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Selects: Rosa Parks: Agent of Change · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi, everybody, Chuck here.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: I hope you're all having some cereal or toaster pastries,
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: or maybe a bagel, maybe an egg sandwich, maybe some
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  Speaker 2: overnight oats.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe some bacon, maybe some back bacon.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe it depends on where you are in the world
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: what kind of bacon you're eating, because we all call
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  Speaker 2: it bacon, and it means a different thing wherever you
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  Speaker 2: are at any rate, I hope you're enjoying some breakfast,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: and you should listen to this episode while you eat breakfast.
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  Speaker 2: From February twenty second, twenty eighteen. Rosa Parks Colon, agent
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of change, but a great woman in American history. Welcome
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry over there. So it's
• 0:59
  Speaker 3: Stuff you should know.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: It's a podcast, clean studio version.
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: I don't know, it feels a little weird in here, like, uh,
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: I think it's too good for us or something, you
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: know what I mean.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just so you folks know, Jerry tests a couple
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of the editor engineers here with coming in and cleaning
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  Speaker 2: up the pile of spaghetti that used to flow from
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  Speaker 2: the back of her workstation. Nice, not that it was
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  Speaker 2: Jerry's fault. And she said, clean up my mess.
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  Speaker 3: Well she clapped twice in rapid secession.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: They know what that means. Right, looks good though, it does.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: But now we actually have room to put stuff, so
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: we should put some stuff in here.
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  Speaker 3: I agree. It's a little bear.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: A papa's on right there, that'd be nice. I don't know. Well,
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  Speaker 1: we could put a small papas on.
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  Speaker 3: Most people don't realize, but this place is lousy with
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: Ikea lamps, I mean everywhere, and the cheapest ones like
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: they're one of them's on fire right now? Yeah that one?
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  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, smoldering, it's smoldering. Still fire, Chuck, speaking of fire. Yes,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: you want to know somebody who had some fire in
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  Speaker 3: her more than most people realize. Rosa Parks, who is
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  Speaker 3: now one of my all time heroes because before the
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Rosa Parks I knew again it was like the Harriet
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Tubman episode. Learned about her in school. She was a
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: great American respector reviewer her. Here's why she didn't give
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: up her seat on the bus. No, like not only
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: is that like just the tip of the Iceberg. It
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: wasn't until about the last five or so years. I
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: think about the last four years, they're like a full
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: picture of this woman and who she was and what
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: she stood for and what drove her emerged, not just
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: to the public in general, but to historians, even because
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: her personal papers were basically held up in auction for
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: years and years and years, and now now that they've
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: been donated for like ten years to the Library of Congress, Yeah,
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: we're starting to get a clear picture of her. And
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: she was even more worth revering than people knew before.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I think.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: What the story isn't is Rosa Parks was just a
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: quiet lady who was super tired on the bus one day,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: so she didn't want to get up.
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  Speaker 3: Her dogs were yapping.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, not true.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And she even makes a point in her personal paper saying,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: I was forty two years old. I was no more
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: tired than I was after any day at work. But
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: what I was tired of was being told to get
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: up by a white bus driver to make room for
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: a white passenger.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Right. That was not My dogs weren't barking.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Right, So she she I think one of the reasons
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: why she was kind of whittled down into this woman
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  Speaker 3: who was just tired and wasn't going to give up
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: her seat because she shouldn't have had to in the
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: first place. And then she was a very meek, quiet person.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: Also was another way that she was drawn. I think
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons why she was whittled into that
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: package was because she became an icon for the civil
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: rights movement. And one of the things that the civil
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: rights movement had to do, for better or worse, was
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: to get the establishment, both white and black, on the
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: side of the civil rights movement, which was a movement
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: of agitation. And if you agitated at the time, this
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: is the Jim Crow era that made trouble. This wasn't
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: like just trouble like people are going to yell at
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  Speaker 3: you on Twitter. This was trouble like the cops might
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  Speaker 3: arrest you for some made up infraction and then beat
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  Speaker 3: and rape you on the way to the jail, and
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: then you would end up in the prison system. Kind
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  Speaker 3: of trouble like. This is the kind of trouble that
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: a woman who refused to give up her seat on
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  Speaker 3: the bus faced it at this time. So the idea
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: of taking a woman who was I guess palatable to
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  Speaker 3: as many people as possible and saying, look at this woman,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: we need to protect this woman's rights and do what's right.
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: I think that's why she got kind of whittled down
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  Speaker 3: into that. But if you're looking back now, historically, there
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: was so much more to her than just that, and
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: she was certainly not meek and mild.
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, distilling the story down for school books
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: is one thing, but like, I'm glad now that people
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: can get a more robust picture.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: So a lot of this comes from a website called
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Great Black Heroes dot Com had a really good, lengthy article.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: And then also I want to shout out a book
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: series called Little People, Big Dreams, And it's a kids
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: book series that we've been reading to my daughter. In fact,
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: it's kind of all she wants to read right now.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: And they are on great women in history and kind
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: of brutally honest to be reading to kids. But they didn't.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: It's kind of cool they weren't. They didn't whitewash anything.
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: It's sort of like, uh, Maya Angelo was not treated
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: well by white people, Like you read that to your kid,
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: and Rosa Parks is one. And then there's a Frieda Colo,
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Coco Chanel, Amelia Earhart, Mary Currie, Aga Christi, and more.
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: But but it's pretty brutal, like they draw Amelia air Hearts,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: skeleton on the beach. Kind of brutal.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: You know what.
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: That's the only one we haven't gotten to yet because
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: every night it's read Frida, Read Frida. Really, but it's
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: literally like Frieda Colo is lying in the street after
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: she gets hit by a taxi and she's bloody and
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: her legs don't work again after since. So, I mean,
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: it's pretty brutal stuff, but I don't know, it's kind
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: of cool, like kids can read the stuff and digest it.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I think.
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  Speaker 2: Sure it's a good way to begin them on the
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: path toward true stories.
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: And to sharpen them to like a razor's edge at
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: a young.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Age, you know, look out for taxis.
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's good. You know, that's good advice at any age.
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  Speaker 2: All right, So Rosa Parks, let's go back to where
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  Speaker 2: she was born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on February fourth, nineteen
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: thirteen two. While she was born Rosa Louise McCauley to
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: James and Leonora McAuley, who were a carpenter and school teacher, respectively.
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  Speaker 3: Right, her parents split, I guess she I don't know
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: how old she was. I guess she was younger than six,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: but her father went to go look for work up north,
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: and her mom wanted to stay in the South, so
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: she and her mom and her brother moved in with
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: her mother's parents. Her grandparents and her grandfather played a
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: really distinct role in shaping her because she moved in
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: with them when she was, like I said, around six,
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  Speaker 3: and at the time in this place Pine Level, which
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: is outside of Montgomery, Alabama, there was a lot of
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: clan violence, a lot of violence against blacks of the
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  Speaker 3: hands of the Ku Klux Klan, and her grandfather was
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: not having it. He was actually he was the son
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: of a slave woman and a slave owner, so he
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  Speaker 3: was I believe half white. He was a slave himself.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: He had an owner at a young age who really
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  Speaker 3: brutally mistreated him, tried to starve him for a little bit.
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  Speaker 3: And her grandfather developed what she called a very intense
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: passionate hatred for white people and definitely im part of
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  Speaker 3: that to his daughters and his granddaughter grandchildren. Wouldn't let
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  Speaker 3: his grandchildren play with white kids, didn't let his daughters
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  Speaker 3: work for white families. He was very much and it
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  Speaker 3: sounds like pretty well founded against white people, and definitely
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  Speaker 3: some of that rubbed off on Rose. At the very least,
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  Speaker 3: her eyes were opened to just how unjust the system
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  Speaker 3: was at the time when she was growing up.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and just it wasn't even just through his eyes.
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  Speaker 2: Like she went to a segregated school that she had
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  Speaker 2: to walk to. White students were picked up and bussed
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  Speaker 2: to the school. She went to an elementary school called
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: the Montgomery Industrial School for Girls, cool School. It was
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  Speaker 2: created by some northern white Northerners to basically try and
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: foster education in these more rural black communities in the South,
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  Speaker 2: and that didn't go over well educating kids, so that
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  Speaker 2: school was burned down twice.
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  Speaker 1: And then couple that with all the you.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Know, influence from her grandfather, and it's no surprise that
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: Rosa Parks from a very very early age was an activist.
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  Speaker 3: So and being an activist, we're talking like from age
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  Speaker 3: six onward, right, So she dropped out a school, which
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  Speaker 3: would have been a huge turning point. She had to
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: take care of her grandmother, and then I think her
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: mom later on because they both fell ill and she
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: met I think at age seventeen or eighteen, and then
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  Speaker 3: later on, at age nineteen, married her husband, Raymond Parks,
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  Speaker 3: and he encouraged her to go back and finish school
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  Speaker 3: and she did. That was a huge move because she
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: was very much meant to be an educated person. So
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: the fact that she met Raymond was a huge influence
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: in that respect. He was also a big influence on
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: her because she said that he was the first activist,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: like real activist, that she ever met. And I believe
• 10:15
  Speaker 3: this was even before the NAACP was in town. This
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: guy was like a grassroots activist and he and his
• 10:22
  Speaker 3: group were basically armed. Do you remember in the Black
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Panthers episode where like the whole idea of arming yourself
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  Speaker 3: came out of the South. This guy was, like Raymond
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  Speaker 3: Parks was one of the real deal people who originated that,
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: and he and the group of activists that he he
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: met with would they would all come to the house
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: and everyone would have a gun. And apparently Rosa Parks
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: said sometimes there were so many guns on the table
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  Speaker 3: that she didn't have any place to set the refreshments
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: during these meetings. But these meetings weren't like, you know,
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: how are we going to get white people back? It
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: was how are we going to protect like the Scottsboro
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Boys from false rape accusations. He was an early pre
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: NAACP activist in Montgomery.
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and later on was a member of the NAACP.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: We should do a show on the Scottsboro Boys at
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: some point. It's too much to get into here, but
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: the short version is a group of black men on
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: a train were accused of rape by two white women
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: who just made up this story. Basically went to trial
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: a few times and well, you know what, we'll save
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the outcome, okay, because there are all kinds of outcomes
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: because it went to trial so many times.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: So she did finish high.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: School, and she became involved along with her husband in
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP and worked as their
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: secretary for fourteen years. So not only was she an activist,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: but she was involved in service of these organizations.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: She worked for them like whatever you need done, I
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: will do.
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: And anyone who's ever volunteered like knows that I guess
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: foot soldiers, for lack of a better term, are some
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: of the most important people to like in the Black
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Panthers episode, when you know, the women didn't get nearly
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: the recognition they should have gotten for just keeping that
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: organization running on time.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: So, but she was more than a volunteer though. She
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: had some really some jobs with some real gravity. Like
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: she was an investigator of sexual assault of black women
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: by white men, which is a very dangerous thing to
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: do because you're going to like interview witnesses to crimes
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: that aren't being prosecuted because they're perpetrated by white people.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: She was a Justice for Prisoner advocate. She did a
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: lot of like really important stuff. And as she was
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: doing this stuff as the secretary for the LOCALAACP, she
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: was also making contacts that would later become really important
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: in this nascent civil rights movement that largely grew out
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: of the Montgomery bus boycott we're going to talk about.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I had no idea how big of an event it was.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: I knew it was big, but I didn't realize how
• 13:16
  Speaker 3: far reaching the effects of it were.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, And another kind of important thing happened to
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: her as far as integration goes, is she got a
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: job type job at Maxwell Air Force Base for a
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: little while, which because it was a federal institution, was
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: integrated and this was the first time that she had
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: first time she had worked in it, or basically been
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: in a professional integrated atmosphere. And that along with the
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: Highlander Folk School, which is maybe we should do a
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: show on that too. In nineteen fifty five, she went
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: to a meeting a workshop at the Highlander Folks School
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: and this is in the Hills of Tennessee and it
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: is still open today as the Highlander Research and Education Center,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: not in that original building, but.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: It was just this great folks school where they prepared kids.
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: For activism, workers tried to get people involved in civil rights.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And she actually got sponsored by the white couple that
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: she worked for to go to these meetings at mon Eagle, Tennessee.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: So that Maxwell Air Force basically mentioned. One of the
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: things she later said, I think they found in her
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: papers was a description of like because it was an
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: integrated base. The bus service on base was integrated as well,
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: So she would be riding next to a white friend
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: on the bus on base, and then once they would
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: get off of the bus on base and get onto
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: a city bus, they would have to stop their conversation
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: and get into the different sections, the white section and
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: the colored section, and that was just the reality of it.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: And one thing that has really come through from her
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: papers is that she made a conscious decision to never
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: normally cannot be like, well that's just how it is. Yeah,
• 15:03
  Speaker 3: that's just life. That she would never let herself do that. Instead,
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: it was this is messed up. This has to be changed.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: She was able to get through her day with this knowledge,
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: but she was never like this is normal or this
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: is okay.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean she said it required.
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: I think the quote was a lot of mental gymnastics
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: just to survive day to day as a black person
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: in America. So in other words, yeah, not accept it
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: and do everything I can to wrap my head around
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: what I can do moving forward.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, all right, take a break and we'll come
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: back and we will start on December first, nineteen fifty five.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: Very important day, all right. So it's December first, nineteen
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: fifty five. Rosa Parks is working as a seamstress at
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the time at a department store. She gets off work
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: like she does every day, in Board's bus twenty eight
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: fifty seven Cleveland Avenue bus at about six o'clock and
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: Here's the deal with the buses at the time is
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: there were a certain amount of rows set aside for
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: white people, and then there was a sign that said,
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: you know, black people where they probably said colored people
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: back then can sit from here back. But that sign
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: could move, so as more white people get on the bus,
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: the bus driver gets up and moves that sign back
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and says, all right, black folks, you got to get up,
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: get out of your seats because now the white section
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: is here, and just keep doing that until sensibly the
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: entire bus could be full of white people and they
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: just say, sorry, you all have to.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Get off, right.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you either had to get up and move your seat.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: If there were not seats left, you had to stand.
• 16:58
  Speaker 3: If there was no stand, you had to get off
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: the bus right. And then if the bus you were
• 17:04
  Speaker 3: getting on, if you were African American, if the white
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: section was already full, you had to get into the
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: front of the bus, pay, get off of the bus,
• 17:13
  Speaker 3: and get onto that back door.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: You couldn't even walk through the white section right.
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: And then you know, you could take your seat in
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: the colored section. So there was a lot going on here.
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: At least half of this law was unwritten custom. Right,
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: The local ordinance in Montgomery, Alabama said that buses had
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: to be segregated. There was a white section and there
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: was a colored section. They put it right. All that
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: stuff about moving the sign, about getting up and like
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: having to leave the bus if there wasn't any standing
• 17:44
  Speaker 3: room for you, if more white people came on, all
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: of that was just customary. That was not law. That
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: was not the local ordinance, but it was so practiced
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: on a daily basis that it might as well have
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: been the.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: Law for sure. And that's really all that matters. As
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: if everyone was playing ball, that's what was going to happen.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because the courts would even prosecute as if you
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: had broken the law, right, if you had not actually
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: broken the law, but had broken this custom. So yeah,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: for all intentsive purposes, it was the law.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: So the driver of that bus was one James Blake,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: and Rosa had well, she had a long memory and
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: a previous incident with mister Blake twelve years previous, nineteen
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: forty three. She had paid her fare, and like you
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: were talking about, with the fact that they couldn't even
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: walk through the white section, he said, you got to
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: get off the bus. Go around to the back, forced her, well,
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: she had already gotten on, said no, you got to
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: re enter on the rear. She got out and he
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: was like psych closed the door and drove off with
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: her bus fare.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, she had already paid. Yeah, that was the
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: nineteen forty three incident, and.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: She remembered twelve years later who James Blake was.
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: I would probably not forget that bus driver. So on
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: this day she got on and she took her seat
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: in the colored section, and when she sat down again,
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: she was behind the sign. And I guess after a
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: couple of stops, and think about this, man, imagine riding
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: the bus. Let's say you have like seven stops. Think
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: about that pit that would be in your stomach on
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: a daily basis, Like, am I gonna have to get up?
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to be humiliated? I am I gonna
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: have to give up my seat to a white person?
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: Because even if somebody who was told that they had
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: to get up because a white person needed to sit there,
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: even if they just kind of quietly complied, that doesn't
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: get the point across how they were feeling. Right, then
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: anybody would be humiliated by that. And I read that
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons why buses, not just in Montgomery,
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: but throughout the segregated South, they were kind of flash
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: points because they were people were in such close quarters.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: The racism was right up in your face in front
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: of a bunch of other people, so the humiliation was
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: even more pronounced. Right. So Rosa Park gets on the bus.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: She takes her seat in the colored section, and after
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: a few stops, some white people got on and the driver,
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: James Blake, said that it was time for them to move,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: that these white people needed a seat, and he was
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: moving the sign back at least one row.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: So at this point there's one white dude left without
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: a seat, so as his custom, he made four black
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: folks get out of their two seats on that row.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Everyone had to move back because there had to be
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: a whole new white row just for this one guy.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Three of the passengers got up and moved. Rosa Parks
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: just slid over to the window seat and sat there.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: And he said, are you going to get up? And
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: she said no, I'm not. He said, well, if you
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: don't stand up, I'm going to have to call the
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: police and have you arrested. And she said, you may
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: do that. I know, man, I mean, just so brave.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: And so the police did come, she was arrested, she
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: was booked, charged with disorderly conduct, and bailed out by
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: Clifford RR and Edgar Nixon, who were the local president
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of the chapter of the NAACP.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: At the time. Right. So, so she's out, at least temporarily.
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the next evening, so she spent the night in jail.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: I don't I didn't run across any any statements or
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: any kind of evidence that she was like physically mistreated
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: or verbally abused by the police. But that seems to
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: be unusual for people who were arrested for not giving
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: up their seats on the bus.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: What that she was not mistreated?
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I'm sure they didn't throw out the
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: welcome Matt.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: No, you know, no, but this is actually this is
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: noworthy here. Do you want to talk about how she
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: was not the first person that year, not the first
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: woman to have been arrested for not giving up her
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: seat on the bus. Yeah, sure, this is something I
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: didn't realize, and I think a lot of people didn't
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: realize this. But there were at least two other women
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: in Montgomery who were arrested that same year. One was
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: Claudette Colvin. She was fifteen at the time.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, wasn't she pregnant too?
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: She got pregnant afterwards, Okay, but she was fifteen and
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: she in March was arrested for not giving up her
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: seat on the bus. She said at the time she
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: was scared to death, but she fell on one side,
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: so jouring her truth was holding her down, and on
• 22:29
  Speaker 3: the other side, Harriet Tubman was holding her down and
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: she was not about to get up. So they took
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: her off the bus and arrested her, and apparently she
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: was ridiculed and treated rather roughly. There was another woman.
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: Her name was Mary Louise Smith. I believe she was
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: eighteen at the time. She had been arrested in October
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: for the same thing. I didn't get the impression that
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: she was necessarily treated roughly, but Rosa Parks when she
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: was arrested, From what I can tell, she was treated
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: like the with the respect that would be afforded to
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: a middle class black woman at the time in Montgomery, Alabama,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: which is to say, with maybe the slightest measure of respect,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: which is to say, she wasn't beaten on the way
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: to Jail.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: There's a book, by the way called Claudette Colvin Colon
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Twice Toward Justice from Phil Who's or Who's And I
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: think a lot of people these days are trying to
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: shine a little light on some of the lesser known
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: figures of the civil rights movement, and books are being
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: written and stuff like that, which is pretty awesome.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: And she was asked, Claudette Colevin was asked, why does
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: she think it was Rosa Parks and not her? And
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: she had a whole list of reasons, and all of
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: them are pretty legitimate. That you know, Rosa Parks was
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: a very again, a palatable person to a large swath
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: of people. And more of the point, she was also fifteen,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: and the NAACP didn't think that a fifteen year old
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: was going to be the most reliable icon to kind
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: of project into the national forefront.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, not to say that a lot of people have
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: said over the years that it was staged so because
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: they set Rosa Parks up, or not set her up,
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: but they picked her to do this because she was palatable.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: They staged this whole thing to make which you know
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: would have been fine if that's the way you want
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: to kickstart the bus boycott. But from all accounts, it
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: was a in the moment decision. She said, I didn't
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: know that I was gonna get arrested and I was
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: going to sit down.
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just something that happened.
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: And so so, on the one hand, the people who
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: say that no, this was staged the NUBACP, and even
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: before the n DOUBLEACP was around, buses had been like
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: a target of black activists in Montgomery in particular for decades.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: I think the first bus boycott was in nineteen hundred
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: and it wasn't even a bus. There was a trolley line, yeah,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: as well as boycotted. So she and having already been
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: the secretary of the NUBACP and an activist herself for
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: years by then, she must have been fully aware of
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: the potential outcome, which proved to be the actual outcome
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: from her arrest for not giving up her seat. But
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: the idea of saying that this was all staged it
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: does a couple of things. It's almost like a casually
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: racist way of just kind of diminishing it because it
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: does two things. One, it takes away her bravery, because
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: if it was, if it was staged, support the whole time.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: It would have taken away a measure of fear. And
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: then secondly, it also makes the NAACP look kind of sneaky,
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: like there's socially engineering stuff and then pretending like that's
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: not the case. So I think by saying like, no,
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: this was staged, it really undermines the reality of the situation,
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: which is that this brave woman said she'd had enough.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and you're right, she probably it probably occurred to
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: her the ramifications of this, but surely I bet you
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: anything in the moment she was just like, nope, nope,
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: not getting up.
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: That's what I understand, that's what she's always Yeah.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: So here's what happened from there. She was arrested. Like
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I said, she gets out on bail. Over that weekend,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: a bunch of churches got together and they started talking
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: boycott on the winter trial comes around. It's a group
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: called the Women's Political Council, and they handed out thirty
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: five thousand handbills that basically said, please children, grown ups,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: don't ride the bus at all on Monday. Please stay
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: off the buses on Monday. Let's really try and make
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: a difference here. Because it was I think at the time,
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: black people made up seventy five percent of the passengers. Yeah,
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: so it could have a real impact on the finances
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: of the bus company.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And it just started out as a boycott for
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: one day, for the Monday following Rosa Park's rest, which
• 26:50
  Speaker 3: was that happened on a Thursday, and they were just
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: going to do it for one day. But the success
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: of it was so surprising. I think they were hoping
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: for like fifty percent reduction. It turned out I saw
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: both ninety and ninety nine percent reduction in ridership by
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: African Americans that day.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: Right, and if they make up seventy five percent, that's.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: A big loss for the city bus line, right for sure.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: So it was such a success that they said, well,
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: let's maybe let's keep this going and see what we
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: can do with this. Because initially the demands of the
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: Montgomery bus boycott of nineteen fifty five was that one
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: of them was black black riders be treated with risk courtesy,
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: pretty low hanging request. Another one was that the seats
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: be given on a first come, first serve basis, which
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: was the law, and that black people sit from back
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: to front. White people sit from front to back. So
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: they were still saying like, we can keep the segregation,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: but people shouldn't have to give up their seats. And
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: then the last one was they wanted black bus drivers
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: to be higher to drive the predominantly African American routes, right,
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: so that you didn't have to deal with an armed like,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: oh yeah, an armed white bus driver because they were
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: armed and they had basically police powers to enforce segregation
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: on the bus. So the original boycott thing, their demands
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: were not extraordinarily radical. And when the boycott was a
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: success on that first Monday, they decided to extend it,
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: and they also decided maybe they should expand their demands
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: a little more.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: So while all this is going on, she was found
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: guilty on that Monday.
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: She was fined ten.
• 28:34
  Speaker 2: Bucks plus court costs of four dollars for fourteen dollars total,
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: and said, nope, I'm going to appeal this conviction. She
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: challenged that basically she was what she was challenging was
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: segregation in general not being constitutional, right, And that ended
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: up being the argument that was, well, we'll get to
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: the court case and how it escalated. But she was
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: found guilty, and the other no notable thing that happened was.
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: One Ralph David Abernethy and.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Doctor Martin Luther King, who was a young minister in
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: town of Dexter Avenue Baptist. He was elected president of
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: what was called the MIA, the Montgomery Improvement Association, which
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: they formed because the success of the boycott.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: So you have this new organization.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: Then about a month later, month and a half, at
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: the end of January, Martin Luther King's home was bombed.
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: Everyone was unharmed in the incident, but it really ramped
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: up the stakes of what was going on.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well for sure, and they apparently the Montgomery Improvement
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Association is credited with making the boycott successful. And the
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: way that they made it successful was through a carpool
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: they set up. They bought a bunch of station wagons
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: and put them in the name of some of the
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: black churches in town. And these station wagons would be
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: basically recreate the bus routes. They drove predetermined routes and
• 30:06
  Speaker 3: they were giving like twenty thousand people a ride every day.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: That's how successful this was. And they put such a
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: crimp in the finances of the city bus line that
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: a couple of things happened. One they had to layoff workers,
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: close down lines, raise their fares like it really hurt
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: the city bus lines. And then secondly, the city and
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: I believe maybe even the state sued the Montgomery Improvement
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: Association for this boycott, which was apparently illegal under a
• 30:41
  Speaker 3: nineteen twenty one Alabama law.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they sued against the car service, specifically saying that
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: the bus company had an exclusive franchise, right, and they
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: did get an injunction in November of nineteen fifty six.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: But all of this comes out of the fact that
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: in like thirty something years earlier, in nineteen twenty one,
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Alabama passed an anti boycott Act which basically said that
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: it's illegal for you to not ride the bus in
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: this case.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: In that case, sure or at least organize people and
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: get them to not ride the bus. Yeah, it was
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: something like it was a misdemeanor to organize against somebody
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: carrying out lawful business or whatever. So they were getting
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: them on two things, that boycott and then infringing on
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: the bus lines franchise in that city, right.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Right, So what do you do if you are suing
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: or sorry, if you're if you have an anti boycott act,
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: I mean, you can't arrest everyone. So they go after
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: I think eighty nine Martin Luther King Junior and eighty
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: nine other other members of the MIA and obviously because
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: they're the most how many of them twenty four more ministers,
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: they're the most prominent members. And he has find five
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: hundred bucks and spent a couple of weeks in jail.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: They said, he's very proud of his crime. Should be yeah, sure.
• 32:03
  Speaker 3: So now Martin Luther King as appealing. So you've got
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: a few things going on here. You've got Rosa Parks
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: who has been convicted and now is appealing her ten
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: dollars plus four dollars in court costs fine for breaking
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: the city ordinance even though she didn't. You've got Martin
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Luther King now who is appealing his five hundred dollars
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: fine for the boycott and the infringing on the bus
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: lines franchise. And then you have something else. You have
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: a class action suit called Browder versus Gail and was
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: named after oh what's her name, the woman who's the
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: lead plaintiff in the case. Her name is Aurelia S. Browder.
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: And the Gail in the case was the Montgomery The
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: Montgomery mayor I think William Gail and we'll talk about that. Well,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: let's take a break and we'll talk about this case,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: and we'll come back to the drumbeat of the court system.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Story end of kick In.
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: All right, So appeals run slow anyway, but in the South,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: if it's a if it's a case like this, it's
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: going to go super slow because the hope from the
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: white establishment is, you know, maybe enough time I'll go
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: by time, I'll go buy and these people just sort
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: of get in line and forget about it, get tired
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: of this boycott and everything.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: We'll just go back to normal.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, which is kind of a gamble because this boycott
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: was not showing any signs of cracking. So they were
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: basically making that bet on the back of the city
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: bus line and on the jobs of the drivers who
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: were being laid off because ridership was down so.
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: Low one days, three hundred and eighty one days right
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: for the boycott.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: So, like I said, this court the drumbeat of the
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: court system was starting to grow a little bit louder.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: And you had three big cases Martin Luther King's case,
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Rosa Parks case, and you had Browder versus Gail and
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: ber versus Gail represented four women originally five, but four
• 34:31
  Speaker 3: women who had been convicted of breaking the law for
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: not giving up their seat on the bus in Montgomery.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: One of them was claut At Colvin, another one was
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: Mary Louise Smith, I believe, and then Aurelia Browder and then.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Lastly was Susie McDonald.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Susie McDonald, right. So these four women got together, ensued
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: the mayor, the bus line, a few bus drivers, the
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: city Public Works Commission, just a big group of people,
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: and they were suing to all three of those cases
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: were suing the question the constitutionality and the legality of
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: segregation in general, but specifically on the bus lines. And
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: there was a talk at first by Freddie Gray, who
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: was the lead lawyer in the broader Egail, of including
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: Rosa Parks. But he very very wisely kept her separate
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: from that case because he said he wanted the courts
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: to just consider one thing, not whether Rosa Parks was
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: guilty or not, but whether the segregation on the Montgomery
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: buses was legal and constitutional. So he kept those separate
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: very very smartly.
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think he knew that he could get this
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: to the Supreme Court this way. It was a test case,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: and that was his ultimate goal because it was a
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: state statute though in the state Constitution of Alabama. It
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: was of course first brought before District Court, three judges
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: in US District Court on June fifth, nineteen fifty six.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: They ruled two to one that segregation was unconstitutional. Of course,
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: they cited Brown Versusportive Education as president, and it eventually
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: wound its way to the Supreme Court in nineteen fifty
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: six on December seventeenth.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: Actually that was pretty quick.
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, considering Yeah, and they rejected all appeals and voted
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: nine to nothing, nine to zero that it was unconstitutional.
• 36:31
  Speaker 3: Yep, nine to nothing, which is I mean, that's really
• 36:35
  Speaker 3: saying something unanimous Supreme Court decision regarding segregation.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in the nineteen fifties.
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so that was a that was huge. I think
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: doctor King was in court that day when he was
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: told by a reporter about that decision, the Supreme Court decision,
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: and even after he said, we're keeping up the boycott
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: because well, when they implement this d sgregation on the
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: buses will stop the boycott. And after the Supreme Court
• 37:04
  Speaker 3: ruling came through, the city of Montgomery saw pretty clearly
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: that there wasn't any way to keep this up any longer.
• 37:11
  Speaker 3: And I believe within three days the buses were desegregated.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: And on the first day that they were desegregated, Rosa
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: Parks took her seat on a bus in the front row,
• 37:20
  Speaker 3: I believe.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they hired black bus drivers.
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: And this is after, by the way, three hundred and
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: eighty one days of a total sales loss of sixty
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: five percent.
• 37:31
  Speaker 3: So yeah, And on the other side, Ralph David Abernethy's
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: home was bombed. Martin Luther King's home was bombed. People
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: were in jail, people were in court. It was a
• 37:42
  Speaker 3: big struggle down in Montgomery.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: So on December twenty first, doctor King and his white friend,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: Reverend Glynn Smiley sat together on the front row with
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: Ralph David Abernethy Street here in Atlanta. Yea name for him,
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: Edie Dixon and Fred Gray, the attorney that saw that case.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: Right. So that was a huge thing that did a
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: number of things. It made Rosa Parks and icon. It
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: projected Martin Luther King into the national spotlight. That was
• 38:10
  Speaker 3: basically where he first found national fame and basically was like, well,
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: this guy's the leader of the civil rights movement now,
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: and it also was a huge domino in the idea
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: of desegregation in general, not just on buses, not just
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: in Montgomery, but the concept it followed in the wake
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: of plus e v. Ferguson which it was just one
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: of those court cases that said separate facilities is inherently racist,
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: because the only reason you would have separate facilities is
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: because you think one group is superior over the other
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: and they shouldn't have to consort or mix. That's inherently unconstitutional.
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: And this was one of those dominoes that fell in
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: that chain that led to desegregation across the Jim Crow
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: South And and like a laser, this particular case and
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: the changes it brought were focused right onto Rosa Parks,
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: her act, her courage, what she did.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was this was within our parents' lifetime.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I know, I was wondering. I was like, why am
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: I so much more jazzed about this than Harriet Tubman.
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: I love Harriet Tubsman Tubman's story. Yeah, but I remember
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: when I was researching, I wasn't new these jazz and
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: I realized, like, I can relate to this woman so
• 39:31
  Speaker 3: much better. Just because this is pretty pretty recent, you know.
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and just the notion that where we are
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: as a country now racially, this was not that long ago.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: So for the people in the camp of saying just
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: get over things, African Americans, just get over things, it's
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: like this was not hundreds and hundreds of years ago.
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: This was very recently. These like my peers parents had
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: to live through this.
• 40:00
  Speaker 3: Well, one thing Rosa Parks is now known for what
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: they didn't realize before is, you know, her act in
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: like the civil rights movement that grew out of over
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: like the next ten years, fifteen years. There's this idea
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: that around nineteen seventy there was a button put on
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: that and it was like, you guys were successful. Wait
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: to go, we can stop doing this now. Rosa Parks
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: was like, no, no, it's not done. This hasn't changed.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Up until she died in two thousand and five, she
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: was like, this struggle is still continuing.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: People didn't realize that about her until this collection was opened.
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this all came.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: There was significant cost to her family, to her her husband.
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: Her and her husband both suffered through stomach ulcers because
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: of this. They lost their jobs. Eventually they left Alabama
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: said and let's go to Virginia. And Virginia wasn't a
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: whole lot better. They said, all right, let's go to Detroit.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Kept going north, and then finally, after not having a
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: job for a long time, she was hired as secretary
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: for John Conyers, a brand new, brand newly elected black
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: congressman who she would work for for twenty three years.
• 41:15
  Speaker 2: And mister Conyers, you know, he was the one who
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: stepped down last year after sexual assault allegations after serving many,
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: many years in Congress, and was a civil rights icon.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of a.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: Very sad ending to that story, but Rosa worked for him.
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: In seventy seven, her husband, James died of cancer, her
• 41:37
  Speaker 2: brother died of cancer three months later, her mom died
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: two years after that. But I get the sense that
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: after that, it really it really kind of freed her
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: to really go back to work and devote herself once
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: again to the cause, because after those family members passed away,
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: she established the Rosa Parks Scholarship Foundation in the Rosa
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development and wrote two memoirs. Yeah,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: she was busy, she was, and then very sadly, I know.
• 42:07
  Speaker 2: I remember this in nineteen ninety four when she was
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: home invaded and robbed.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, hit over the.
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: Head by a guy named Joseph Skipper.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, that was just like, I mean, for kidding.
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: Me with that for fifty eight bucks.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: Of all the houses to accidentally break into. Yeah, what
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: do you think you knew it was Rosa Parks.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know, but he I've.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Seen nothing to indicate that that was true.
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: He knew that that he would go down as the
• 42:40
  Speaker 3: man who robbed and beat Rosa Parks. Oh well yeah,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: so yeah, I don't I don't think he was she
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: was targeted because she was Rosa Parks or anything like that.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: I think she's just a little old lady. The impression
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: I have is it doesn't matter if she was Rosa
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: Parks or not. Sure, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah,
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: so she That was ninety four, and then like right afterward,
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: there was a huge national outcry and she moved into
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: a very secure high rise in Detroit, where she lived
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: until she died in two thousand and five. I believe
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: she died in that.
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: Apartment ninety two years young, and she had a slew
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: of honors, unprecedented honors in this country. She was transported
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: her body to Washington, d C. And she laid an
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: honor under the rotunda the US capital. First woman, yep
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: to get that honor, the second African American and the
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: first non government American ever to have this honor.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: Yep. I mean that is a high honor.
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:42
  Speaker 3: When she died, every flag on public land in the
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: United States and around the world was flown at half mast,
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: which is pretty pretty great too.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: George W. Bush made sure that happened. And then here's
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: just some of her lifetime achievement awards. INAACP gave her
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: what's called the Sping Garden Medal in nineteen seventy nine,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: their highest honor. She's in the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame,
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Junior Award nineteen eighty.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: You could have just stopped at the Michigan Hall of.
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: Fame, Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety six.
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: Congressional Michigan Women's Hall of Fame.
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: Congressional Gold Medal. No, now we're in a contest.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: Time magazine named her was one of the twenty most
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: influential and iconic figures of the twentieth century.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: It's a big one, okay.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: And then yeah, he mentioned George W.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Bush ordered half mass flags in two thousand and five.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: So again there was this idea that she was just
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: a tired, little old lady who was quietly brave and
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: didn't give up her seat, and she was kind of
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: meek and quiet. And in twenty fourteen, her personal collection,
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: the Rosa Parks Collection, was sold to the Howard Buffett Foundation,
• 45:00
  Speaker 3: Warren Buffett's son. They bought it for a song at
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: like four and a half million dollars, and it's something
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: like I think sixty five hundred documents and twenty five
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: hundred photographs, and it is her personal papers, like notes
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: for speeches, notes for her books, I believe, correspondence, and
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: it paints this picture that no one had of her before,
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: which was no like this lady was an activist. They
• 45:26
  Speaker 3: went through her whole life. She was an activist who
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: wanted to talk about and agitate for the rights of
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: black Americans and how messed up the situation was that
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: they lived in and that she wouldn't normalize this, she
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: would learn to deal with it. As much as she
• 45:46
  Speaker 3: needed to while she was working to change it. And
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: it was just a surprise to a lot of people
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: when they cracked open these papers and found that picture
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: of her.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: I also want to shout out article how history got
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: the Roads of Park story wrong. And this was written
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: by the same person who wrote the award winning book
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: The Rebellious Life of Missus Rosa Parks. Her name is
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Jeane Theo Harris. Theohis it's all one word. Yeah, I
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: know it sounds like it should be hyphenated.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: It's really easy to say, but how do you say it?
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: I have no idea, I know.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: But she's professor Professor of Polysi at Brooklyn College of
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: c U n Y.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: Yep.
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: Man, great lady, yep.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: So if you want to know more about Rosa Parks,
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: go out on the internet. Educate yourself.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: I don't seen that movie. Have you seen that? No?
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: The about the bus boycott?
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: No, I mean it was a significant event. I had
• 46:47
  Speaker 3: no idea. Okay, well, I think I said go search
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: stuff in there somewhere. So that means it's time for
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: listener maw.
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna call this oh all right, hey, guys, let
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: me start off by saying enjoyed the podcast very much fine.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Aside from being interesting and entertaining, it very much helps
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: my time in the car.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: We get that a lot sure commute helps people would
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: go insane if it weren't for us.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Several episodes ago, I believe Chuck mentioned that you love
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: tiny things.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: I do.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: Josh likes things that are grossly oversized. That giant pocket
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: watch over.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: There, Yeah it's kind of a pain.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: I'm wearing it.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: He mentioned loving tiny things, there are something extraordinarily satisfying
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: about them. I agree. I love tiny things. Would be
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: remiss if I did not bring bring you to the
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Museum of Jurassic Technology.
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: I love that place.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: I know I've been there too. It's in Los Angeles.
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: There are not one, but two fantastic exhibits of tiny things.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: I have the needle in micro mosaics. I don't think
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: I saw those, did you?
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: The tiny thing I remember was like the dioramas of
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: the trailers. I have the needle. I remember that. Oh yeah, yeah,
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: I don't remember the micro mosaics.
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Though I haven't been in many years. Though, yeah, I
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: have the needle features delightful.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Whimsical miniature sculpture is actually small enough to fit into
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: the eye of a needle.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, there you go. That's a little too small for me.
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: Okay, so you like so you like?
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: I like the tiny Tabasco bottles that you get in there.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: You like to feel like you're a giant, not like
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: a god.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, gotcha, exactly. I just want to be taller.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: The micro mosaics exhibit also requires a magnifying glass to enjoy.
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: However beautiful, this exhibit has a slightly creepy.
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: Aspect to it.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: The tiny mosaic pieces are in fact bits of butterfly wings.
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's not too creepy. Oh, I mean they kill
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: the butterflies?
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: Depends. Yeah, how'd they come across those wings? Where do
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: they rogue kill?
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: If so, that's fine, Yeah, what a job, go out
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: and just try and find dead butterflies.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: All in all, these exhibits of a wonderful field of
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: magic Realism. Museum also features a lovely rooftop garden as
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: well of a meditative tea room to enjoy complimentary cup
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: of tea.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: Interesting. That is all guys, cheers from Sandra Williams.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: Thanks a lot for the shout out, Sandra. That is
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: indeed a great place if you're ever in Los Angeles,
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: everybody go check out the Museum of Jurassic Technology. Just
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: going with your mind open and thank us later.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, get out of Ripley's Believe it or.
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: Not, We'll go both.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: You know, sure I said get out of Ripley's Believe
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: it or not?
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: Okay? Yeah, But I mean Jack Palance, man, how do
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: you pass that guy?
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: I don't get it.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Remember he was the host of the TV show.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Or Not.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, my brother worked with him on City Slickers too,
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: and there was one story where, you know, he's kind
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: of old at the time, where Scott as the ad
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: is to walk him. Second ad is to walk the
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: talent to the set from their trailer, and that was
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: through the desert, the rocky desert, and Scott was like,
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: you know, look out for that wrong, mister Palence or
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: something like that. And one day he was just like,
• 49:58
  Speaker 2: I don't need you to tell me how to walk,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: Scott like shrank down. Of course I can't remember if
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: that's exactly.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: What you said, but but I'll bet I'll bet Jack
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: Palance felt so bad for yelling at Scott, of all people,
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: I doubt it.
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: You know, it's Scott and he didn't delight in Scott
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: like everyone else does.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Jackal Yeah, Well, if you want to tell us how
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: great you think Scott is, you can send us all
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: an email, including Jerry. It's a stuff podcast at HowStuffWorks
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: dot com has always joined us at our home on
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: the web, Stuff Youshould Know dot Com.
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.