April 15, 2025 • 35 mins
Diallo Riddle (Sherman's Showcase, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon) travels with Arturo to the 1970's where they unveil an escape of historic proportions by the American revolutionary Assata Shakur.
Read this episode's transcript on Mental Floss: https://www.mentalfloss.com/columns/greatest-escapes
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey guys, welcome to Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you
the wildest.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
True escape stories of all time.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
On this episode, we're going to head back to the
nineteen seventies for the daring daylight jailbreak of a true
American revolutionary. I'm Mortcastro, and for this journey, I'm joined
by the incredible talent, actor, writer, producer, and DJ Diallo Riddle.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Dallo Riddle. Am I saying your name completely right?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Or completely You said.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
It completely right, Diallow Riddle. You know people sometimes mistake
di'allo for Diablo. My mother in law said that my
to b wife could not date me because but.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
My mom did warm me about having the Diablo on
Like I have questions.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Diablo was surprisingly available.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know you're thinking, but right now the world's kind
of fucked, so.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It seems really busy. He seems really busy.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
May I ask the origin of your name?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So my name is d'allo nob uh two ills. Actually
it's from West Africa. Diallo amir Riddle. It stands for
bold prince riddle in a West African language known as
Fulani Fulanilani.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So I'm from Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
You know, my parents just wanted to give me a
name from Africa because you know, black Pride, and that
is how you end up with a bold Prince Riddle
aka Diallo Amir Riddle.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
You know, at the beginning of my career, I did
a few Nigerian films and they call them Nollywood. So
anything from West Africa films they call it Nollywood. And
it was amazing because you know, obviously, like we'd go
off to shoot in Lowell, Massachusetts and they'd be like,
come make we go a white boy, and.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I'm like, I'm not white. It looks like me, No,
you want a white boy.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
You know what's funny is on one of our shows,
Sherman Showcase, we uh, you know, we just shot a
proof of concept, which you know is a fancy industry
term for essentially we shot like the best five or
ten minutes of a script and showed it to the
network and we got picked up the series.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
But in that relations oh thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
In that proof of concept, we had a essentially what
was a Nollywood movie trailer. And in that trailer, because
we have we have we have a couple of Nigerian
writers on our staff, and we thought it was so
funny that they were. Like, if you watch enough of
these Nigerian Nollywood movies, a lot of times the twist
is that somebody is a witch in some way.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Every trailer it was she a witch.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, and it's usually the preacher who's also kind of
a love interest, Like who reveals this story?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Tell me about your greatest escape.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It doesn't even have to be life threatening, it just
has to be one of those like whoa I got
away with that.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Very few people know this story.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
But actually, when I was about seventeen, I'm filling out
college applications and so I went to the store. Because
you couldn't email the men back then, you had to
like print them out on paper and send them in.
So I go to the local drug store to pick
up some paper.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I'm literally buying.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Paper to go to college and build a better life.
When a guy came in and held up the convenience
store and I remember he said, everybody on the floor,
and I remember how like I had never seen a
handgun wielded, you know, in person before, and I just
remember thinking, that is a gigantic gun. And so we
all got down on our stomachs and I'm like, you know,
(03:55):
praying and like, you know, just thinking like, oh, if
I can just get out of here and mail off
my college application, I will never come back to this
Ecker drugs man. So this is a great escape of
someone else that actually saved my life potentially, because you know,
everybody in this store, there weren't many of us at
the time.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I thought, like, you know, he might be like no witnesses,
you know, and what a thought.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
And then somebody ran out the back like it was
probably an employee, and just something about that emergency door
jamming open, like the guy just grabbed a bunch of
money out of the register and then ran back out
the front. And then I got up and I picked
up my paper, and I'm pretty sure I just walked
down with my paper. I think I was like, they're
going to have a lot of paperwork to fill out,
and I don't know that I want to.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Hang out here.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I'm not here for it.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
I'm not trying to be like, you know, I can't
identify the guy. All I saw was a black glove
on a gun. I'm out of here.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Have you ever wanted to get to Cuba? Have you
ever been to Cuba?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Or I did? I really wanted to get to Cube.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I mean, like, oh, man, you know, Cuba is such
a obviously it's such a complicated social political topic. But
I've always wanted, in my heart of hearts there to
be like a very simple way to just fly out
of Lax you know, into Cuba and just you know,
go and visit and go around and see the country.
So it's one of those places I've really wanted to go.
(05:16):
I feel like every time I get a chance to
go something something comes up.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Now, Cuba is important in today's story for two reasons. Now,
first the revolution in nineteen fifty nine that inspired a
ton of people in the next couple of decades, and second,
Cuba dozen extradye people today United States, which takes us
back to the end of the nineteen seventies and one
of the most significant prison escapes in American history.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
It was November two, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Three men walked into the Correctional Facility for women in Clinton,
New Jersey, sometime between one and four pm. Each of
the visitors showed their ID and they gave their names
and addresses and were entered into the prison visitor log,
but none of the information they gave was so you see,
this wasn't any old visit. These men were complete revolutionaries,
(06:06):
and they arrived to pull off one of the most
staring jail breaks of the century in complete daylight. Afterwards,
the only true thing the guards knew about him is
that they looked seventies as hell. I'm talking afros, full beards, sideburns,
a guy with a base behind him, going.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Okay, that last part isn't true, but what that be awesome?
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So if you were gonna help with the jail break,
how would you disguise yourself?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Like, what would you be wearing for this?
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh man? Probably all black?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Right, you gotta go like full you know what panthers slash,
you know, calm cruise when he's like rappling in from
the ceiling. That's that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I would wear.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I would like wear like really thick eyebrows, because that's
the one thing that people would describe me as.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
They're like and then I just rip them off and
you have these ones.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I couldn't have been here. I'm looking out. Then those
zyebras are.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
The first man alone. He was checked through the registration
building in the minimum security area of the prison. Then
he climbed into a van that drove him across the
prison grounds to the South Hall. Now this was the
prison's maximum security area. But and this is key, okay,
he was not searched.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
He wasn't.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
No. Instead, he was let through the extra fencing around
the South Hall, and then the guards led him down
to the glass booth, where he sat down to visit
with an inmate.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Now you got I got it.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Put seventies nineteen seventies security teams like I just feel
like yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
They were just like, yeah, I don't care, you can
go through. Who are you here to see? Yeah, okay, sure,
go ahead.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Man.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
It reminds me of that Simpsons episode where like mister
Burns has to go through like eight levels of security
to get down to the nuclear reactor, but then a
cat wanders in through a broken.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So the next two men arrived soon after, and they
did the same thing. They passed through registration without being searched, okay,
and were shuttled into the prison van in the South Hall.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Literally, nobody gave a fuck.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, I mean it's the seventies.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Everybody was packing and nobody was checking.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
When they came to the fence around the South Hall,
and it was open for them. They sprang into their
escape plan. They pulled out guns on the van driver
while the gate hung open. Now inside the visiting booth,
the first man turned to the prison guard who was
watching the visit, and he whipped out two pistols out
from under his jacket.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
That one and like you know, shoved into his crotch
or like literally two guns.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He was our own style.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Something must have given it away when he had like
a bullet belt around him. So holding the garden there
at gunpoint, he forced her to open the booth up
from behind the glass walked activists, black panther and soldier
of the Black Liberation Army a Sata shaquor.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
That's right, yep yep Asadakor.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Suddenly free from herself, Asada and her visitor took the
guard hostage and they marched outside. They climbed into the
van with the other two men, and now the four
revolutionary and their two hostages were able to drive the
prison van right out of the main prison gate. They
reached a nearby parking lot where their getaway cars were
part waiting.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So Asauna and her rescuers left from.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
The van and into the cards and just fucking peeled away.
The prison guards were left handcuffed in the prison van,
but unharmed. Now everybody started flipping the fuck out. Roadblocks
were rushed out onto the highway to stop the escaping vehicles,
but conflicting reports flew in right. Some said they were
in a blue Pondiac and a blue Cadillac, and no, no, no,
(09:34):
they were in a Ford Maverick and a two toll Lincoln.
No no, no, they had massive eyebrows. Everybody had massive hours,
no confusing all the way. So the contradictory reports may
have been the saving grace of the escapees. Before officials
could decide which roads could be shut down and where
to hunt, Asauna and her allies were out of there.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Asada Shakur was free.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
It's insane, yellow.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What do you know about Asada Shagar's life and why
she was in prison?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I mean, admittedly, you know, my my father was a
painter in South Central now called South LA during the
time of the Watts riots, and so you know, he
used to, you know, do paintings and sculptures about you know,
the ghettos in the in the hood back then.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
And I always felt like even though he wasn't like
a black panther. Growing up in our household, we definitely
understood the point of view that like our community needed
you know, uplift and it needed, you know, certain things
to reach its full potential.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So the idea of like Asada Shakur.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
And Mumia abou Jamal, like these were not random names
to us, Like these were people who we knew.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
In our household.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
And and honestly, when Tupac Shakur first blew up, I
was like, is that Asada son? And of course you
know Asada Shakur was the godmother.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Of that's rights.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah, and I think his mom, Afienie Shakur was a
was a good friend of Asadas.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And you know this is a little off topic, but
let me ask you something because you bring up something
interesting about I didn't know that about your father. Do
you think that you got from him the desire to
express yourself and surroundings and sort of your point of
view through art, be it to a through a writer,
acting perspective.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
But no, you listen, you ask something that not many
people have ever asked, but it's got a very very
clear and strong answer, which is that absolutely one hundred percent.
You know, my father started off at La City College
doing still life, like he would paint pears, you know,
in bowls and you know, light coming through a window
on a villa.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
But you know, at the end of the day.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Once the Watts Rice broke out, he was like, I
can't do pears and bowls and still life anymore. I
have to do art that means something. And he's sort
of instilled, you know, in us. Even before I knew
that I wanted to be an artist in my own way,
even though before I knew I wanted to be creative
with my profession, he always said that he felt like
art without any social commentary had no interest to him.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You know.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
He felt like everything that he did had to have
some not message. He wasn't trying to be polemic, but
it was just that he had a point of views. Yeah,
it had to have a point of view. It had
to have a very strong point of view. And I
think that in my work to this day, everything from
Sherman Showcase The South Side to some of the shows
that we're working on now, I always think, what will
(12:19):
this contribute to the world. It doesn't have to be
anything like, oh, it's gonna get people to wake up
about climate change. It's not like that. It's just more like,
how will this make lives? You know, people's lives better.
Even if it's just to say it's going to be
so funny that it's going to give people who have
had a hard week, it's going to bring them a
little bit of joy. That is enough. There has to
be something in there like that for me to be interested.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
What a fascinating thing to be able to witness that.
If you see your dad's paintings from before the riots
and after the riots, and you know how you just climb.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And then suddenly so we're just watching it.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I love the moment where you watch an artist find
find their voice, you know, and visually being able to
witness it must be really fascinating and impactful as a
young man.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah, John Thomas Riddle, he's you know, his artwork is
up at the California African American Art Museum and the
Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
So it's it's you know, he had a great career.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Sadly, as many people who work in that field know,
the second that he died, his art skyrocket in value.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Because there's not going to be anymore. That's the way I
think about that.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
We'll put up a link at the bottom of this episode,
so people going to check out you dad's art. Man.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think that'd be really cool.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Okay, so we've heard about ASADA's legendary prison escape, but
now we're going to jump back and hear the story
of the real person behind the legend. So, dell, well,
you know a lot of this already, but for the listener,
we're going to go way way back.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Okay. Asada was born in Queens, probably in the year
nineteen forty seven, though the exact date is kind of lost.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So she was born with the name Joanne and her
family called her Joey. It was only later that you
would leave it behind and become a Soda. Grew up
with her mother and her on, and when she was three,
her grandparents bought a beach property in Wilmington, North Carolina.
So they moved south and they took a Soda with him. Now,
and this is a really beautiful solo memory, I think.
Asana says that while in Wilmington, the women in her
(14:15):
grandmother's generation became her role models.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
They would some rivers and.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Shoot the head off a snake and plant a garden,
saw a pattern, kill a hog, and also quite a
little fussing baby, all at the same time. Do you
have any older women in your life that you consider
bound asses like that?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I have an aunt Joanne
a relation to a soada. Oh shoot, now it comes out,
that's what we got.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
To come storming my booth. I'm like, I don't, what
do you want with me?
Speaker 4 (14:45):
They're so I mean, like every I feel like all
the women in my family are badass in their own way.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
But you know what's really.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Interesting about what you say about them moving from New York.
I think you said Queen's to North Carolina. I grew
up in Atlanta. And the thing about Atlanta is, I
think we have more trees, you know, per square inch
than any major city in the country.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
We have these woods, and we have these really wild
areas that are right in the heart of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And as a result, you know, me.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And my friends right there in the city limits, we
learned how to fish and identify which makes are harmless
and which ones will kill you. And there's like this
this strait of wile, and I think that that's.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Really cool because unfortunately, every.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Time I see, you know, black people depicted on TV
in any kind of like rural or like river strewn area,
it's almost always like something about slavery. Like it's just
like they're always like running away from dogs trying.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
To like take them back into bondage.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
And I'm like, guys, there are a lot of rural
black people who like know how to like fish and
do the wildlife, you know, outdoors thing.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
You know, I love to hear stories like that.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Picking black joy in the outdoors is something too much of.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I totally hear you, dude.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Do Mike all alone in the archery club, like come
join me? Please?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Did every time I see a Latino person in the desert,
I'm like, oh, fuck, okay.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I know I know where this is going. I couldn't
have just been out for a fucking hike. Yeah, I
love hiking. Like every time everybody ever.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Catches me like outside like an out of a palm springs,
there's something they're like, oh, I know where you came from.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
No, you fucking go.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I came from the Ace Hotel, motherfucker, and I just
went for a nice little stroll.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Fuck you. I was just on a doom buggy. Okay,
forget y'all. That's right.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Okay, that's why I'm all fucking dirty and thirsty.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Okay, motherfucker, because I'm hungover.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So to paint a picture of like what Wilmington was
like at the time, public beaches around Wilmington were whites only,
So Asadast's grandparents moved onto their ocean front property and
opened it for business. Right, so they welcome black visitors,
sold refreshments, and rented umbrellas.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Smart.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, So her time on the.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Beach growing up became a sadast picture of what freedom
really means, right, watching people enjoy themselves, sharing treats with them,
dancing in the sand, kind of what we were talking
about about minority joy that you hardly ever see. After
elementary school, Asada moved back to New York, and after
moving around so much as a kid, she was convinced
that there wasn't a place in the United States where
(17:02):
she could actually escape discrimination. You know, it was everywhere,
both in the North and in the South. So in
her teens, Asada ended up back living with her on Eveling,
a lawyer who would eventually become a law professor at NYU. Okay,
now under Yeah, so under Evelyn's care, Asada made it
through high school and into college at the City College
in New York. The year ever go to City College
(17:23):
or visited that area at all in New York, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I don't think so. My time in New York was
a little bit limited.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
The only time I lived there was when I was
a writer for Jimmy Fallon and that was about four years.
And honestly, I went straight from my place in Upper
West Side straight to thirty Rocks, So I never really
got to know some parts of the city, like City College,
and that's where I've.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Got my first play, and like I had a mentor
who taught film classes there, so I'd come out auditors class.
So it still had those feelings that whenever you walk
into a place that has been really important to a city,
you still feel sort of the ghosts of the past there.
And that's what City College fell like to me of
learning than most people don't ever talk about.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
That's one of the best things about in New York
is that you feel like the past is all around you.
I will say that I think the ghosts of the
past were very much alive in the basement of my
New York building, Like I never wanted to go to
that laundry.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Oh, it's that's fully haunted. Haunted.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
In nineteen sixty seven, Assada joined other students at City
College to protest the lack of black professors and black
history being taught. Their entire group was arrested, and the
violence of these arrests made one thing clear. Asada knew
it would take a revolution for America to change. She
made more friends in other radical groups and took a
trip to California, which is the original home of the
(18:43):
Black Panthers. The Panthers there challenged her to get off
the sidelines and get involved, so she went home to
New York and she stepped it up. Was a Black
Panther party, something you were aware of growing up?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Yeah, I mean again, my father was, you know, very
much of that sort of generation. And I mean, like
we to grow up in my household was to know
Fred Hampton, Huey P.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Newton, you know my father.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Just to this day, I have a painting of his.
It's called Fairbanks or Garvy, and it's got a prominent
picture of Marcus Garvey, you know in the painting. You know,
like you definitely instilled upon us that we should take
great pride in our.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
People, our accomplishments.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
You know, one thing that he said to me back
when I was young that didn't really register until I
had my own kids was just this idea, and this
applies to you and everybody who's listening, is that there
have been so many wars and conflicts and genocides and plagues.
Everybody alive today is a bloodline that survived all that
from the beginning of freaking time. I think that's so
(19:44):
amazing that all of us have an ancestor who was
able to jump over a rhino, you know, survive a flood.
Oh yeah, man, I mean, like, you know, just the
idea that all of us have managed to survive all
of human history and get to the point where we're
now talking into you know, machines and over invisible waves.
(20:05):
It's kind of amazing. But I think that, Yeah, my
father's lesson would have been just that, you know, take
pride in what human stock you come from, and try
to instill that same pride in your children.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
That's beautiful, man.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
In nineteen sixty six, Hueing Newton and Bobby Seal founded
the Black Panther Party in Oakland. By nineteen sixty nine,
the Panthers had branches all across the country. They built
networks of mutual aid, They ran medical clinics, they held
educational programs and served breakfast for kids and poverty.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, I mean that was sort of the main appeal.
I think.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
You know, anytime you hear people talk about the Panthers nowadays,
you always hear about that, you know, shout out to
my friends, the Lucas brothers. I thought they did an
amazing job on the script for Judas and the Black Messie.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
If you watched that movie, I guarantee, first off, I think.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
That you know, I know that Daniel got nominated for
a lot of stuff in that movie. But to me,
le Keith Stanfield is he's such a Robert de Niro
at a young age, Like I just feel like the
Keith is he disappears into this character.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
He plays every level. If even if you just like
a good movie.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
I would actually recommend Judas in the Black Nosiah. But
I'd also point out that that movie points out that
the Panthers weren't It wasn't an organization that started like, yeah,
we're gonna get a bunch of guns and kill people.
That's not what it was really about.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And okay, great.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
You know it represents that side of the story that
you don't get told unless you, you know, do research.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
It was nineteen seventy when Asada joined the Panthers in
New York. By that point there were Panther offices in
sixty eight cities.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Wow I saw.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
His first role with the Panthers was running the children's
Bakfast program in Harlem. She became the head of the
Harlem office, responsible for the free clinics and the community outreach.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Okay, so Shakour is an Arabic name for thankful.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Many Panthers in New York took the name to represent
their unity, and Asato was among them. When Panther leader
Fred Hampton was murdered by the Chicago police, many party
members were convinced that mutual aid wasn't enough, you know,
they had to fight back, literally, So some of the
New York Panthers started to go underground, living under assumed
names and keeping low profile. Asato was one of them.
(22:21):
She disappeared from her family and friends. She knew that
her aunt, her mom, and her grandparents were all being
watched by the police. So ASADA's name started to hit
the headlines in the early nineteen seventies. So the police
wanted her for bank robberies, bombings, and the murder of
police officers. She seems to have been in so many
places at the same time, you know, like, how could
she have hid banks in the Bronx and in Brooklyn
(22:43):
and in New Orleans is so close together. Apparently the
police didn't really care so much about the timelines because
they didn't add up.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
I'd forgotten about the bank robberies. It's so interesting to
me because as a storyteller and in somebody who loves
movies and books and stuff, especially about true crime. You know,
you sort of see a lionization of people like Billy
the Kid and Mom Baker and Bonnie and Clyde, like
you sort of see them as sort of held up
a's like these were outlaws you.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Can root for. But you never really hear that.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Abouts too apparently, so you know, it just depends on sometimes,
like how people feel about a person.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
So in May nineteen seventy three, after she had lived
for two years underground, Asada was captured. She was riding
in the front seat of a white Pontiac with two
other activists, say Malik Shakur and Sundiata Akali. They were
traveling the New Jersey Turnpike when they saw police lights
behind them. The police report says that it had a
broken taylight. So there are two versions of what happened next.
(23:51):
The first one says that when the state police officer
told the driver to get out of the car, Asada
started shooting from the passenger seat. A firefight ensued and
in the storm of bullets, two police officers were shot
and one was killed alongside, said Shakor. After shooting two
police officers, Asada was hid in the chest and the shoulder,
and that was what the police said happened. But Asada
(24:14):
remembers it very differently. She says that when the police
stopped them, her hands were up and as the shooting
started around them, she was hit by a bullet before
she could even leave the seat in her car. She
says that she never even had a gun let alone
and fired one. A Colliue was able to jump back
in the car and race another five miles down the turnpike,
chased by three police cars. Now, when the road was
(24:37):
closed and a Collie was finally forced to pull over,
he jumped out of the car and race into the woods.
Assada stepped out and slowly approached the police covered in blood.
She was arrested and rushed to the hospital, and her
years of imprisonment began. She was held under armguard for
twenty four hours a day, and in her later writings,
Asada would describe the ways that she was tortured by
(24:57):
the New Jersey State Police while off to a hospital bed,
all the while she was fighting to recover.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
From her own bullet wounds. And she never fucking cracked.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, dude, I would fucking like interrogation and me would break.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Bro, Like I don't, I wouldn't survive.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
My aunt looks at me funny, and I'm like, I'll
confess the shit I haven't even done.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Let me tell you first off, well that's that's that's
actually the case to be made against torture, right. They
always say experts on torture say torture doesn't actually work
because at some point people just want the torture to end.
So you can say, like you are Mickey Mouse, and
people will be like, oh.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
You know, like.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Handed, They're like, man, he's lost his mind. But I
love it.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
I mean, I always tell people I'm like, don't tell
me anything because I will probably snitch, like you know,
like I'll just like to keep my nose cleans out
of speak because like you know, I.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Don't want to know.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
I don't want to know, and I feel like I
give off that energy.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So when she was finally strong enough to be moved,
Asada left the hospital to the Middlesex County Workhouse, where
she was the only female prisoner at the jail. It
was the first of many men's prisons where she would
be held while the charges against her went forward. They
were extremely fucking scared of her. It's so wild that
they have to keep her in a men's prison now
her A Evelyn left her job at NYU and took
(26:17):
on ASADA's legal case full time. That July fourth, Evelyn
brought a tape recorder with her and recorded A. Sada's
most famous statement, which came to be known as to
my People. She introduced herself to the world as Asada Shakur,
Black Revolutionary. She said, there is and always will be
until every black man, woman and child is free a
(26:37):
black liberation army. And it was closed with a line
from the communist manifesto, we have nothing.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
To lose but our change.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Evelyn spread the recording and it played on black radio
stations all around New York. Magazines were printed it and
white media figures of course, Wind and Wind about it.
Reporters were actually banned from meeting with Asada. You see,
her voice was so powerfull. Imagine that that the judges
and the cops and the prison guards were just scrambling
to keep up with her even though she was locked up.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
In nineteen seventy four, Assada finally went to trial, but
guess what, she kept beating the charges.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
First, she was acquitted of some robbery charges. A month later,
she was tried for killing a police officer, but there
was an evidence against her and the case was dismissed.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
In January nineteen seventy six, Assada faced a kidnapping charge
and she beat that too. When she was finally tried
for the Queen's Bank, the first case that had actually
put her in the paper, Asada was easily acquitted.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Like what damn.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
The photograph published by the police didn't look like her
at all.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
The bank manager who had been there for the robbery.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
I'm sorry they did a drawing and it didn't look
like her.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Well, the photograph that they put out of who had
actually robbed the bank, you know, so it's sort of
the photo evidence right off the bank didn't look like.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Her at all.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, it's really flimsy.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Charges And the bank manager who had been there for
the robbery testified that Asada was not the woman who
had held him at gunpoint.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
He's like, no, it was a redhead woman. And she
was like, I'm Wendy, Like I don't I played like.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
These these facial recognition features on some of the on
some of the robots nowadays, like they have a harder
time recognizing black people because the people who programmed them
just didn't use a lot of black subjects. So like
they're just like they look at me and they're like, ahh,
that's Martin Luther King.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
No, no, man, fuck, I don't really look like King anyway.
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So, in nineteen seventy seven, the victories for Asada finally
came to an end. Right she was found guilty of
first degree murder along with many other charges, for the
shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. Now halfway through the trial,
ASADA's new lawyer, Stanley Cohen was found dead in his
fucking apartment.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Is that I didn't even know announce it that. I'm lurry.
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So he had been collecting evidence against the police witnesses,
recruiting forensic chemists to show that there was no evidence
of gunfire on Assata's hands, and uncovering what he believed
were falsified documents in the prosecution's case. So fucked up,
And the newspapers reported that Stanley died of natural causes.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
So we're not saying that the police killed or are we, like,
cause that'd be crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
You know, there were a.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Lot of suspicious deaths back in those days, and I
do think that, you know, we have forensics have come
a long way, right since nine seventy whatever this was.
I mean like, but it is suspicious that he died
of unknown causes. I mean, like, I don't even watch
unsolved mysteries. Yeah, I like my mysteries and solved. The
worst thing about unsolved mysteries is that like when they
(29:43):
come to the other they're like, did they die or
did they just disappear? And then they start rolling the
crash They're like that's not satisfying.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
But that's unsolved mysteries, which at least like come with
a built in like I played myself, I fucking eat
documentaries that are five fucking ninety minute episodes long. And
then the it's like, we don't know if he faked
his own death or he didn't tell me that at
the beginning. Man. Now, once she was convicted, Asada was
(30:13):
moved to yardbuilt prison in New Jersey. Her young daughter
went to live with her mother in New York, and
Asada and the other members of the Underground knew that
they couldn't rely on justice from the courts. Instead, they
planned her prison breaks. So let's do a cool little
recap of the prison break. As I understand it, three
people went in. They never got searched. One went particularly
(30:36):
to visit Asada, pulled out two massive pistols. He had
a Mexican bandido gun belt as well. That part I
added myself. There were seventies music playing. Everybody had Cyeburns,
they had afros. They jumped into the van, they like
sped off and they got away with it. So far,
so good, great. I really hope Benju adds really cool
seventy music to the background of all that. After Asada
(31:02):
was busted out, the FEDS put her back on their
most wanted lists, and just like the years before, they
started linking her to a series of crimes, right saying
they spotted her at the scenes of shootings and burglaries
and other stuff like that. After a few years past,
the FBI started getting reports that Asada had made it
to Cula, the home of the revolution that inspired the
Black Panthers in the beginning. When Asada published a biography
(31:25):
in nineteen eighty seven, she described her life of imprisonment
and exile, but she actually.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Sounded happy to be in Gula.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
She called it a country of hope, and she ended
her book with a series of poetic meditations on her
life there, about the openness and beauty of Havana and
of the Cuban culture. And there, beyond the reach of
the US government, Asada was finally able to pick up
a telephone, call home and talk with her family for
the first time in five years. In twenty twenty two,
(31:52):
Assada celebrated her seventy fifth birthday in Cuba. The US
government is still working today to extra at her from
Cuba and in prison her again so Asada continues to
say that she also has a duty as long as
she lives, she's going to carry on the black liberation
struggle and despite everything, to continue to be human, to
(32:12):
be giving, and to be loving. What do you take
away from stories of panthers like Asda.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
I think police organizations have to realize that there were
some abuses that led to a lack of trust in
these communities and that there's a lot of healing.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
That has to take place.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It's not as simple as like, oh, this person did
this thing, which, by the way, as you've pointed out
in this podcast, is not cut and dry, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
In order for the healing to begin, like, the past
needs to be acknowledged.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
No, it's true, there's too much of that, Like, okay, guys,
this is the ancient past.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Can we just please move on this? There's too much
of that.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
And I think if you don't acknowledge the past, and
it's hard to move into the future, you know what
I mean. And I think that's why it's so disturbing
that there's so many places that are trying to whitewash
history right now, and they do it under the rubric
of this you know, basically law school centric concept of
critical race theory, and then they pretend that, oh, if
we teach people that America wasn't perfect.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Then that's critical race theory.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Like, no, you don't even know what You don't even
know what critical race theory is.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
If that's what you think.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
You can love something and want to improve something and
still acknowledge its flaws.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
You can love your father but also be like, hey dad,
stop drinking, stop drinking, stop thking.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Hey man, I am so honored to have had you
here before we go. Do you have anything that you
want to that you want.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Our listeners to look out for of yours? Coming up?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Man, there's so much coming up, from from the music
and the comedy of Sherman Showcase to what I think
is one of just the funniest uh you know, get
to know the characters type show Southside on HBO Max.
I think the easiest way for people to check out
some of the work that I and but Sheer have done.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Uh, follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
At Dallo, not Diablo and Dalloff.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That's a different account.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Diablo account gets all these followers now and they're like, I.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Don't know, man, this guy doesn't look like a DJ.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I gotta say he's pretty entertaining at d allo d
I A L l O. And you'll you'll always know
about like sort of what we're digging and what we're
producing and uh and yeah, man, thanks thanks for having
me on right.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Alred to have you, and thank you for being so
open about your dad and his art. And it means
a lot to us when when guests come on here
and they share moments to shape them. So thank you
so much for a friend of the show. You can
come back anytime, brother, Thank you so much. Breh bye.
Gratist Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
(34:47):
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio or executive producers for
me or Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Papelka from
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Winning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
and Dylan Fagan from I Radio. The show is produced
and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is
(35:08):
Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(35:38):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next
week
Hey guys, welcome to Greatest Escapes, a show bringing you
the wildest.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
True escape stories of all time.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
On this episode, we're going to head back to the
nineteen seventies for the daring daylight jailbreak of a true
American revolutionary. I'm Mortcastro, and for this journey, I'm joined
by the incredible talent, actor, writer, producer, and DJ Diallo Riddle.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Dallo Riddle. Am I saying your name completely right?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Or completely You said.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
It completely right, Diallow Riddle. You know people sometimes mistake
di'allo for Diablo. My mother in law said that my
to b wife could not date me because but.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
My mom did warm me about having the Diablo on
Like I have questions.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Diablo was surprisingly available.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
You know you're thinking, but right now the world's kind
of fucked, so.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
It seems really busy. He seems really busy.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
May I ask the origin of your name?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
So my name is d'allo nob uh two ills. Actually
it's from West Africa. Diallo amir Riddle. It stands for
bold prince riddle in a West African language known as
Fulani Fulanilani.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
So I'm from Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
You know, my parents just wanted to give me a
name from Africa because you know, black Pride, and that
is how you end up with a bold Prince Riddle
aka Diallo Amir Riddle.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh fantastic.
Speaker 1 (01:56):
You know, at the beginning of my career, I did
a few Nigerian films and they call them Nollywood. So
anything from West Africa films they call it Nollywood. And
it was amazing because you know, obviously, like we'd go
off to shoot in Lowell, Massachusetts and they'd be like,
come make we go a white boy, and.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
I'm like, I'm not white. It looks like me, No,
you want a white boy.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
You know what's funny is on one of our shows,
Sherman Showcase, we uh, you know, we just shot a
proof of concept, which you know is a fancy industry
term for essentially we shot like the best five or
ten minutes of a script and showed it to the
network and we got picked up the series.
Speaker 3 (02:34):
But in that relations oh thank you.
Speaker 4 (02:36):
In that proof of concept, we had a essentially what
was a Nollywood movie trailer. And in that trailer, because
we have we have we have a couple of Nigerian
writers on our staff, and we thought it was so
funny that they were. Like, if you watch enough of
these Nigerian Nollywood movies, a lot of times the twist
is that somebody is a witch in some way.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
Every trailer it was she a witch.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, and it's usually the preacher who's also kind of
a love interest, Like who reveals this story?
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Tell me about your greatest escape.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
It doesn't even have to be life threatening, it just
has to be one of those like whoa I got
away with that.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Very few people know this story.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
But actually, when I was about seventeen, I'm filling out
college applications and so I went to the store. Because
you couldn't email the men back then, you had to
like print them out on paper and send them in.
So I go to the local drug store to pick
up some paper.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I'm literally buying.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
Paper to go to college and build a better life.
When a guy came in and held up the convenience
store and I remember he said, everybody on the floor,
and I remember how like I had never seen a
handgun wielded, you know, in person before, and I just
remember thinking, that is a gigantic gun. And so we
all got down on our stomachs and I'm like, you know,
(03:55):
praying and like, you know, just thinking like, oh, if
I can just get out of here and mail off
my college application, I will never come back to this
Ecker drugs man. So this is a great escape of
someone else that actually saved my life potentially, because you know,
everybody in this store, there weren't many of us at
the time.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
I thought, like, you know, he might be like no witnesses,
you know, and what a thought.
Speaker 4 (04:17):
And then somebody ran out the back like it was
probably an employee, and just something about that emergency door
jamming open, like the guy just grabbed a bunch of
money out of the register and then ran back out
the front. And then I got up and I picked
up my paper, and I'm pretty sure I just walked
down with my paper. I think I was like, they're
going to have a lot of paperwork to fill out,
and I don't know that I want to.
Speaker 3 (04:38):
Hang out here.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
I'm not here for it.
Speaker 4 (04:40):
I'm not trying to be like, you know, I can't
identify the guy. All I saw was a black glove
on a gun. I'm out of here.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Have you ever wanted to get to Cuba? Have you
ever been to Cuba?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Or I did? I really wanted to get to Cube.
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I mean, like, oh, man, you know, Cuba is such
a obviously it's such a complicated social political topic. But
I've always wanted, in my heart of hearts there to
be like a very simple way to just fly out
of Lax you know, into Cuba and just you know,
go and visit and go around and see the country.
So it's one of those places I've really wanted to go.
(05:16):
I feel like every time I get a chance to
go something something comes up.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Now, Cuba is important in today's story for two reasons. Now,
first the revolution in nineteen fifty nine that inspired a
ton of people in the next couple of decades, and second,
Cuba dozen extradye people today United States, which takes us
back to the end of the nineteen seventies and one
of the most significant prison escapes in American history.
Speaker 2 (05:41):
It was November two, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Three men walked into the Correctional Facility for women in Clinton,
New Jersey, sometime between one and four pm. Each of
the visitors showed their ID and they gave their names
and addresses and were entered into the prison visitor log,
but none of the information they gave was so you see,
this wasn't any old visit. These men were complete revolutionaries,
(06:06):
and they arrived to pull off one of the most
staring jail breaks of the century in complete daylight. Afterwards,
the only true thing the guards knew about him is
that they looked seventies as hell. I'm talking afros, full beards, sideburns,
a guy with a base behind him, going.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Okay, that last part isn't true, but what that be awesome?
Speaker 1 (06:27):
So if you were gonna help with the jail break,
how would you disguise yourself?
Speaker 2 (06:30):
Like, what would you be wearing for this?
Speaker 3 (06:32):
Oh man? Probably all black?
Speaker 4 (06:35):
Right, you gotta go like full you know what panthers slash,
you know, calm cruise when he's like rappling in from
the ceiling. That's that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
I would wear.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
I would like wear like really thick eyebrows, because that's
the one thing that people would describe me as.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
They're like and then I just rip them off and
you have these ones.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
I couldn't have been here. I'm looking out. Then those
zyebras are.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
The first man alone. He was checked through the registration
building in the minimum security area of the prison. Then
he climbed into a van that drove him across the
prison grounds to the South Hall. Now this was the
prison's maximum security area. But and this is key, okay,
he was not searched.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
He wasn't.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
No. Instead, he was let through the extra fencing around
the South Hall, and then the guards led him down
to the glass booth, where he sat down to visit
with an inmate.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
Now you got I got it.
Speaker 4 (07:27):
Put seventies nineteen seventies security teams like I just feel
like yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
They were just like, yeah, I don't care, you can
go through. Who are you here to see? Yeah, okay, sure,
go ahead.
Speaker 3 (07:36):
Man.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
It reminds me of that Simpsons episode where like mister
Burns has to go through like eight levels of security
to get down to the nuclear reactor, but then a
cat wanders in through a broken.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
So the next two men arrived soon after, and they
did the same thing. They passed through registration without being searched, okay,
and were shuttled into the prison van in the South Hall.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Literally, nobody gave a fuck.
Speaker 3 (07:58):
Yeah, I mean it's the seventies.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Everybody was packing and nobody was checking.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
When they came to the fence around the South Hall,
and it was open for them. They sprang into their
escape plan. They pulled out guns on the van driver
while the gate hung open. Now inside the visiting booth,
the first man turned to the prison guard who was
watching the visit, and he whipped out two pistols out
from under his jacket.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
That one and like you know, shoved into his crotch
or like literally two guns.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
He was our own style.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Something must have given it away when he had like
a bullet belt around him. So holding the garden there
at gunpoint, he forced her to open the booth up
from behind the glass walked activists, black panther and soldier
of the Black Liberation Army a Sata shaquor.
Speaker 3 (08:45):
That's right, yep yep Asadakor.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
Suddenly free from herself, Asada and her visitor took the
guard hostage and they marched outside. They climbed into the
van with the other two men, and now the four
revolutionary and their two hostages were able to drive the
prison van right out of the main prison gate. They
reached a nearby parking lot where their getaway cars were
part waiting.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
So Asauna and her rescuers left from.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
The van and into the cards and just fucking peeled away.
The prison guards were left handcuffed in the prison van,
but unharmed. Now everybody started flipping the fuck out. Roadblocks
were rushed out onto the highway to stop the escaping vehicles,
but conflicting reports flew in right. Some said they were
in a blue Pondiac and a blue Cadillac, and no, no, no,
(09:34):
they were in a Ford Maverick and a two toll Lincoln.
No no, no, they had massive eyebrows. Everybody had massive hours,
no confusing all the way. So the contradictory reports may
have been the saving grace of the escapees. Before officials
could decide which roads could be shut down and where
to hunt, Asauna and her allies were out of there.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Asada Shakur was free.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
It's insane, yellow.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
What do you know about Asada Shagar's life and why
she was in prison?
Speaker 4 (09:57):
I mean, admittedly, you know, my my father was a
painter in South Central now called South LA during the
time of the Watts riots, and so you know, he
used to, you know, do paintings and sculptures about you know,
the ghettos in the in the hood back then.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
And I always felt like even though he wasn't like
a black panther. Growing up in our household, we definitely
understood the point of view that like our community needed
you know, uplift and it needed, you know, certain things
to reach its full potential.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So the idea of like Asada Shakur.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
And Mumia abou Jamal, like these were not random names
to us, Like these were people who we knew.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
In our household.
Speaker 4 (10:40):
And and honestly, when Tupac Shakur first blew up, I
was like, is that Asada son? And of course you
know Asada Shakur was the godmother.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Of that's rights.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Yeah, and I think his mom, Afienie Shakur was a
was a good friend of Asadas.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
And you know this is a little off topic, but
let me ask you something because you bring up something
interesting about I didn't know that about your father. Do
you think that you got from him the desire to
express yourself and surroundings and sort of your point of
view through art, be it to a through a writer,
acting perspective.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
But no, you listen, you ask something that not many
people have ever asked, but it's got a very very
clear and strong answer, which is that absolutely one hundred percent.
You know, my father started off at La City College
doing still life, like he would paint pears, you know,
in bowls and you know, light coming through a window
on a villa.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
But you know, at the end of the day.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Once the Watts Rice broke out, he was like, I
can't do pears and bowls and still life anymore. I
have to do art that means something. And he's sort
of instilled, you know, in us. Even before I knew
that I wanted to be an artist in my own way,
even though before I knew I wanted to be creative
with my profession, he always said that he felt like
art without any social commentary had no interest to him.
Speaker 3 (11:57):
You know.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
He felt like everything that he did had to have
some not message. He wasn't trying to be polemic, but
it was just that he had a point of views. Yeah,
it had to have a point of view. It had
to have a very strong point of view. And I
think that in my work to this day, everything from
Sherman Showcase The South Side to some of the shows
that we're working on now, I always think, what will
(12:19):
this contribute to the world. It doesn't have to be
anything like, oh, it's gonna get people to wake up
about climate change. It's not like that. It's just more like,
how will this make lives? You know, people's lives better.
Even if it's just to say it's going to be
so funny that it's going to give people who have
had a hard week, it's going to bring them a
little bit of joy. That is enough. There has to
be something in there like that for me to be interested.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
What a fascinating thing to be able to witness that.
If you see your dad's paintings from before the riots
and after the riots, and you know how you just climb.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
And then suddenly so we're just watching it.
Speaker 1 (12:52):
I love the moment where you watch an artist find
find their voice, you know, and visually being able to
witness it must be really fascinating and impactful as a
young man.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah, John Thomas Riddle, he's you know, his artwork is
up at the California African American Art Museum and the
Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3 (13:11):
So it's it's you know, he had a great career.
Speaker 4 (13:14):
Sadly, as many people who work in that field know,
the second that he died, his art skyrocket in value.
Speaker 3 (13:21):
Because there's not going to be anymore. That's the way I
think about that.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
We'll put up a link at the bottom of this episode,
so people going to check out you dad's art. Man.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
I think that'd be really cool.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Okay, so we've heard about ASADA's legendary prison escape, but
now we're going to jump back and hear the story
of the real person behind the legend. So, dell, well,
you know a lot of this already, but for the listener,
we're going to go way way back.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Okay. Asada was born in Queens, probably in the year
nineteen forty seven, though the exact date is kind of lost.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
So she was born with the name Joanne and her
family called her Joey. It was only later that you
would leave it behind and become a Soda. Grew up
with her mother and her on, and when she was three,
her grandparents bought a beach property in Wilmington, North Carolina.
So they moved south and they took a Soda with him. Now,
and this is a really beautiful solo memory, I think.
Asana says that while in Wilmington, the women in her
(14:15):
grandmother's generation became her role models.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
They would some rivers and.
Speaker 1 (14:19):
Shoot the head off a snake and plant a garden,
saw a pattern, kill a hog, and also quite a
little fussing baby, all at the same time. Do you
have any older women in your life that you consider
bound asses like that?
Speaker 3 (14:32):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (14:32):
Yeah, I mean it's interesting. I have an aunt Joanne
a relation to a soada. Oh shoot, now it comes out,
that's what we got.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
To come storming my booth. I'm like, I don't, what
do you want with me?
Speaker 4 (14:45):
They're so I mean, like every I feel like all
the women in my family are badass in their own way.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
But you know what's really.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Interesting about what you say about them moving from New York.
I think you said Queen's to North Carolina. I grew
up in Atlanta. And the thing about Atlanta is, I
think we have more trees, you know, per square inch
than any major city in the country.
Speaker 3 (15:03):
Right.
Speaker 4 (15:03):
We have these woods, and we have these really wild
areas that are right in the heart of Atlanta.
Speaker 3 (15:08):
And as a result, you know, me.
Speaker 4 (15:10):
And my friends right there in the city limits, we
learned how to fish and identify which makes are harmless
and which ones will kill you. And there's like this
this strait of wile, and I think that that's.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Really cool because unfortunately, every.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Time I see, you know, black people depicted on TV
in any kind of like rural or like river strewn area,
it's almost always like something about slavery. Like it's just
like they're always like running away from dogs trying.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
To like take them back into bondage.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
And I'm like, guys, there are a lot of rural
black people who like know how to like fish and
do the wildlife, you know, outdoors thing.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
You know, I love to hear stories like that.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Picking black joy in the outdoors is something too much of.
Speaker 2 (15:48):
I totally hear you, dude.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Do Mike all alone in the archery club, like come
join me? Please?
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Did every time I see a Latino person in the desert,
I'm like, oh, fuck, okay.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
I know I know where this is going. I couldn't
have just been out for a fucking hike. Yeah, I
love hiking. Like every time everybody ever.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Catches me like outside like an out of a palm springs,
there's something they're like, oh, I know where you came from.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
No, you fucking go.
Speaker 1 (16:08):
I came from the Ace Hotel, motherfucker, and I just
went for a nice little stroll.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Fuck you. I was just on a doom buggy. Okay,
forget y'all. That's right.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Okay, that's why I'm all fucking dirty and thirsty.
Speaker 2 (16:18):
Okay, motherfucker, because I'm hungover.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
So to paint a picture of like what Wilmington was
like at the time, public beaches around Wilmington were whites only,
So Asadast's grandparents moved onto their ocean front property and
opened it for business. Right, so they welcome black visitors,
sold refreshments, and rented umbrellas.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Smart.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
Yeah, So her time on the.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Beach growing up became a sadast picture of what freedom
really means, right, watching people enjoy themselves, sharing treats with them,
dancing in the sand, kind of what we were talking
about about minority joy that you hardly ever see. After
elementary school, Asada moved back to New York, and after
moving around so much as a kid, she was convinced
that there wasn't a place in the United States where
(17:02):
she could actually escape discrimination. You know, it was everywhere,
both in the North and in the South. So in
her teens, Asada ended up back living with her on Eveling,
a lawyer who would eventually become a law professor at NYU. Okay,
now under Yeah, so under Evelyn's care, Asada made it
through high school and into college at the City College
in New York. The year ever go to City College
(17:23):
or visited that area at all in New York, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I don't think so. My time in New York was
a little bit limited.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
The only time I lived there was when I was
a writer for Jimmy Fallon and that was about four years.
And honestly, I went straight from my place in Upper
West Side straight to thirty Rocks, So I never really
got to know some parts of the city, like City College,
and that's where I've.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Got my first play, and like I had a mentor
who taught film classes there, so I'd come out auditors class.
So it still had those feelings that whenever you walk
into a place that has been really important to a city,
you still feel sort of the ghosts of the past there.
And that's what City College fell like to me of
learning than most people don't ever talk about.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
That's one of the best things about in New York
is that you feel like the past is all around you.
I will say that I think the ghosts of the
past were very much alive in the basement of my
New York building, Like I never wanted to go to
that laundry.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Oh, it's that's fully haunted. Haunted.
Speaker 1 (18:21):
In nineteen sixty seven, Assada joined other students at City
College to protest the lack of black professors and black
history being taught. Their entire group was arrested, and the
violence of these arrests made one thing clear. Asada knew
it would take a revolution for America to change. She
made more friends in other radical groups and took a
trip to California, which is the original home of the
(18:43):
Black Panthers. The Panthers there challenged her to get off
the sidelines and get involved, so she went home to
New York and she stepped it up. Was a Black
Panther party, something you were aware of growing up?
Speaker 4 (18:55):
Yeah, I mean again, my father was, you know, very
much of that sort of generation. And I mean, like
we to grow up in my household was to know
Fred Hampton, Huey P.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Newton, you know my father.
Speaker 4 (19:06):
Just to this day, I have a painting of his.
It's called Fairbanks or Garvy, and it's got a prominent
picture of Marcus Garvey, you know in the painting. You know,
like you definitely instilled upon us that we should take
great pride in our.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
People, our accomplishments.
Speaker 4 (19:23):
You know, one thing that he said to me back
when I was young that didn't really register until I
had my own kids was just this idea, and this
applies to you and everybody who's listening, is that there
have been so many wars and conflicts and genocides and plagues.
Everybody alive today is a bloodline that survived all that
from the beginning of freaking time. I think that's so
(19:44):
amazing that all of us have an ancestor who was
able to jump over a rhino, you know, survive a flood.
Oh yeah, man, I mean, like, you know, just the
idea that all of us have managed to survive all
of human history and get to the point where we're
now talking into you know, machines and over invisible waves.
(20:05):
It's kind of amazing. But I think that, Yeah, my
father's lesson would have been just that, you know, take
pride in what human stock you come from, and try
to instill that same pride in your children.
Speaker 2 (20:15):
That's beautiful, man.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
In nineteen sixty six, Hueing Newton and Bobby Seal founded
the Black Panther Party in Oakland. By nineteen sixty nine,
the Panthers had branches all across the country. They built
networks of mutual aid, They ran medical clinics, they held
educational programs and served breakfast for kids and poverty.
Speaker 3 (20:42):
Yeah, I mean that was sort of the main appeal.
I think.
Speaker 4 (20:44):
You know, anytime you hear people talk about the Panthers nowadays,
you always hear about that, you know, shout out to
my friends, the Lucas brothers. I thought they did an
amazing job on the script for Judas and the Black Messie.
Speaker 3 (20:56):
If you watched that movie, I guarantee, first off, I think.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
That you know, I know that Daniel got nominated for
a lot of stuff in that movie. But to me,
le Keith Stanfield is he's such a Robert de Niro
at a young age, Like I just feel like the
Keith is he disappears into this character.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
He plays every level. If even if you just like
a good movie.
Speaker 4 (21:18):
I would actually recommend Judas in the Black Nosiah. But
I'd also point out that that movie points out that
the Panthers weren't It wasn't an organization that started like, yeah,
we're gonna get a bunch of guns and kill people.
That's not what it was really about.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
And okay, great.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
You know it represents that side of the story that
you don't get told unless you, you know, do research.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
It was nineteen seventy when Asada joined the Panthers in
New York. By that point there were Panther offices in
sixty eight cities.
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Wow I saw.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
His first role with the Panthers was running the children's
Bakfast program in Harlem. She became the head of the
Harlem office, responsible for the free clinics and the community outreach.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Okay, so Shakour is an Arabic name for thankful.
Speaker 1 (22:00):
Many Panthers in New York took the name to represent
their unity, and Asato was among them. When Panther leader
Fred Hampton was murdered by the Chicago police, many party
members were convinced that mutual aid wasn't enough, you know,
they had to fight back, literally, So some of the
New York Panthers started to go underground, living under assumed
names and keeping low profile. Asato was one of them.
(22:21):
She disappeared from her family and friends. She knew that
her aunt, her mom, and her grandparents were all being
watched by the police. So ASADA's name started to hit
the headlines in the early nineteen seventies. So the police
wanted her for bank robberies, bombings, and the murder of
police officers. She seems to have been in so many
places at the same time, you know, like, how could
she have hid banks in the Bronx and in Brooklyn
(22:43):
and in New Orleans is so close together. Apparently the
police didn't really care so much about the timelines because
they didn't add up.
Speaker 4 (22:51):
I'd forgotten about the bank robberies. It's so interesting to
me because as a storyteller and in somebody who loves
movies and books and stuff, especially about true crime. You know,
you sort of see a lionization of people like Billy
the Kid and Mom Baker and Bonnie and Clyde, like
you sort of see them as sort of held up
a's like these were outlaws you.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Can root for. But you never really hear that.
Speaker 4 (23:13):
Abouts too apparently, so you know, it just depends on sometimes,
like how people feel about a person.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
So in May nineteen seventy three, after she had lived
for two years underground, Asada was captured. She was riding
in the front seat of a white Pontiac with two
other activists, say Malik Shakur and Sundiata Akali. They were
traveling the New Jersey Turnpike when they saw police lights
behind them. The police report says that it had a
broken taylight. So there are two versions of what happened next.
(23:51):
The first one says that when the state police officer
told the driver to get out of the car, Asada
started shooting from the passenger seat. A firefight ensued and
in the storm of bullets, two police officers were shot
and one was killed alongside, said Shakor. After shooting two
police officers, Asada was hid in the chest and the shoulder,
and that was what the police said happened. But Asada
(24:14):
remembers it very differently. She says that when the police
stopped them, her hands were up and as the shooting
started around them, she was hit by a bullet before
she could even leave the seat in her car. She
says that she never even had a gun let alone
and fired one. A Colliue was able to jump back
in the car and race another five miles down the turnpike,
chased by three police cars. Now, when the road was
(24:37):
closed and a Collie was finally forced to pull over,
he jumped out of the car and race into the woods.
Assada stepped out and slowly approached the police covered in blood.
She was arrested and rushed to the hospital, and her
years of imprisonment began. She was held under armguard for
twenty four hours a day, and in her later writings,
Asada would describe the ways that she was tortured by
(24:57):
the New Jersey State Police while off to a hospital bed,
all the while she was fighting to recover.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
From her own bullet wounds. And she never fucking cracked.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Yeah, dude, I would fucking like interrogation and me would break.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
Bro, Like I don't, I wouldn't survive.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
My aunt looks at me funny, and I'm like, I'll
confess the shit I haven't even done.
Speaker 4 (25:17):
Let me tell you first off, well that's that's that's
actually the case to be made against torture, right. They
always say experts on torture say torture doesn't actually work
because at some point people just want the torture to end.
So you can say, like you are Mickey Mouse, and
people will be like, oh.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
You know, like.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
Handed, They're like, man, he's lost his mind. But I
love it.
Speaker 4 (25:41):
I mean, I always tell people I'm like, don't tell
me anything because I will probably snitch, like you know,
like I'll just like to keep my nose cleans out
of speak because like you know, I.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Don't want to know.
Speaker 4 (25:50):
I don't want to know, and I feel like I
give off that energy.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
So when she was finally strong enough to be moved,
Asada left the hospital to the Middlesex County Workhouse, where
she was the only female prisoner at the jail. It
was the first of many men's prisons where she would
be held while the charges against her went forward. They
were extremely fucking scared of her. It's so wild that
they have to keep her in a men's prison now
her A Evelyn left her job at NYU and took
(26:17):
on ASADA's legal case full time. That July fourth, Evelyn
brought a tape recorder with her and recorded A. Sada's
most famous statement, which came to be known as to
my People. She introduced herself to the world as Asada Shakur,
Black Revolutionary. She said, there is and always will be
until every black man, woman and child is free a
(26:37):
black liberation army. And it was closed with a line
from the communist manifesto, we have nothing.
Speaker 2 (26:44):
To lose but our change.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
Evelyn spread the recording and it played on black radio
stations all around New York. Magazines were printed it and
white media figures of course, Wind and Wind about it.
Reporters were actually banned from meeting with Asada. You see,
her voice was so powerfull. Imagine that that the judges
and the cops and the prison guards were just scrambling
to keep up with her even though she was locked up.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
In nineteen seventy four, Assada finally went to trial, but
guess what, she kept beating the charges.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
First, she was acquitted of some robbery charges. A month later,
she was tried for killing a police officer, but there
was an evidence against her and the case was dismissed.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (27:27):
In January nineteen seventy six, Assada faced a kidnapping charge
and she beat that too. When she was finally tried
for the Queen's Bank, the first case that had actually
put her in the paper, Asada was easily acquitted.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
Like what damn.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
The photograph published by the police didn't look like her
at all.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
The bank manager who had been there for the robbery.
Speaker 4 (27:50):
I'm sorry they did a drawing and it didn't look
like her.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Well, the photograph that they put out of who had
actually robbed the bank, you know, so it's sort of
the photo evidence right off the bank didn't look like.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Her at all.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
Yeah, it's really flimsy.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Charges And the bank manager who had been there for
the robbery testified that Asada was not the woman who
had held him at gunpoint.
Speaker 3 (28:12):
There you go.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
He's like, no, it was a redhead woman. And she
was like, I'm Wendy, Like I don't I played like.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
These these facial recognition features on some of the on
some of the robots nowadays, like they have a harder
time recognizing black people because the people who programmed them
just didn't use a lot of black subjects. So like
they're just like they look at me and they're like, ahh,
that's Martin Luther King.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
No, no, man, fuck, I don't really look like King anyway.
Go ahead.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
So, in nineteen seventy seven, the victories for Asada finally
came to an end. Right she was found guilty of
first degree murder along with many other charges, for the
shootout on the New Jersey Turnpike. Now halfway through the trial,
ASADA's new lawyer, Stanley Cohen was found dead in his
fucking apartment.
Speaker 3 (28:57):
Is that I didn't even know announce it that. I'm lurry.
I did not know that.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
So he had been collecting evidence against the police witnesses,
recruiting forensic chemists to show that there was no evidence
of gunfire on Assata's hands, and uncovering what he believed
were falsified documents in the prosecution's case. So fucked up,
And the newspapers reported that Stanley died of natural causes.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
So we're not saying that the police killed or are we, like,
cause that'd be crazy.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
You know, there were a.
Speaker 4 (29:23):
Lot of suspicious deaths back in those days, and I
do think that, you know, we have forensics have come
a long way, right since nine seventy whatever this was.
I mean like, but it is suspicious that he died
of unknown causes. I mean, like, I don't even watch
unsolved mysteries. Yeah, I like my mysteries and solved. The
worst thing about unsolved mysteries is that like when they
(29:43):
come to the other they're like, did they die or
did they just disappear? And then they start rolling the
crash They're like that's not satisfying.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
But that's unsolved mysteries, which at least like come with
a built in like I played myself, I fucking eat
documentaries that are five fucking ninety minute episodes long. And
then the it's like, we don't know if he faked
his own death or he didn't tell me that at
the beginning. Man. Now, once she was convicted, Asada was
(30:13):
moved to yardbuilt prison in New Jersey. Her young daughter
went to live with her mother in New York, and
Asada and the other members of the Underground knew that
they couldn't rely on justice from the courts. Instead, they
planned her prison breaks. So let's do a cool little
recap of the prison break. As I understand it, three
people went in. They never got searched. One went particularly
(30:36):
to visit Asada, pulled out two massive pistols. He had
a Mexican bandido gun belt as well. That part I
added myself. There were seventies music playing. Everybody had Cyeburns,
they had afros. They jumped into the van, they like
sped off and they got away with it. So far,
so good, great. I really hope Benju adds really cool
seventy music to the background of all that. After Asada
(31:02):
was busted out, the FEDS put her back on their
most wanted lists, and just like the years before, they
started linking her to a series of crimes, right saying
they spotted her at the scenes of shootings and burglaries
and other stuff like that. After a few years past,
the FBI started getting reports that Asada had made it
to Cula, the home of the revolution that inspired the
Black Panthers in the beginning. When Asada published a biography
(31:25):
in nineteen eighty seven, she described her life of imprisonment
and exile, but she actually.
Speaker 2 (31:30):
Sounded happy to be in Gula.
Speaker 1 (31:31):
She called it a country of hope, and she ended
her book with a series of poetic meditations on her
life there, about the openness and beauty of Havana and
of the Cuban culture. And there, beyond the reach of
the US government, Asada was finally able to pick up
a telephone, call home and talk with her family for
the first time in five years. In twenty twenty two,
(31:52):
Assada celebrated her seventy fifth birthday in Cuba. The US
government is still working today to extra at her from
Cuba and in prison her again so Asada continues to
say that she also has a duty as long as
she lives, she's going to carry on the black liberation
struggle and despite everything, to continue to be human, to
(32:12):
be giving, and to be loving. What do you take
away from stories of panthers like Asda.
Speaker 4 (32:22):
I think police organizations have to realize that there were
some abuses that led to a lack of trust in
these communities and that there's a lot of healing.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
That has to take place.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It's not as simple as like, oh, this person did
this thing, which, by the way, as you've pointed out
in this podcast, is not cut and dry, you know.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
In order for the healing to begin, like, the past
needs to be acknowledged.
Speaker 4 (32:43):
No, it's true, there's too much of that, Like, okay, guys,
this is the ancient past.
Speaker 3 (32:47):
Can we just please move on this? There's too much
of that.
Speaker 4 (32:49):
And I think if you don't acknowledge the past, and
it's hard to move into the future, you know what
I mean. And I think that's why it's so disturbing
that there's so many places that are trying to whitewash
history right now, and they do it under the rubric
of this you know, basically law school centric concept of
critical race theory, and then they pretend that, oh, if
we teach people that America wasn't perfect.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
Then that's critical race theory.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Like, no, you don't even know what You don't even
know what critical race theory is.
Speaker 3 (33:16):
If that's what you think.
Speaker 1 (33:17):
You can love something and want to improve something and
still acknowledge its flaws.
Speaker 4 (33:21):
You can love your father but also be like, hey dad,
stop drinking, stop drinking, stop thking.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
Hey man, I am so honored to have had you
here before we go. Do you have anything that you
want to that you want.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Our listeners to look out for of yours? Coming up?
Speaker 4 (33:42):
Man, there's so much coming up, from from the music
and the comedy of Sherman Showcase to what I think
is one of just the funniest uh you know, get
to know the characters type show Southside on HBO Max.
I think the easiest way for people to check out
some of the work that I and but Sheer have done.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Uh, follow me on Instagram.
Speaker 4 (34:03):
At Dallo, not Diablo and Dalloff.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That's a different account.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Diablo account gets all these followers now and they're like, I.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Don't know, man, this guy doesn't look like a DJ.
Speaker 4 (34:14):
I gotta say he's pretty entertaining at d allo d
I A L l O. And you'll you'll always know
about like sort of what we're digging and what we're
producing and uh and yeah, man, thanks thanks for having
me on right.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Alred to have you, and thank you for being so
open about your dad and his art. And it means
a lot to us when when guests come on here
and they share moments to shape them. So thank you
so much for a friend of the show. You can
come back anytime, brother, Thank you so much. Breh bye.
Gratist Escapes is a production of iHeartRadio and Film Nation
(34:47):
Entertainment in association with Gilded Audio or executive producers for
me or Turo Castro, Alyssa Martino and Milan Papelka from
Film Nation Entertainment, Andrew Chug and Winning Donaldson from Gilded Audio,
and Dylan Fagan from I Radio. The show is produced
and edited by Carl Nellis and Ben Chubb, who are also, respectively,
our research overlord and music overlord. Our associate producer is
(35:08):
Tory Smith, who's our other overlord. Nick Dooley is our
technical director. Additional editing by Whitney Donaldson Special thanks to
Alison Cohen, Dan Welsh, Ben Riizek, Sarah Joyner, Nicki Stein,
Olivia Canny, and Kelsey Albright. Hey, thank you so much
(35:38):
for listening, and if you're enjoying the show, please drop
a rating or review. My mom will call you each
personally and thank you, and we'll see you all next
week
Host
Arturo Castro
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