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IDKMYDE: Jamaica: The Black Woman Who Built Her Own War Hospital · The Breakfast Club

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  Speaker 1: The black woman who built her own war hospital. Well,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: come to Jamaica. I didn't welcome back me all all
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  Speaker 1: friends to another episode of the most anticipated podcast on
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  Speaker 1: the Block podcast network and entitled me didn't know. Maybe
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: you didn't know, Ida, Maybe you didn't know Needa. You're
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  Speaker 1: a host right here, I'll be dark. What y'all think?
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  Speaker 1: How do how'll do on my Jamaica? Look? I want
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  Speaker 1: to go to Jamaica this year and my manager slash strategist,
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  Speaker 1: she's have Jamaica, so she turns that thing on and off.
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  Speaker 1: You did what I'm saying, mid doing manfest there. Whenever
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  Speaker 1: I try to do a Jamaican accent, my reference point
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  Speaker 1: is Sebastian from The Little Mermaid. Yeah, you see her
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  Speaker 1: looking at her across the wig like that's where I
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  Speaker 1: get that. Or I just say Holly Salassii. Whenever I
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  Speaker 1: say Holly Salassii. It's also puts me in the frames
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  Speaker 1: to talk like this. I'm gonna work on it. If
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  Speaker 1: you haven't figured it out yet today episode, you do
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  Speaker 1: still need your digital passport because we're headed to jamn
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  Speaker 1: Come on, and I got a quick reminder for you
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  Speaker 1: before we start. When I'm black woman, get telling nom history.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna get built anyway. But before we get in
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  Speaker 1: all of that, you know, I gotta kick off the
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  Speaker 1: episode with three of the most useless facts you'll never ever, never, never, ever, never,
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  Speaker 1: never need not a day in life. Up first, one
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  Speaker 1: of the most important nurses in war history wasn't even
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  Speaker 1: allowed to work for the British military. Your second useless fact,
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  Speaker 1: This same black woman treated wounded soldiers on the front
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  Speaker 1: lines during the Korean War. And your third useless facts
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  Speaker 1: she treated those wounded soldiers by building her own hospital
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  Speaker 1: in a war zone. Man, let's talk about Mary Sea Cole.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I
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  Speaker 1: didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know. Mary Seacole was born in Jamaica in
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  Speaker 1: the early eighteen hundreds. She was a healer, a nurse,
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  Speaker 1: a businesswoman, and somebody who knew how to get things done.
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  Speaker 1: She learned traditional Jamaican healing from her mom, who ran
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  Speaker 1: a boarding house for six soldiers. By the time she
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  Speaker 1: was in her twenties, Mary was already treating cholera outbreaks
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  Speaker 1: across the Caribbean and all cholera was was the runs? Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it was a diarrhea disease caused by bacteria. When the
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  Speaker 1: Korean War broke out in the eighteen fifties, Mary wanted
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  Speaker 1: to help wound the British soldiers, so she applied to
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  Speaker 1: join the official nursing corps. And they said absolutely not
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  Speaker 1: not because she wasn't qualified. You know why the eighteen
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  Speaker 1: fifties because she was black. Oh, and Mary got the receipts.
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  Speaker 1: The rejection letters still exists. Mary applied four times one, two,
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  Speaker 1: three four. Meanwhile Florence Nightingale got the resources, the support
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  Speaker 1: and the history books. So Mary Seaco looked at their
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  Speaker 1: rejection and said, cool, May I go do it? Missus.
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  Speaker 1: She traveled to the war zone on her own dime
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  Speaker 1: built what she called the British Hotel park hospital, part
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  Speaker 1: supply center, part refuge. The British Hotel was two miles
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  Speaker 1: from the front line. Mary would ride out on horseback
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  Speaker 1: after battles to treat the soldiers right where they fell
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  Speaker 1: under fire. She treated soldiers directly on the battlefield, would
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  Speaker 1: use herbal medicines, provided food, care, comfort man. The soldiers
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  Speaker 1: loved her. They called their mother Sea Cole, but here's
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  Speaker 1: the global part that they just don't teach. Mary Seacole
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  Speaker 1: wasn't just helping individuals, she was building infrastructure. This has
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  Speaker 1: been the same theme all season. When institutions blocked her,
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  Speaker 1: she created her own. That's the whole playbook right there.
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  Speaker 1: If you don't learn anything else this season, when you
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  Speaker 1: get blocked by an institution, create your own. Because after
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  Speaker 1: that war, Mary seaco returned to England, broke no pension,
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  Speaker 1: no recognition, no statue, no story, just faded until people
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  Speaker 1: went back and looked for it. In two thousand and four,
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  Speaker 1: she was voted the greatest Black Britain. In twenty sixteen,
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  Speaker 1: she finally got a statue in London, one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: thirty five years after her death. A century later, you
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  Speaker 1: know the story. Carter G. Woodson created Negro History Week
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  Speaker 1: because stories like Mary Seacole's disappear without protection, not because
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  Speaker 1: they aren't powerful, but because they challenge who gets the credit.
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  Speaker 1: And cgdubnew that what I call Cardig Woodson. If we
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  Speaker 1: don't preserve black excellence globally, history will hand the flowers
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  Speaker 1: to somebody else. Make sure you share this episode. If
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know, maybe you didn't either. I congratulations. Your
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  Speaker 1: passport has been stamped. Next stop Africa.