaker 20: encapsulate the entire history of black people resisting not oppression.
Speaker 20: But the system seeing capitalism and patriarchy.
Speaker 22: I mean we're always going to have civil disobedience. People
Speaker 22: to get tired and they're going to rise up dead
Speaker 22: in a rebellion.
Speaker 23: That's United States history period. But the level of what
Speaker 23: we see in the streets right now is nothing compared
Speaker 23: to what you see in the mass in the streets
Speaker 23: in America.
Speaker 24: When it comes to how particularly African-American people fight back.
Speaker 25: We begin this week with so much emotional unrest all
Speaker 25: across the country after those devastating shootings you see some
Speaker 25: rallies like this one in Minnesota did turn violent over
Speaker 25: the weekend. Dozens of officers injured this healing is going
Speaker 25: to be hard.
Speaker 26: And we have so many striking images to show you
Speaker 26: at this encounter between a young woman and officers in
Speaker 26: riot gear in Baton Rouge. Last night people asking for
Speaker 26: peace in Los Angeles protesters joining hands making a statement
Speaker 26: as the country mourns the loss of those lives in
Speaker 26: Louisiana and Minnesota and of course those five officers in
Speaker 26: Texas who say her name.
Speaker 27: Say his name. They. Say their names. Say Ana. Why.
Speaker 28: They say my name wrong in their roll call. They
Speaker 28: think I should be happy to say it they don't.
Speaker 28: They say I'm only troubled when my product most is
Speaker 28: they give me signal. Behind closed doors. They go to
Speaker 28: neighborhood I can't afford to save me my three sisters
Speaker 28: and my dad was born and. Raised. The family still
Speaker 28: with a fiancee more. Naps. 554. Can call. Got pulled dope. The.
Speaker 28: Third time this month the slick shrink. Gave me the
Speaker 28: third degree before a third. Try to have parts of
Speaker 28: my life. When. I. Take the traffic stop and frisk.
Speaker 28: Tried to mold and make changes but I just suppressed.
Speaker 28: My arse tickets to see the missing kids and I find.
Speaker 29: A city that saw that this is the first offense.
Speaker 29: On the day. Of the raid Nancy. The. WOMAN. OKAY NOW. GET.
Speaker 29: A break in a. Second. Child on the playground. A
Speaker 29: lot of people after the uprising of 2015 looked to
Speaker 29: history and wanted to know more about the history of Baltimore.
Speaker 29: To figure out how they could make changes that would
Speaker 29: have lasting impact. And so 50 years from now we
Speaker 29: wouldn't be looking back and say well we should have
Speaker 29: made some changes in 2014 and 2015 and then we
Speaker 29: wouldn't be in another situation of unrest. While the Reverend Dr.
Speaker 29: Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee on
Speaker 29: April 4 1968 in Baltimore things were pretty quiet until
Speaker 29: Saturday night April 6 and that is when things really
Speaker 29: started to heat up in Baltimore City.
Speaker 30: Around 6 p.m. this evening groups of teenagers began breaking
Speaker 30: windows in a small area in east Baltimore. Several fires
Speaker 30: were started for the most part the destruction and disorder
Speaker 30: in our streets has followed this pattern. However it has
Speaker 30: spread and it has become worse.
Speaker 31: These acts make no sense and serve no purpose except
Speaker 31: to bring further grief for the hardship and further disorder
Speaker 31: to the people of Baltimore.
Speaker 32: We had fires set in different parts of the town.
Speaker 32: Eventually there would be. Fires and looting and about 15
Speaker 32: different business districts all across the city.
Speaker 33: In Baltimore City we had damages of 12 million dollars.
Speaker 33: Second only to D.C. six people were killed in the
Speaker 33: unrest in 1968. We have taken the following steps to
Speaker 33: restore law and order.
Speaker 34: In our state. You may be sure that the situation
Speaker 34: is under control and under constant vigilance of state and
Speaker 34: local authorities. We have proclaimed the state of emergency in
Speaker 34: Baltimore City and Baltimore County. Every available unit of the
Speaker 34: Maryland National Guard has been fully mobilized and deployed within
Speaker 34: the city. In addition at 6:00 11:00 this evening I
Speaker 34: requested federal reinforcements to further secure the city attorney general
Speaker 34: Ramsey Clark agreed to immediately dispatch the troops they should
Speaker 34: now be taking to positions in the critical area.
Speaker 33: There were a thousand businesses affected here in Baltimore according
Speaker 33: to insurance records and five thousand five hundred and twelve
Speaker 33: people were arrested mostly for breaking curfew in Baltimore. Mostly
Speaker 33: the events lasted between April 6th and April 9.
Speaker 34: While today we are pressing to confront force with force.
Speaker 35: But now violence house fire. The lessons of these past
Speaker 35: hours have not been lost on any airline. We know
Speaker 35: now as never before. How vital is the law to
Speaker 35: our liberty. We know now as never of more or
Speaker 35: less violent is no friend to freedom and that the
Speaker 35: mob is no ally of civil rights.
Speaker 36: It's certainly contested as to what were the underlying issues
Speaker 36: that people were so angry about in 1968 and in 2015.
Speaker 36: Of course 2015 the predominant issue was police brutality and
Speaker 36: that was not the issue in 1968. In fact Baltimore
Speaker 36: was a model and was featured in a Reader's Digest
Speaker 36: article and published in March 1968 that was talking about
Speaker 36: community policing that they had put in place that they
Speaker 36: were trying to not arrest people but actually work with
Speaker 36: people in neighborhoods they had a major who was black
Speaker 36: and the police force at that point. So that was
Speaker 36: something that they were really working on in 1968 and
Speaker 36: that wasn't a trigger for the unrest. But people look
Speaker 36: back and say Of course everyone realized that neighborhoods that
Speaker 36: had experienced disinvestment were getting very frustrated because you had
Speaker 36: the Great Society. Lyndon B Johnson's efforts to get more
Speaker 36: money into the inner city to open up housing opportunities
Speaker 36: to make it so that people wouldn't be restricted in
Speaker 36: racially segregated neighborhoods as they had the great society rests
Speaker 36: on abundance and Labor Day for Hall.
Speaker 37: It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice to
Speaker 37: which we're totally committed in our time.
Speaker 36: But that change was slow in coming. And so a
Speaker 36: lot of people think that there was a loss of hope.
Speaker 36: Peter Levy in our book writes about Dr. King talking
Speaker 36: about what's happening in the other America he says.
Speaker 38: Dr. King says one America's invested within rap Schering beauty.
Speaker 38: And if we can find many things that we can
Speaker 38: think about a noble terms. In this America little boys
Speaker 38: and little girls grow up in the sunlight of opportunity
Speaker 38: and innovation and millions million people's.
Speaker 39: Experience everyday.
Speaker 40: The opportunity of having life liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Speaker 40: And all of that diminish.
Speaker 41: And in this America millions of young people grow up
Speaker 41: in the sunlight of opportunity. Tragically and unfortunately.
Speaker 40: There is another American.
Speaker 42: This other America has a barely ugliness about it that
Speaker 42: constantly transforms the billions of hope and to the fatigue
Speaker 42: of despair. In this America millions of work starved men.
Speaker 42: Walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do
Speaker 42: not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves
Speaker 42: living in rat infested vermin fields Sloan. In this America.
Speaker 40: People are poor by the millions they find themselves perishing
Speaker 40: on a lonely island of poverty. In the midst of
Speaker 40: a vast ocean of material prosperity.
Speaker 43: Baltimore unfortunately was a pioneer in some of the government
Speaker 43: policies that created segregated neighborhoods not just here but where
Speaker 43: they were a model for cities all across the nation.
Speaker 43: One of the most shameful things that Baltimore City Council
Speaker 43: did in 1910 was to pass an ordinance that divided
Speaker 43: the city into white blocks and black blocks. If you
Speaker 43: are going to move on to a block you had
Speaker 43: to determine the percentage of people of your race that
Speaker 43: lived on that block and you couldn't move onto the
Speaker 43: block if you were going to make the racial balance
Speaker 43: change like you were going to make it 51 percent
Speaker 43: instead of forty nine percent of what your race was.
Speaker 43: So that was legally enforceable in Baltimore between 1910 and 1917.
Speaker 43: Other cities took that same practice until it was said
Speaker 43: by the Supreme Court that it was unconstitutional. Once those
Speaker 43: kinds of ideas get in place that there are certain
Speaker 43: places certain blocks certain developments that black people love and
Speaker 43: certain developments the White people live. That was very hard
Speaker 43: to break thankfully. Now of course those kinds of practices
Speaker 43: are illegal but we still see the remnants of that.
Speaker 43: I think understanding that policy put that in place policy
Speaker 43: change to make it illegal but policy set the roots
Speaker 43: of that segregation that still exists in our city makes
Speaker 43: people understand that policy can undo some of these things too.
Speaker 43: Early morning April 12 2015 Baltimore man Freddie Gray is
Speaker 43: arrested after a police foot pursuit.
Speaker 44: Shown here on cell phone video. Gray is in handcuffs
Speaker 44: as police escort him into the back of a police van.
Speaker 44: The answer to what kills Gray lies in what happens next.
Speaker 32: Absolutely. There were underlying social issues that made people take
Speaker 32: to the streets in 2015. I was sitting in my
Speaker 32: office and I started to hear murmurs from people that
Speaker 32: there was going to be unrest after on the day
Speaker 32: that Freddie Gray's funeral took place and the family and
Speaker 32: asked there not to be demonstrations even in that day.
Speaker 32: But there were rumors flying that something big was going
Speaker 32: to happen. And I went and picked up my son
Speaker 32: and high school. We drove home. Right past Mondawmin Mall
Speaker 32: which is where the unrest started. And if you're unfamiliar
Speaker 32: with Baltimore's bus system students in Baltimore don't have city
Speaker 32: buses unless their special education students they take the public
Speaker 32: bus and Mondawmin Mall is a bus terminal where 5000
Speaker 32: students come into my doorman and then spread out to
Speaker 32: different schools. So they were at the end of the
Speaker 32: day five thousand students were going to come onto into
Speaker 32: Mondawmin and because of these rumors of unrest the city
Speaker 32: shut down the bus system. They stopped the buses from
Speaker 32: running from Mondawmin Mall. So you had kids that were
Speaker 32: on the buses ready to go home. They'd heard all
Speaker 32: the same rumors and they were trying to get home.
Speaker 32: And the police in riot gear came up and told
Speaker 32: them to get off the buses. Teachers were coming and
Speaker 32: trying to drive them home out of the area. Kids
Speaker 32: were stranded. There were thousands of kids who were stranded
Speaker 32: and there were police in riot gear. And it is
Speaker 32: still not known in Baltimore City who gave the order
Speaker 32: to stop the buses. We still don't know that.
Speaker 45: And it seems like that was just that the spark
Speaker 45: that set off all of the unrest in public transportation
Speaker 45: is a huge problem. And that was made very evident
Speaker 45: when the buses shut down and we had this layer
Speaker 45: of police brutality in this one particular case that was
Speaker 45: just one of many that people had been worried about
Speaker 45: in Baltimore and complaining about for a long time. All
Speaker 45: of those on top of each other combined with this
Speaker 45: history of.
Speaker 46: Residential segregation disinvestment in certain areas while other areas of
Speaker 46: Baltimore City are well invested. That whole history just came
Speaker 46: to a fore in 2015. And.
Speaker 47: Had a predictable result. So. Much sound no fucking to
Speaker 47: it is. That his talent is high had his kids
Speaker 47: school system.
Speaker 48: Did Miss the man last night. No nooses. Past the
Speaker 48: panic zone. Do we know this. Because. They. Know. This
Speaker 48: because they owe us. 40 acres a pipe dream. They. Say. The. Dead.
Speaker 48: Don't cut the photos half of them can't stop. A
Speaker 48: man can pull some. That's. My.
Speaker 49: Question. Since. I. Bought a souvenir. So. Now began a web. Site.
Speaker 49: I've been a. Cornerstone is gone and nobody knows. What happened.
Speaker 49: But the pain. Can be gone. Down the corner for
Speaker 49: some real shit. Inside the. Camp and. It's nothing specific
Speaker 49: or is it. It's been building since it was on.
Speaker 49: We don't call it. A.
Speaker 50: Riot. We call it an uprising because it was a
Speaker 50: collective response. To oppression. One of the things that people
Speaker 50: need to keep in mind and one of the reason
Speaker 50: we call it a rebellion is because this was happening
Speaker 50: all over the country. Many people don't know that between
Speaker 50: 1960 and 1972 there were more than one thousand recorded
Speaker 50: urban civil disturbances or riots in the United States. In
Speaker 50: naming it. That. You bring yourself closer. To the reality
Speaker 50: that brought it into being.
Speaker 51: In name in calling it a rebellion. See if it's
Speaker 51: a riot. People think a riot like.
Speaker 7: After a basketball game. College after a soccer game. Europe.
Speaker 52: You know they think of some trivial reason understandable excitement.
Speaker 53: Sox fans waited 18 years for a trip back to
Speaker 53: the World Series. Some fans took the celebration to fan.
Speaker 53: History the straight.
Speaker 54: Damaging property. I also condemn in the harshest words possible
Speaker 54: the actions of the punks last night who turned our
Speaker 54: city's victory into an opportunity for violence and mindless destruction.
Speaker 54: But when you say rebellion everybody knows that when you
Speaker 54: say rebellion you're talking about something Civic. Something social.
Speaker 55: Something really serious happen.
Speaker 56: When you say rebelling the shooting of 18 year old
Speaker 56: Michael Brown has opened a wound in the community. The
Speaker 56: violence which erupted in the anger following a candle light
Speaker 56: vigil was taking place in Ferguson a suburban St. Louis
Speaker 56: because most people at some point in their own histories
Speaker 56: you know if you're Irish you know about the Irish Rebellion.
Speaker 57: Oh you American you know about American Revolution.
Speaker 55: It's only when you come to black people that the
Speaker 55: idea of people using force to change or to address
Speaker 55: their situation becomes taboo.
Speaker 58: Last night again in suburban St.. LEWIS The scene that
Speaker 58: photographers captured looked like a police state using the same
Speaker 58: tactic get up in the same weaponry we've come to
Speaker 58: expect in urban warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan. Police in
Speaker 58: Ferguson Missouri once again had to put down and head
Speaker 58: off violence in the streets following the shooting days ago
Speaker 58: of a young unarmed black man. It was supposed to
Speaker 58: head off to college this week.
Speaker 59: Now the American Revolution all kind of force was used.
Speaker 59: People don't talk about human rights when they tarred and
Speaker 59: feathered Tories up big in West da t in New Jersey.
Speaker 59: You know people don't call the Boston Tea Party a riot.
Speaker 60: That was a riot. You know. I mean they dressed
Speaker 60: up like somebody else. They went and destroyed property threw
Speaker 60: the tea overboard.
Speaker 59: But when black people.
Speaker 61: No black people can not bear. Look when Frederick Douglass
Speaker 61: and Harriet Tubman and Thaddeus Stevens went to Abraham Lincoln
Speaker 61: and told him that he needed to put arms in
Speaker 61: the hands of the people who had the biggest vested
Speaker 61: interest in winning this civil war.
Speaker 62: He winced because it was the immediate thought. Well we
Speaker 62: put guns in their hands they're going to get revenge.
Speaker 62: But what we did to them for the past 200 years.
Speaker 62: Wow you can never predict a riot though on Monday
Speaker 62: the Kings had a riot is the language of a
Speaker 62: day on how we've done to see that a riot.
Speaker 63: Is the language of the.
Speaker 64: It has a particular singularity in its distinctiveness that you
Speaker 64: got a lot of oppressive conditions you got levels of
Speaker 64: social misery but they can be in place for a
Speaker 64: while and is still not right.
Speaker 63: And what is it that America has failed to heal.
Speaker 63: Usually there's a particular moment where the righteous indignation spills
Speaker 63: over because people can just no longer take and failed
Speaker 63: to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor
Speaker 63: has worsened over the last few years.
Speaker 64: Be a police killing a fellow citizen that could be
Speaker 64: an act of bad ugly act of a violation of
Speaker 64: the respect of somebody's got to be something as deeply psychic.
Speaker 64: And it touches the spirit of the people. They reached
Speaker 64: a point where they actually engaged with.
Speaker 62: How many summers like this one do you imagine that
Speaker 62: we can expect.
Speaker 65: Well I would say this we don't have long. The
Speaker 65: mood of the Negro community now is one of urgency.
Speaker 65: One of saying that we aren't gonna wait. That we've
Speaker 65: got to have our freedom. We've waited too long. So that.
Speaker 65: I would say that. Every summer. We're going to have
Speaker 65: this kind of vigorous protest. My hope is. That it
Speaker 65: will be nonviolent. I would hope that we can avoid
Speaker 65: riots because riots are self-defeating and. Socially destructive. I would
Speaker 65: hope that. We can avoid riots but that we will
Speaker 65: be as militant and as determined next summer and. Through
Speaker 65: the window. As we have been this summer. And I
Speaker 65: think the answer about how long it will take will
Speaker 65: depend on the federal government's own city halls about various
Speaker 65: cities and on white America to a large extent. This
Speaker 65: is where we are at this point. And I think
Speaker 65: white America will determine how long it will be and
Speaker 65: which way we go in the future. In the last
Speaker 65: 40 or 50 years it tends to have to do
Speaker 65: with the relations of everyday people with the real violence
Speaker 65: of the nation state in the form of police.
Speaker 66: From a police murder police violence police brutality. That's not
Speaker 66: the only one but that tends to be. The one
Speaker 66: that of course Rodney King got beat up in L.A.
Speaker 66: That was Major ninety to what most Americans saw when
Speaker 66: they watch Rodney King's. Fifty six times by white policeman
Speaker 66: a jury saw differently the jury in the above entitled action.
Speaker 66: Find the defendant Laurence M. Powell. Not guilty of the
Speaker 66: crime of assault by force likely to produce great bodily
Speaker 66: injury and with a deadly weapon that had to do
Speaker 66: very much within police violence and. Police abuse. But there's
Speaker 66: something about the public display of raw violence on people
Speaker 66: especially innocent people.
Speaker 67: When people reached the point it just can't take it
Speaker 67: any longer. It's got to be some kind of resistance
Speaker 67: that spills over beyond legal means.
Speaker 68: There hasn't been a decade since 1967 when there wasn't
Speaker 68: an urban uprising somewhere in the United States of America
Speaker 68: I mean look at what happened after Rodney King in
Speaker 68: Los Angeles in Cincinnati in Florida and Liberty City. You
Speaker 68: know I mean every decade there's been some uprising. I
Speaker 68: think that massive oppression goes hand in hand with forms
Speaker 68: of resistance. And riots oftentimes are forms of resistance and
Speaker 68: therefore they're.
Speaker 69: Unavoidable and inescapable. They're always already there as possibilities and
Speaker 69: as long as you have. Economic exploitation cultural degradation. Psychic
Speaker 69: put down injury and assault. On a chronic basis you're
Speaker 69: going to have riots and rebellions. Part.
Speaker 70: For me to believe that in this day in a
Speaker 70: 2014 so many years after Dr. Martin Luther King the
Speaker 70: civil rights movement we're seeing National Guard troops on the
Speaker 70: street to prevent this kind of violence in this day
Speaker 70: and age it's something I didn't think we'd be seeing.
Speaker 71: It would be interesting if the corporate media turned the
Speaker 71: cameras on the daily funerals of the young brothers and
Speaker 71: sisters who died before eating is that they kept track
Speaker 71: of the dilapidated housing if they really went inside the
Speaker 71: school system not first and foremost the prison system.
Speaker 64: They make big money on that but the school system
Speaker 64: follow a young brother or sister trying to get a job.
Speaker 72: Year in year out still unemployed get a job underemployed
Speaker 72: no trade union to protect. Follow that and then make
Speaker 72: the connection between this one moment and this countless police
Speaker 72: brutality and then the righteous indignation. Then you say put
Speaker 72: yourself in their shoes. How long would you remain silent
Speaker 72: how long would you remain complacent. How long would you
Speaker 72: remain content to put yourself in their space. Get out
Speaker 72: of your own egocentric predicament and conceive of the world
Speaker 72: through the lens of somebody else. Get your feet in
Speaker 72: somebody else's shoes for a while and you see what
Speaker 72: the world is like.
Speaker 73: Good evening. Our top story is breaking right now in
Speaker 73: Baltimore where rioting has broken out in the street. The
Speaker 73: state of emergency was declared in St. Lewis County. Today
Speaker 73: is the scene that a lot of us never anticipated.
Speaker 73: Violent clashes between police and roving groups have left several
Speaker 73: officers injured and turned one West Baltimore neighborhood into chaos
Speaker 73: as calls for racial justice last night were drowned out
Speaker 73: by the sounds of gunfire.
Speaker 70: Hard to believe this is going on as I keep
Speaker 70: saying that a major American city. I don't remember seeing
Speaker 70: anything like this in the United States of America.
Speaker 74: For a long time so Wolf Blitzer said I can't
Speaker 74: believe this is happening now. What he says I can't
Speaker 74: believe this is happening a black man. Well you know
Speaker 74: what I tell people all the time. Black Lives Matter
Speaker 74: starts under a black president.
Speaker 75: There's no excuse for the kind of violence that we saw.
Speaker 75: Yes it is counterproductive when individuals get crowbars and start
Speaker 75: prying open doors to. Loot they're not protesting they're not
Speaker 75: making a statement they're stealing when they burn down a
Speaker 75: building they're committing arson they're destroying and undermining businesses and
Speaker 75: opportunities in their own communities that rob jobs and opportunity
Speaker 75: from people in that area.
Speaker 74: So grapple with that shit like. Let's figure out how
Speaker 74: does that happen. Because at the end Barack Obama played
Speaker 74: his role in keeping the Empire only.
Speaker 16: He escalated expectations so high. It's audacity of hope that
Speaker 16: he talked about really did seize the hearts minds and
Speaker 16: souls and bodies of a lot of.
Speaker 76: I stand before you again tonight.
Speaker 77: After almost two terms as your president to tell you
Speaker 77: I am more optimistic about the future of America but
Speaker 77: never before.
Speaker 64: Once you have rising expectations shattered. Black lives matter on
Speaker 64: the black president. Says it on Sunday night. You've got
Speaker 64: a black president black attorney general black head of Homeland
Speaker 64: Security and black folks voted and supported all three of them.
Speaker 64: But the is still killing young black youth week in
Speaker 64: and week out and can't stop other than some investigation
Speaker 64: that takes a year and so forth. These are serious
Speaker 64: must be systemic. It's not a question of just another
Speaker 64: brilliant black face and a high imperial place. This is
Speaker 64: a systems problem. Got to do with plutocrats military industrial
Speaker 64: complex has got to do with how white supremacy is
Speaker 64: used in the ploy to hide and conceal grotesque wealth
Speaker 64: inequality and domination of workers at the workplace and the
Speaker 64: homophobia and transphobia as ways of targeting them vulnerable and
Speaker 64: the poor and the politically weak in order to distract
Speaker 64: persons from dealing with some of the real sources of
Speaker 64: social misery in the world. And you know Obama's neo
Speaker 64: liberal policies just ran out of gas.
Speaker 21: I think there was an assumption that if a black
Speaker 21: man was elected president black people would be good but
Speaker 21: Barack Obama is also a person who helps and has
Speaker 21: helped perpetuate white supremacy and militarism.
Speaker 78: There's no like indicator no statistic that anyone could pull
Speaker 78: up that shows a marked material resource improvement for black
Speaker 78: people in this country for poor people in this country
Speaker 78: that includes black people poor poor whites poor everybody else
Speaker 78: nothing materially change things got worse right.
Speaker 24: He represents the Democratic Party and the platform he does
Speaker 24: not represent black liberation or freedom or what that looks like.
Speaker 24: So that's what Wolf Blitzer was saying. I can't believe
Speaker 24: under a black president that we could be seeing rebellions right.
Speaker 24: But you know the police have been this way since
Speaker 24: the founding of this country towards black people. This usually
Speaker 24: against police conduct. Rebellions happen in our communities.
Speaker 79: So this is the situation that we're faced with today.
Speaker 79: And this is why these struggles continue to come up.
Speaker 79: It was police brutality that triggered the rebellion of 1967.
Speaker 79: Colin Kaepernick takes a knee in protest of police brutality
Speaker 79: because police brutality continues to this day. You know Michael
Speaker 79: Brown is killed two years ago in the two years
Speaker 79: since Michael Brown was killed. The police have killed twenty
Speaker 79: five hundred people in the United States in 2015. One
Speaker 79: thousand one hundred thirty six people in this year two
Speaker 79: thousand seventeen so far seven hundred thirty six people on
Speaker 79: average a thousand people a year are killed by the
Speaker 79: police in the United States in one year. The police
Speaker 79: in the United States killed more people than the police
Speaker 79: in Great Britain killed in the 20th century since 1968.
Speaker 79: One hundred and forty eight or more black people are
Speaker 79: killed by the police every year in the United States.
Speaker 80: And this is why this this thing keeps churning. Why
Speaker 80: is it that the issue won't go away. You know
Speaker 80: we were like. Well we elected a black president so
Speaker 80: that these we like.
Speaker 81: A post-racial nirvana. All right. Hello Chicago. You know and
Speaker 81: obviously the events. Of the time show us that that
Speaker 81: we are far away from.
Speaker 82: Smashing everything that's in my favor. Yes. You got no
Speaker 82: choice before accessing the cities and your permission slip that
Speaker 82: this is the greatest city garbage. Yes we break we
Speaker 82: ask and nobody said. It is what. Most said in the. Open.
Speaker 82: He just simply pulls in as a breath. Play. Cameras
Speaker 82: fall put his country in debt. How many got left
Speaker 82: when they signed the case to collect. On the. City's
Speaker 82: something's got to. Ask. That doesn't seem this sudden death.
Speaker 82: Simply trying to hit a. Possible. This. Lab was used
Speaker 82: to treat a whole people like. That's not. An. Honor
Speaker 82: to pick up what I am. Him. That is we
Speaker 82: right now. What's next. Best. We got this summer. Wouldn't
Speaker 82: happen to buyers. Who are ready to converse in a
Speaker 82: language in a yard.
Speaker 83: With. Of course. When I looked at Baltimore after the
Speaker 83: death of Freddie Gray and Ferguson after the death. Of
Speaker 83: Michael Brown of course. It brought back memories of what
Speaker 83: happened in 1967. My fellow American. We have endured a week.
Speaker 83: Such as no nation should live through. A time of violence.
Speaker 84: And tragedy. People talk a lot today about terrorism. Of course.
Speaker 84: And we talk about military occupations in other countries but
Speaker 84: I can remember the first night. I saw the guard
Speaker 84: roll up 16th Avenue.
Speaker 85: I was 13. I didn't know any difference between the
Speaker 85: National Guard and the army. They all had on green
Speaker 85: uniforms so they wore army to me right.
Speaker 86: From my second floor apartment. You could see them growing
Speaker 86: up you know as a kid I had seen all
Speaker 86: these war movies but I had never seen a tank until.
Speaker 86: July of 1967. Because the guard had half tracks. Half
Speaker 86: track is a small tank. In which one man sits
Speaker 86: but it has a big automatic camera. Not a. Rifle
Speaker 86: but a cannon.
Speaker 85: And you see these half tracks coming up the street
Speaker 85: you know is like this is stuff you saw in
Speaker 85: the movies right now it's happening in real life. You
Speaker 85: see these half tracks coming off these military trucks jeeps
Speaker 85: trucks filled with men jeeps filled with men. Men with
Speaker 85: rifles men with guns on their hips with the helmets
Speaker 85: and everything. And they actually set up a little checkpoint
Speaker 85: a couple of days right in our intersection. With. State
Speaker 85: of emergency was declared and the martial law went into effect.
Speaker 85: We couldn't leave the house. So there was like. Several
Speaker 85: days we couldn't leave the house to go get food.
Speaker 85: I'm tonight appointing a special advisory commission on civil disorder
Speaker 85: coming octo corner of L.A. has agreed to serve. As
Speaker 85: chairman while the Kerner Commission was pulled together by Lyndon
Speaker 85: Johnson and the purpose of the Kerner Commission was to
Speaker 85: in essence tell the government why black people were so
Speaker 85: mad that they were rising up in the streets.
Speaker 87: And the Kerner Commission issued a report on the Kerner
Speaker 87: Commission report.
Speaker 80: Now it's interesting there's a whole history behind the Kerner
Speaker 80: Commission report even before the commission begins its work.
Speaker 88: And even before all the evidence is and there are
Speaker 88: some things that we can tell about the outbreaks of
Speaker 88: this summer they actually issued a first draft and the
Speaker 88: first draft was kill because Johnson and others felt that
Speaker 88: the first draft was too radical. Now imagine that a
Speaker 88: government report.
Speaker 87: That the government kills because they think it was too radical.
Speaker 89: First let there be no mistake about it. The looting
Speaker 89: and arson plunder and pillage which have occurred are not
Speaker 89: part of a civil rights protest there is no American
Speaker 89: right to loot stores or to burn buildings are fire
Speaker 89: right from the roof.
Speaker 90: That is crime and crime must be dealt with. Fortunately.
Speaker 91: And swiftly and certainly under law so they toned down
Speaker 91: the Kerner Commission report and issue the what became the
Speaker 91: official Kerner Commission report and it said that America was
Speaker 91: moving toward two societies one black one white.
Speaker 92: This is our basic conclusion.
Speaker 93: Our nation is moving toward two societies one black one
Speaker 93: why separate and unequal.
Speaker 92: That's the line that everybody remembers to pursue our present
Speaker 92: course will involve the continuing polarization of the American community
Speaker 92: and ultimately the destruction of basic democratic values. The alternative
Speaker 92: will require a commitment to national action and passionate massive
Speaker 92: and sustained backed by the resources of the most powerful
Speaker 92: and richest nation on Earth from every American.
Speaker 93: It will require new attitudes to understanding and above all
Speaker 93: new will despite its shortcomings.
Speaker 91: I think it's a very valuable report and does help
Speaker 91: give insight into what happened and why it happened and
Speaker 91: also makes recommendations some of which is still relevant for today.
Speaker 91: One of the reasons the Kerner Commission report remains relevant
Speaker 91: is because the fundamental condition that the report attempted to
Speaker 91: address has not been changed.
Speaker 61: The irony is 50 years after the Kerner Commission report
Speaker 61: was issued. We're still two separate societies. In fact. In
Speaker 61: some ways the United States is more racially segregated today
Speaker 61: than it was in 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King
Speaker 61: was assassinated. New Jersey for instance New Jersey is more
Speaker 61: segregated than some of the states in the south. Our
Speaker 61: school system I believe is the 5th most segregated school
Speaker 61: system in the country. The irony of it is is
Speaker 61: that a lot of this segregation occurred after 1968 after
Speaker 61: 1967 after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of
Speaker 61: 1964 the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Speaker 94: All the other acts were actually more racially segregated a
Speaker 94: drag and made the street a riot is the language
Speaker 94: of the unheard.
Speaker 95: Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight.
Speaker 96: My fellow Americans we have endured a week such as
Speaker 96: no nation should live through a time of violence and prejudice.
Speaker 97: Our nation is moving toward two societies one black one
Speaker 97: white separate and unequal.
Speaker 98: Most Americans saw when they watched Rodney King's fifty fifty
Speaker 98: six time by white police a jury saw the shooting
Speaker 98: of 18 year old Michael Brown has opened a wound
Speaker 98: in the community no violence.
Speaker 95: But she's worried that violent clashes between police and roving
Speaker 95: groups have left several officers losers. And last night people
Speaker 95: asking for peace in Los Angeles protesters joining hands making
Speaker 95: a statement as the country.
Speaker 24: We don't need normalcy anymore. We need like visionaries intellectual
Speaker 24: like organizers that are also like can put theory to
Speaker 24: practice and practice a theory.
Speaker 99: We need people to shake things up tap drop ideas
Speaker 99: that someone is going to think you're crazy and ten
Speaker 99: years later is going to be like I see it now.
Speaker 99: You know we need disruptors we don't just know people
Speaker 99: that now know how to be a part of a
Speaker 99: movement that's almost a formula. It's like you can open
Speaker 99: up a book and be like that one two three
Speaker 99: four five six seven to doing a protest Oh no
Speaker 99: that's not how protests or reforms are supposed to always happen.
Speaker 68: People rise up when they've exhausted every other form of redress.
Speaker 68: You don't think black people go to city council meetings.
Speaker 59: You don't think black people write their elected representatives make
Speaker 59: phone calls to their Congress people you know have meetings.
Speaker 59: They do all the stuff we do all the stuff
Speaker 59: that white people do.
Speaker 80: But our issues continue to be either ignored or in
Speaker 80: adequately address. You know every now and then there's some
Speaker 80: token gesture made you know and then there's a big celebration.
Speaker 80: And then we go back to business as usual. People
Speaker 80: rise up when they just can't take it anymore. You
Speaker 80: know if. I mean no one plans a rebate plan
Speaker 80: there's no good planning and executing these things. These things
Speaker 80: are a spontaneous reaction to oppression.
Speaker 100: And they will continue to happen. As long as people
Speaker 100: remain oppressed. People. Will.
Speaker 101: Power to the people the power to reap with service
Speaker 101: to the people the power. This is not recent because
Speaker 101: how would you win conceded. That what. Black Ski Linda
Speaker 101: at war hey say I'll see all three years the
Speaker 101: freedom family well we are bound somehow. Found because revenge.
Speaker 102: Is about justice. So we'll get. That property and. It was.
Speaker 102: Breaking Curfew. Listen to take. Your property and see. Your property.
Speaker 102: You can see what the mobile. Physical what's different from
Speaker 102: McGlone because they never seem to get it of course.
Speaker 102: Live in. Let go where the president is gone a.
Speaker 102: And explore what it could bring. Different. Fear. Of where
Speaker 102: the uprising is going to calm an explosion between. Five. Different.
Speaker 102: Housing is going to come in.