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Rosa Parks: Agent of Change · Stuff You Should Know

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