Latest / Ridiculous History / Coca-Cola, Dr. King, and the Civil Rights

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Coca-Cola, Dr. King, and the Civil Rights · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Ye,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: some local Atlanta luminary. Starting with the one and only
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams. I'm also I'm also as
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: always over the moon to introduce you to my co host,
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: the one and only Mr Noel Brown, who my goodness. Hey,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: I'd like to apologize in advance. I am a little
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: under the web other so I might sound a little
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: snarf lee during this episode, but I will give him
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: my level best. There we go. Now, we also checked
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: our levels earlier. That's right. Wordplay we're doing. We're doing wordplay.
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  Speaker 1: I'm I'm Ben. We're we're joined h posthumously by a
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  Speaker 1: special guest today. Uh. You know, out of the four
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: of us, I have to admit, he's probably he's probably
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: the most famous of our Atlantic crew. Dr Martin Luther
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: King Jr. Is in the episode today. You know him,
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: and if you're a decent person, you love him. Uh.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: He's certainly the only one present here in spirit or otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: Who's won a Nobel Prize. Yes for now, Now we
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: we dream big on this show. But just so far,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: they're not giving out Nobel prizes for podcast one day,
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  Speaker 1: one day, one day. Uh. They're also not giving out
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  Speaker 1: Nobel prizes for soda. But if there was a prize
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  Speaker 1: for powerful soda companies, it is doubtlessly true that our
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  Speaker 1: own hometown mega corporation, Coca Cola, would be winning that
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  Speaker 1: hypothetical prize. Now you know, uh, guys, we have we
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  Speaker 1: have all lived in the Atlanta area for for some
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: time now, and Coca Cola is ubiquitous here. Uh. You
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  Speaker 1: just you can't spend a day in this city without
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  Speaker 1: somehow running into something concerning Coca Cola. It looms large,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: no question, both here in Atlanta and uh around the world. Really,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, they basically invented Santa Claus and Polar Bears. Yeah, no,
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  Speaker 1: that's a true story. The Santa you think of when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you when you think of Christmas and what Santa looks like.
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  Speaker 1: It's an invention of the Coca Cola company. They have
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  Speaker 1: so much heffed economically, historically, socially, and yes, of course
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  Speaker 1: we want to say Coca Cola has, like any other
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  Speaker 1: large company, had its share of warts, its share of controversies.
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  Speaker 1: But this is a story about how they kind of
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  Speaker 1: were the good guy. Uh, depending on well, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we can talk about their motivations. Yeah. You know, it's
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  Speaker 1: always hard to tell with large corporations whether something is
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  Speaker 1: a pr move or a genuine act of of of
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  Speaker 1: kindness and and philanthropy. Um. But let's let's get back
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  Speaker 1: to that in the second. First talk about the thing
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  Speaker 1: we mentioned that that you Max or I do not
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  Speaker 1: have a Nobel Prize. Uh. This is an a war
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: that was first bestowed in nineteen o one. The Nobel
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  Speaker 1: Prize has five different disciplines or fields that it sort
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: of encompasses, physics, chemistry, medicine, physiology, literature, and of course
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  Speaker 1: the big one peace peace peace out. Yeah uh. And
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: weirdly enough, the peace in recent years has become one
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  Speaker 1: of the more controversial prizes. And sometimes you'll hear folks say, well,
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  Speaker 1: this person is just getting the Peace Prize because it's
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: like a political statement or it's a diplomatic thing. But
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: if you look at if you look at the roster
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  Speaker 1: of prize winners over the more than a century now,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: then you see that there's some heavy hitters. These are
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: really Max I like the way you put it before
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  Speaker 1: off air, These are the who's who of the past
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  Speaker 1: hundreds something years. You're Albert Einstein's, your Marie Carries your
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: mother Teresa's. I'm not the biggest fan of Mother Teresa,
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  Speaker 1: but she did get the prize. Just gonna throw that
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  Speaker 1: hot take in there, so, uh, you know, of course
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  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Jr. Also gets the Nobel Prize. He
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  Speaker 1: gets it in nineteen sixty four, and this makes him
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  Speaker 1: the very first person from the state of Georgia to
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  Speaker 1: win the award. So that's a big deal, right. Oh yeah.
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  Speaker 1: I mean he's one of those you know, historical figures
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  Speaker 1: that you always just kind of assume was very old. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: because we all encountered him, like, you know, as small
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  Speaker 1: children and two small children. Anyone that you know has
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  Speaker 1: that sort of stature seems old. But he was in
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  Speaker 1: fact the youngest person at the time to ever be
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  Speaker 1: awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And I believe he was
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  Speaker 1: only in his thirties when he was assassinated. Correct. The
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  Speaker 1: thing about yeah, I think about I love this point,
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  Speaker 1: your Brenham. The thing about Martin Luther King changing the
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  Speaker 1: world at such a young age is that when I
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: hear about these guys, man, I recall vividly the multiple
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: times I have fallen asleep trying to put on a
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  Speaker 1: pair of pants. Some people just have more drive. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Martin Luther King, to answer your question, was only thirty
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  Speaker 1: nine when he was assassinated in Memphis on April fourth,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight. And there's a weird bit of historical
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: conspiracy here. I would call it because color television and
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: color film was a thing at this time. But a
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  Speaker 1: lot of uh, the clips you'll see of Dr King
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  Speaker 1: are aired in black and white, and I think that
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  Speaker 1: lends itself to the tendency we're talking about, where you
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: you feel like these things happen uh much further in
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  Speaker 1: the past, or the people were much older, But that's
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: not really the case, you know. Yeah, it's a good point.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, so many rock stars who died at seven,
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  Speaker 1: you know, you think of them as being eternally you know,
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  Speaker 1: the same age I guess too, which is I guess
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  Speaker 1: the thing that comes along with being I guess immortalized
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  Speaker 1: by an early demise. But we all know Martin Luther
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  Speaker 1: King's whole thing, his his dream, uh, the idea that
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  Speaker 1: everyone who is a citizen of the United States could
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  Speaker 1: be judged by their accomplishments and their character and their morality, etcetera,
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  Speaker 1: and not by the color of their skin. And in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, as we mentioned, he was murdered by
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  Speaker 1: UH a white supremacy UH at the very least, a
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  Speaker 1: very verily racist white man. And just four years prior
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  Speaker 1: to that is when he received that the prestigious Nobel
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  Speaker 1: Peace Prize um specifically for his ability to organize folks
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  Speaker 1: around a very you know, universally adopted a cause using
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  Speaker 1: non violence, sort of following in the steps of Gandhi. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Gandhi also is a whole other bag of badgers. I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to I don't want to dunk on him
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  Speaker 1: unfairly because he did change the world. But there's more
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  Speaker 1: to his story than you hear in your history textbooks.
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  Speaker 1: But Martin Luther King knew a good idea when he
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  Speaker 1: saw it right, and so he takes up this philosophy,
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  Speaker 1: this radical non violence philosophy, and in nineteen fifty five
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  Speaker 1: he begins what would become a nationwide and then worldwide struggle.
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  Speaker 1: UH two combat racial discrimination, as struggle that continues today.
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  Speaker 1: And one of his primary things in the US was
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  Speaker 1: getting Uncle Sam to say, hey, it should be illegal
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  Speaker 1: to have all this racial discrimination in the southern part
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  Speaker 1: of the country. Now, the uh, the folks who were
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  Speaker 1: very pro racial discrimination, the supremacists, the racist of the time,
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  Speaker 1: they responded to these non violent initiatives with you guessed it, folks, violence, yes, uh.
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  Speaker 1: And in nineteen sixty three, King organized two hundred and
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  Speaker 1: fifty thousand demonstrators who marched on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington,
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  Speaker 1: D C. And that is where he gave his you
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  Speaker 1: know most iconic I have a dream speech, um. And
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  Speaker 1: it is you know, for all intents and purposes, the
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  Speaker 1: high water mark moment that many historians will point to.
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  Speaker 1: That lad to President Lyndon Johnson passing a law that
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  Speaker 1: prohibited all forms of racial discrimin nation. But as we know,
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  Speaker 1: uh law, No, you can't change the hearts and minds
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  Speaker 1: of a lot of people with the stroke of a pen.
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  Speaker 1: That's right. And you know, if we could, guys, just
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: because I I love hearing in personally, can we play
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a little clip of the of the speech I have
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  Speaker 1: a dream. But one day this nation will arise up
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  Speaker 1: live out the true meaning of its screen. We had
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  Speaker 1: all these truths to be self evident, that all men
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  Speaker 1: are creative, epic, epic and sincere and and you know, inspiring.
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  Speaker 1: But I wanted to show that good side, No, because
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  Speaker 1: I appreciate your points so much. The US is not
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  Speaker 1: a monolith. The government's not a monolith. There's no demographic
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  Speaker 1: that always moves in step with itself. So it's sadly
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  Speaker 1: can't be surprising for us to say. Even a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people in the government were not fans of King's work.
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  Speaker 1: They saw almost as a threat to the status quo.
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  Speaker 1: Most particularly the head of the FBI, John Edgar Hoover,
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  Speaker 1: had keen under intense surveillance purportedly on suspicions of communism.
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  Speaker 1: That's where he really got in trouble, by the way,
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  Speaker 1: when he started talking about what the powers that be
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  Speaker 1: saws socialism and we stood up against Vietnam, and they
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  Speaker 1: were like, nope, nope, he's a red well yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: like you know, President Johnson obviously, being the kind of
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  Speaker 1: forward facing figurehead of the government, really had no choice
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: but to respond to the kind of like groundswell of
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  Speaker 1: support that King you know, was was was getting. But
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  Speaker 1: someone like j Edgar Hoover, who operates largely behind the scenes,
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  Speaker 1: uh and in much more clandestine circles. Uh. He wasn't
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  Speaker 1: about this at all, and you know, considered King to be,
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  Speaker 1: you know, something of a of a rabble rouser and agitator,
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  Speaker 1: you know, and he ended up on the kinds of
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  Speaker 1: lists that you know, folks like uh Stokely Carmichael or
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  Speaker 1: John Lennon or a lot of these, you know, kind
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  Speaker 1: of like divisive political figures end up on. This was
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  Speaker 1: all happening in the US. It was all happening kind
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  Speaker 1: of roughly concurrently with King's ascendants on the international stage.
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  Speaker 1: So over in Oslo in nineteen sixty four, when Dr
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  Speaker 1: King gets the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Committee chairman said
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  Speaker 1: King referring to King, he said, he is the first
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  Speaker 1: to make the message of brotherly love a reality in
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  Speaker 1: the course of his struggle. And he just brought this
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  Speaker 1: message to all men, to all nations and races. And
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  Speaker 1: you know, you get money when you win the Nobel Prize, yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: like you know when you get the medal, but you
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  Speaker 1: also get some scratch and Dr King donated the entirety
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  Speaker 1: of his prize money, which was around fifty four thousand
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  Speaker 1: dollars to civil rights organizations. And I have immense respect
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  Speaker 1: for that. He didn't take the money and run. He
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  Speaker 1: continued the struggle. Oh no, I mean he has always
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: put his money where his mouth was. So King of
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: course went to Oslo, Norway, to to be honored and
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  Speaker 1: to receive this award from the Nobel Committee, and then
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  Speaker 1: he came back to the States where he was honored
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: UM in New York he got like, I guess you know,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: the Key to the City kind of situation in the
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  Speaker 1: city's Medallion of Honor, and eight thousand people turned up
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  Speaker 1: um at a venue in Harlem to see him receive
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  Speaker 1: this this honor, and that included Governor Nelson Rockefeller. You
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: might have heard of the Rockefeller of the Rockefeller Rockefellers,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: inventors of oyster Rockefeller as well. Uh. I think that's
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  Speaker 1: their big win. That's their version of the Nobel Prize.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Is that the one with like like spinach janitors? Some
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: day I think it is. Now I'm gonna come claim
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: with you guys. I don't eat oyster rocket feller every day,
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: so I don't have the recipe the swells. No, it
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: is the spinach one. I think I like the one
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: with um with more parmesan in it. And then oh
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: and fishmonger here in Atlanta just one. Some pretty prestigious
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: national shout outs for their chef set oysters which have
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: Kiwi in them. I have not enjoyed those, but I
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: did go for the first time the other day and
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: had like a open face crab tostada. Think it was
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: absolutely delightful. Oh, it's great. It's great. Also full disclosure, Um,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I know the chefs, they're not paying us to say this.
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  Speaker 1: It is good. It is good. Next time you're in town.
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  Speaker 1: But if you were if you were living in Atlanta
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four and you were one of the
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  Speaker 1: powerful people in this city, the city has always had
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  Speaker 1: kind of a small in group of people who run
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: things behind the scenes. Yeah, I think we were heard
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: of them. Old money, yeah, and old money in the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: South is not the same thing as old money and
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: say Rhode Islands, but still it's it's It may not
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: be elderly money, especially after the Civil War and reconstruction,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: but there are kingmakers, but it's also money that's tied
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: to the Civil War very very much. And those kinds
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: of attitudes that seemed to pass generationally. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Speaker 1: They like their money and they often like their older attitudes.
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  Speaker 1: So alright, you are Atlanta. You see this huge to
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: do in Oslo, You see this big shebang in New York,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: and you say, hey, this could be great pr for Atlanta.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: You know, we're we're coming up as a city. Uh
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: So let's throw a party for Dr King, for the
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Nobel Prize winning Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. They say,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: we're gonna have um an integrated banquet. People of all
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: races will come. We're gonna send official in vitations to
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: all of those leaders we talked about, all those titans
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: of industry, the politicians, the old money, the tastemakers, the
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: mayor signing these invites by hands. Religious leaders from every
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: faith or denomination you can imagine. Uh, they're signing stuff.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: University president is co signing it. The publisher of the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: a j C Is signing off, and womp wamp. Almost
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: no one responds. Because it turns out that while the
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: city's black community and progressive community is rightly incredibly excited
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: about this, the majority of the city's power structure, which
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: is also majority white, is extremely unimpressed. Mr hooman Toalmadge, politician,
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: former governor of Georgia. I am send it a hooman Toalmidge.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: He took he took issue this whole uh, this whole
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: idea for this sware. And as the Coca Cola company
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: actually on the history on their website puts it, he
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: wondered aloud, why the committee gave a peace prize to
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: a person who promoted lawbreaking? Yeah, yeah, now we'll give
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: it a rabble browser grand swale. That doesn't seem particularly
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: antebellum to me. As you is is you ain't my constituency?
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Just so and uh. There's this great book by a
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: guy named Frederick Allen. The titles long, but it's worth
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: the read. Atlanta Rising, The invention of an international city
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: and secret Formula. How brilliant marketing and relentless salesmanship made
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: Coca Cola the best known product in the world. I
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: think that's the entire cover. It's just that sentence. Good lord.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: I pity that type center graphic designer that had to
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: scram all that in there. Oh yeah, there's a quote
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: from that book saying, if you had been waiting for
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the white community in Atlanta to accept civil rights. He
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: would have waited as long as anywhere in the South,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: and Alan points out that a lot of this power
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: structure thought this celebration would be just one more step
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: in a process that would quote deprive them of the
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: fruits of white supremacy and the Jim Crow laws they'd
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: enjoyed for more than half a century. I mean, that's
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: pretty blunt, but it's also, as we'll see, pretty true.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: The fruits of white supremacy are like something really bland,
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: like like melon, flavorless melon. I always feel, you know,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I love I know some people love melon. I've the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: most expensive melon I ever ate was in Japan and
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: people were absolutely out of their out of their minds
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: for it. But I always whenever he got like a
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: fruit cup or something as a kid, I always judged
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: it by the melon ratio or like cantaloupe. Yeah, I
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: guess when I say melon, I'm specifically referring to cantaloupe.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: It's just you know, landest, weirdest of fruits. What do
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: you guys take on honeydew? Is is it the same thing?
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: It's a little more pale green kind of as a sweeter.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know. I just don't like the smell of
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: a melon. It weirds me out. There's a whole thing
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: on the show a BoJack Horseman about just like how
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: much honeydew sucks? Oh yeah, and I love that joke.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: So I always like to ask people with their opinion
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: on honeydew? Is I mean? I just kind of think
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: it's like, you know, candle Up gets invited to a
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: party and it brings along his dumbass friend honeyd Okay,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I I respect that. I don't really you know, I
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: don't have a horse in the in the honeydew fight.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: I guess I like the name. I wouldn't get angry
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: at someone like the next time we get together if
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: someone says, hey, would you like some honey dude, I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: think I'll just say no. I won't be like swinging
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: on them. You ever heard an old Southern lady referred
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to her handyman as her honeydew? Uh No, But those
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: people are having an affair, it seems so. So this
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: is ah, this is the environment in which this is
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: taking place. And as you know, with any powerful entity,
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: appearance is key. Right. You want to seem like you
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: are liked, You wanted to seem like you are representative
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: of the attitudes of all the people that are within
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: your sphere of influence, because otherwise why would you be
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: in charge? So Alan says, you know, this is where
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: two very different organization styles come to a head. The
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: civil rights movement has made itself based on grassroots, bottom
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: up actions from the community, but the power structure has
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: completely opposite approach, its top down. And so when these
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: folks are organizing this, people of all faiths, people of
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: all demographics, dinner at this place called the Dinkler Plaza Hotel,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: which despite the name, was quite classy. It's just don't
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: think that exists anymore. I haven't heard of the Tinkler
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Plus hotel. It also just, in my opinion, doesn't sound
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: like the most impressive name, Like what's that Is it
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the department store that's supposed to be sort of fancy
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that has an unfortunate name. It's not Dillard's, that's the one.
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: Dillard's doesn't sound like those clothes should cost as much
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: as they do. I know, it just makes me think
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: of like a Dullard, you know, yeah, is kind of boring.
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: Only where by beige there and the and it all, Uh,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: it all matches the honeydew right. So so okay, so
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: our mayor one of our main characters here, Ivan Alan Jr.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: He's another junior. He says, all right, I'm gonna drum
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: up some support from the city's business community. I'm mayor
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: of Atlanta. I got connects. My rolodex is deep. But
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: he also notices that a lot of the people who
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: are ignoring these invitations are not responding or outright saying
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: ha ha, no way. They're largely white leaders. And one
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: guy whose name is still kind of an open secret,
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: but he's always reported as an unnamed banker, he allegedly
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: starts phoning everyone he knows in town, urging them not
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: to go. And then The New York Times, a paper
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of note, still probably high off their own celebration of
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: Dr King, they published a story that makes this national news,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and the headline says, tribute to Dr King disputed in Atlanta. Well,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: we have to assume too that a businessman of this
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: type of banker isn't just discouraging people from going. He's
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: probably got a little juice and saying, if you go
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: to this thing, and I know that you go to
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: this thing, then I may or may not be able
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: to continue doing business with you. That's where the rubber
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: hits the road here. In December sixty four, the Atlanta
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Constitution said there were some strong feelings about the matter
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: regarding the banquet, and Atlanta leaders had mixed feelings and
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: perhaps some reluctance in sponsoring the banquet, and they said
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: there was some behind the scenes controversy. So reporters were
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: noting this and they said one of the big things
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: about it was the points Talmage raised that you mentioned earlier,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the idea that King was a lawbreaker because he participated
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: in a strike against another Atlantic company, Scripto Incorporated. And
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: this led a lad to a bad uh, a bad
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: association with King amongst the titans of industry. Jim Buris
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: over at MPR reported about this. He was talking with
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: one of the king's descendants, King the Third, and he
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: said Atlanta was trying to move slow, and you know,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: King the Third, King three had a very um, I think,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: a very good retrospective look at this, right, He had
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: this to say, uh quote, they were not going to
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: show up. And again it was fear. We were still
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: a divided nation. We were just getting ready to get
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a Civil Rights Act. Birmingham in the sixte had been explosive.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: The churches have been bombed in sixty three, and people
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: were just nervous and afraid. Yeah, and that's uh. And
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: anxiety and fear are communicable diseases. Right. So as the
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: days take by, the mayor himself is getting worried. He's saying,
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it's looking more and more like our
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: big party that we wanted to make international news is
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: going to be abandoned. It's gonna be crickets in the audience.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: So he said, this is gonna make my city look terrible,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: not just now but forever. And more importantly, this can
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: turn back the clock on all the progress we've been
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: trying to make in racial relations. I'm sure he's like,
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: I need help. I've got to do something. So he
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: goes back to his deep mayoral rolodex, and he knows
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: there's one guy he can call, a man who doesn't
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: have an official position but used to be the president
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: of Coca Cola. Now that he's no longer the president,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: he spends his days on the each Away plantation in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: southwest Georgia. His name Robert Woodroffe, isn't it Funny how
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: you can often tell if a historical you know, high
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: muckety muck was progressive or not based on whether they
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: their name is attached to like museums and arts centers
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: and things like that. We have the Woodroffe Arts Center
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: here in Atlanta. You have the Maddox Bridge up in
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: uh two eighty five, which I make sure to spit
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: on every time I drive a bridge. Usually racists just
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: get bridges or overpasses, you know, or stone mountain or
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: weird self aggrandizing statues. Yeah so, uh so this guy
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: would drow he is this to me, this feels like
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: a very Southern thing, although it happens all around the world. Uh.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: He became president of Coca Cola in nine and he
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: was a big part of Coca Cola's growth during his
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: time as president. And if you we fast forwarded several decades, right,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: it's nineteen sixty four, he's no longer officially in power,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: but what he says goes put bluntly. He is the
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: most powerful dude in town. And uh he is not
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: necessarily the most progressive guy, because I remember he's from
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: the twenties. Well, you know, progressives a relative term in
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: this in this day and age that we're discussing here.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: So that being said, he was relatively progressive for the time,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: and he was concerned with you know, image, of course,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and he was concerned with how his city would come across.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: He recognized Dr King's influence and this movement as a
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: very real thing, and he the very least didn't want
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: to be on the wrong side of history and didn't
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: when Atlanta to be on the wrong side of history. Yeah,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: and the mayor is over at his plantation and he's saying, look, Woody, uh,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: we have a huge problem. We're not selling any tickets
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: at dinner. It's gonna be a massive embarrassment. And also,
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: we just spent so much money on this national ad
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: campaign call calling Atlanta a city too busy to hate.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: This is not a good look for us. And so
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: old Woody by the way, he had just fallen off
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: a horse, so he's laid up recovering and he goes,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: you know, I agree with you. Let me make some
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: fogel calls. He probably said, let me make some telephone calls,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and they get the current president of Coca Cola. There's
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: also the CEO, a guy named Paul Austin to get
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: all of the business cabal together at the elite Piedmont
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: Driving Club, which is familiar to our palle Matt Frederick.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, she crabs super I'll never forget, but yeah,
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: this guy Austin was from Lagrange, Georgia, UM, and he
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: actually had spent quite a bit of time living and
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: working in South Africa fourteen years actually, so he was
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: there in the thick of apartheid UM and UH and
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: all of the awful racist uh implications that were wrapped
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: up in that. So he he understood these things again
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: at the very least had a negative impact on the economy,
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: right right, he could he could at least think of
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: that stuff in economic quantitative terms. So he said, I
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: don't want this to happen in Atlanta. So he gets
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: these guys together in private, and he is probably driven
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: in part not just by Woody and the mayor, but
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: by that New York Times article that was a front
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: page article that made him feel terrible, so he wanted
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to flex muscle. He and his team are talking these
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: business leads at the Driving Club, and at first they're
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: phrasing things in terms of like unity, right, warm and
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: fuzzy building a better tomorrow. But in case that didn't work,
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: they also brought Coca Cola is huge economic weight to
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: the table. He said, some high test stuff. UM. One
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: of the quotes he had, we have a couple of
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: people were calling this night. One of the quotes he
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: said was, it's embarrassing for Coca Cola to be located
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: in a city that refuses to honor its Nobel Prize winner.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: We are on on international business. The Coca Cola Company does
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: not need Atlanta. You all need to decide whether Atlanta
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: needs the Coca Cola company. Shots fired. You know, it's interesting.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: I mean this is actually kind of come around again
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: recently in the last handful of years, when um, there
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: was that Heartbeat bill situation and you know a lot
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: of the film production companies threatened to leave. Is now
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: a big, you know, big business here in Atlanta as
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: film but also I think Delta I was talking about
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: moving or that there was a lot of you know,
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: big corporations and industries based in Atlanta that did just this.
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: You know, UM collectively kind of threw their weight around,
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: uh in order to enact positive change. Yeah, a hundred percent.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: And this is this is something that companies of that
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: size can do so. King the third would later recall
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: I think he was speaking when Jim Burris still he said,
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: And you know what happened after that? The business leaders
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: showed up. They pretty much strong armed a lot of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: members of the Atlanta business community to respond to the
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: invite to buy their tickets. Former un and ascador Andrew
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: Young said, he just hammered them. He said, Austin was like, look,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: we're not going to stay in a city that's going
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: to have this kind of reaction, and so think about it.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: You choose how you want to go, because Coca Cola
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: is gonna be fine, gentlemen, what about your city? What
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: about your businesses? I yield my time and they decided,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: yeah they did, and consequently, uh, the event sold out
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: like like hot cakes. Um. And also this of course
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: raised the profile of the event as as a news item,
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: you know, and just had a lot of eyes on
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: it because of all this controversy and the fact that
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: these uh, this business was able to make the kind
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: of business community cave. Yeah this. You know, it's funny
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: you said that, because now that I think about it,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: I have never in my life been to a place
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: that is sold out of hot cakes. I don't think
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: I even know what a hot cake is. It's like
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: a biscuit, right, I thought it was like a pancake,
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: a cake, like a mini pancake. Well, elis, if you've
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: ever seen something selling like hotcakes or if they've sold out, well,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: we always assume was a good thing. Anyway. Yeah, so
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: they're sold out, and uh, we're getting a lot of
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: this stuff from another author, Mark Pendergrass, who wrote of
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: God Country and Coca Cola much pathier title. Yes, yeah, yeah, brevity.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: That's my favorite way to revise the quote. Brevity is
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: the soul of wit. Just say brevity. It's implied, it's impressed.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: So over one thousand five people are going and this
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: is not as big as the eight thousand people in
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: New York, but that's still huge for Atlanta. And one
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: thing it was funny is there were a lot of
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: police that were assigned to hold the perimeter of din
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: Clar Plaza because the power structure was very concerned that
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: there would be massive protests. You know, they wanted to
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: paint these protesters as violent, even though they were obvious
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: as lee not violent. The police had nothing to do.
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's still a class system, so
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: they weren't allowed to walk in and get some snacks.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: But there was no discord. There's no huge descent. And
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Pendergrass points out something important here, mission critical. He says,
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: if Robert Woodruff, who could run the town of Atlanta,
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: if he had not let it be known that the
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: white business community was going to honor Dr King at
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: this dinner, it would not have happened. If he hadn't
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: pulled that card. This would history would have gone very differently. Yeah,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and King, you know, he didn't gloat or anything, or
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: or even let on to any of this controversy at all. Um.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if he commented on it. I bet
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: he probably did to some degree prior to the speech.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: But once it was all said and done, he got
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: out there and and made his speed saying, quote, this
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: marvelous hometown, welcome, and honor will remain dear to me
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: as long as the chords of memory he shall Lengthen
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: what a class act. Yeah. Yeah, and just by comparison here,
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: let's let's this is I think are great for us
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: to wrap up on. So the event goes on. Former
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: Ambassador Young recalls this. He said, the event goes on
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: like there have never been a controversy at all. And
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: the same people who are trying to shut the whole
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: thing down, the same people who a few of whom
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: definitely hated Dr King, they stood up and saying we
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: shall overcome. At the end, they knew where their breath. Yeah,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: you gotta love it, you gotta love it. So okay,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: this teaches us, I think a lot of stuff, not
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: to moralize, but it shows us that, you know, you
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: can use money for power, right, And these guys, I
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: would say, based on what we've learned today, I would
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: say a lot of the members of that community, that
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: power ructure, I would say they were just doing this
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: because they felt their economic future was at stake, right,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: or their political future. But still they that was enough
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: to make them do the right thing, even if your
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: motivations were intent. Is is important, certainly, but also so
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: is getting things done and laying the groundwork for hopefully
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: others to at least read the tea leaves correctly. You know,
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: this thing wasn't going away, you know, the idea of
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: the fruits of white supremacy, I mean that was gonna
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: be relegated to the shadows um pretty quickly. Yeah, well
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's the hope here and again. Coca
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: Cola has a lot of its own war stories across
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: the planet. Is a huge company. It moves billions of
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: dollars of all kinds of things, and it owns more
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: brands than you might think it does. A lot of
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: is ultimately owned by Coke. But in this case, it
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: looks like Woody and his pal Austin did the right thing,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: and so did the mayor. And I think, uh, you know, no,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: as we get towards the end of the year, man,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: I think this is kind of a a good story.
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: I like wholesome stuff at the end of the year
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: for sure. And you know, I mean it's easy to
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: kind of you know, look askance at these giant corporations
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: and then realize that at the end of the day,
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of these big decisions are based around money.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: But it is nice to see when those decisions go
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: the right direction, you know, um as opposed to you know,
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: being like completely evil, right right, be too complete can
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: glomco about stuff. So here's where we're gonna please tune
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: in for our upcoming episodes. We've got some got some
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: really cool stuff. On the way organized crime We've got
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: oh gosh, I don't even want to spoil all of them,
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: but in the meantime, do check out our peer podcast
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: were Diculous Crime, Ridiculous News and Ridiculous Romance. Thanks as
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: always the super producer Max Williams, Thanks for our research
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: associate Jeff Bartlett. Huge thanks to Christopher Hastiotes here in
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: spirit Alex Williams, who compose this theme. I think we've
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: got a scheduled Quister crash coming up and the Natus
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: in future. Yes, yes, no, we did. We did reach
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: out on the other side. So folks, here's what it's like. Uh.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Picture picture the three of us with one of those
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: red telephones kind of like in the Cold War with
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: the U S and the U S s R. Yeah,
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: or the Bath phone or the Bath vhone. So we
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: picked up, we picked up the phone, we said the
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: code words, and we are a go to have the
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: one and only Quister return. Tune in for that. Tune
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: in for what he himself has described with great enthusiasm
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: for some reason, as the cringe eest segment in all
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: of podcastings. We will see you next time. Phones for
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.