February 4, 2021 • 45 mins
The NAACP has long been one of the most robust and effective non-profits in the USA. And while it has faded a bit from its glory days, it still remains a vital cog in the battle for equality.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's out there somewhere. Uh, and
this is stuff you should Know N double A CP edition.
(00:21):
That's right. I was thinking about this, well, I was researching, Chuck.
No one ever says N A A c P. I've
never heard anybody say everyone says N double A c P,
which I think kind of gives the whole thing, Uh,
kind of like a like an old friend kind of
feel to it, you know what I'm saying. Well, yeah,
I mean since you brought that up. Um, there have
(00:44):
been people questioning the name in modern times of National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and some people
have floated African Americans, so in in double A double
A I guess could be a way that you would
say that, but um, they this was I think from
(01:04):
two thousand seven, So the leader of the Double A
CP at the time, I think there's a there's so
much in the name, so much currency at this point. Yeah,
that switching it is kind of tough. And also, um,
he said, you know, we're kind of about the rights
of many kinds of people, UM, so we don't want
(01:26):
to just say African Americans. So yeah, and there's a
lot lots of lengthy articles, but it seemed to make sense.
And from actually what i've what I've read is the UM,
the double A CP is kind of in this lengthy
process of UM kind of reinventing itself or re establishing itself.
And it seems like one of the things that they
are starting to kind of go for is UM, especially
(01:48):
economic equality for all people. So that really kind of
jibes with you know this uh that it's almost like
they grew into the name finally now in the twenty
one century, which is surprising. It's kind of neat. Yeah,
it should be hot back in the old way back machine.
It's been a little while. We gotta put some air
in the tires first. But yes, did we get in
(02:11):
that thing at all last year? I don't think so,
which is surprising. You know, we should have been getting
that thing every day. Yeah, I know, and we totally didn't.
But okay, so here we go. We're getting in the
way back and all right, well we're gonna go back
to uh, let's go back to nineteen o nine. Who
(02:35):
might as well go back to when the organization was founded,
and the reason why was because, well, for lots of reasons,
but I think this sort of inciting incident was in
August of nineteen o eight when in Springfield, Illinois, there
were two gentlemen arrested on suspicion of rape and attempted
(02:55):
rape and murder, and the cops there were a little
afraid of what might happen because, as you will see
in this episode, there was a tendency for extra judicial
violence a k a. Lynchings to happen if people got
worked up. So they said, let's get these guys out
of here, let's take them to another town. The mob
(03:16):
of people show up and realized that they have been
moved and did not take kindly to that and rioted
in Springfield. Yeah. So, like as a result of this
this Springfield riot, there were like two thousand black residents
of Springfield, Illinois who were displaced. They just didn't have
homes anymore because they've been burned to the ground. Um.
(03:36):
Six people were murdered. Um. Two people were lynched. Two
innocent men were lynched basically as stand ins for the
two men that they had originally intended to lynch. Yeah,
sixteen people ended up UM losing their lives over those
three days, and nine black people UM, seven white people.
Five died from conflict with the state militia that was
(03:58):
called in in two white people died by suicide. And
for many many years up until I think semi recently,
the seven white people that died, those deaths were attributed
to UM to being killed by black people that were there,
and that is not the case. They were literally rewriting
history in that case. One of the other big things
(04:19):
about this too is UM aside from the fact that
it happened, and this was you know, these happened with
enough frequency like that it was a it was a
real problem. UM. But one of the other things about
these these you know, race riots or UM massacres of
(04:40):
black residents you know usually that evolved out of a
lynching UM, was that they went unpunished. UM. Oftentimes they
were uninvestigated. There just wasn't much, if anything done about them.
So the kind of UM it became clear that this
is a larger issue was already very clear among the
African American community in the United States, but it UM
(05:05):
kind of caught the the attention of UM some connected
white um social justice activists who were working at the
time too, that's right. Uh So in nineteen o nine,
a man named W. E. B. Du Bois, which is
one of the great all time names if you've got
(05:25):
three initials and that's what you're gonna roll with in
Duba is a pretty killer name too. But he was
a humanities professor, he was a writer. Um, he was
the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from
a university in the United States, Harvard. That's right. He
got together with forty other social activists in New York
(05:47):
and uh, it was you know, it was it was
mixed races. It was a group of black people and
white people, mixed religions. There were Jewish people there. Um.
That was described as a group of black and white activist,
Jews and Gentiles in the Library of Congress. And they
chose February twelve to get together because that was Abraham
Lincoln's birthday and that is where they established their first
(06:10):
charter as a group. Yeah. The first time they met, um,
they were not considered the n double a CP. It
wasn't until their second meeting the first time they called
themselves the National Negro Committee, and then in nineteen ten
when they met again, they said, well, let's call ourselves
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and
the n double a CP was officially born, although they
(06:32):
consider the actual founding back in nineteen o nine, and
like you said, yeah, there was. It was multi racial,
multi ethnic, UM, and white people were involved because they
were very much concerned about the quality of life and
the um viability of getting ahead for African Americans in
(06:55):
in the United States at the time. And for UM
this organization to really kind of find its legs and
find its footing and survive, it's like crucial first few years. UM,
it needed very well connected, very wealthy white supporters, and
so there was an integration at the highest levels. And
(07:17):
then eventually within a few years it was kind of
like okay, it's it's you know, we it's time for
us to step back. We've we've established this thing UM
and and it can kind of go indefinitely from here. Yeah.
So getting back to that charter, I think it's the
words are pretty important. It said it was to promote
equality of rights and eradicate cast or race prejudice among
(07:40):
citizens in the United States. To advance the interest of
colored citizens, to secure for them impartial suffrage, and to
increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education
for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete
equality before the law. And I think it's pretty import
and because it really kind of laid the groundwork for
(08:03):
what UM. I mean, you know, there have been all
sorts of activist groups over the years in the African
American community, and there's was always sort of about let's
attack this in the courts, and let's attack it from
let's attack these systems in the courts that are you know,
where the cards are so stacked against us by law,
(08:24):
and let's get some of these laws overturned. Yeah, and
that was I mean, that's still been their strategy basically
throughout it was. It was the strategy from the beginning
and it still is today, which is UM and not
an opposition, but it's it's complementary to other strategies like
direct action, which is like UM, you know, going to
(08:46):
UH counter and sitting in and protest to segregated lunch
counter or not giving your seat up on a bus. UM.
And you know, during the civil rights ares, we'll see
like the n Double A c P had an involvement
direct action, but it's always been known as like this
like just shooting for the biggest trophies of all, you know,
like change, fundamental change at the national level legislatively. Um,
(09:11):
that's what they've always kind of been about, the Double
A CP. Yeah. So some of these, uh, some of
the folks in the very first group, um, the first
president was a constitutional lawyer named Moore Field story great man.
There was a woman named Florence Kelly who was also
an attorney who worked a lot in uh an employment reform.
(09:32):
Do you remember her from the Francis Perkins episode. She
was the woman who inspired Francis Perkins. Yeah, she is great.
Who else? Uh, Well, they were you know, they needed
to um make some way in the press. That was
sort of one of the big problems at the time
is you know, lynchings weren't being covered in the press.
A lot of their rights that were being trampled on
(09:53):
weren't covered in the mainstream press. So they had a
good group of writers, um essayist, journe list that would
get in there and they would, you know, they would
they founded their own paper, which was huge. The crisis
which is still around today their magazine, but mainly just
trying to get recognized in mainstream newspapers with their work. Yeah. Again,
(10:14):
some of the early supporters and UM people who were
founding members had big time connections in the press, like
one guy Oswald Garrison Villard. He was the publisher of
the New York Evening Post and the Nation magazine, so
he could very easily get stories about things like lynchings
(10:35):
into his his paper and his magazine UM, where other
other places wouldn't print that kind of stuff. And then yeah,
as the subscribership of the Crisis Crew, UM had a
bigger and bigger impact. So yeah, kind of part and parcel.
It seemed like with this legislative action was generating public
support through the press. It's kind of like this two
(10:56):
pronged approach. All right, should we take a little pause
for the cause. Yeah, alright, we're gonna take a break
and be right back to talk about some of their
early successes right after this. So if you look at
(11:32):
some of the early successes in the first part of
the twentieth century, one of the big ones you can
point to is in Oklahoma in nineteen ten, where they
had a state regulation, uh that limited the rights of
black citizens to vote. It was a grandfather clause basically
where they said, you need and I think we talked
(11:54):
about this in the Voter Suppression EPP. But um, you
need to be able to pass a literacy tests and
order to be eligible to vote unless you had a
grandfather who voted in eighteen sixty six. And side note,
this is before black people were allowed to vote in Oklahoma.
So they basically were saying, if you're illiterate and you're white,
(12:15):
you can vote. If you're illiterate and you're black, you can't. Yeah,
that Oklahoma law was particularly agreed to say. It was
one of I think like seven or eight states that
had a grandfather clause. But Oklahomas said, um, not only
if your grandfather could vote in eighteen sixty six, if
he lived in another country in eighteen sixty six and
would have been eligible to vote or could vote in
(12:35):
that country, you your grandfathered in. So basically, as long
as you weren't black, you could you could vote, even
if you were illiterate. So UM, the n double a
CP filed suit against this um in a very famous
case called Gwyn versus the US. UM and Gwyn was
named after Frank gwyn And who, along with J. J. Bale,
(12:56):
where a couple of elections officers who had who had
basically been charged with disenfranchising black voters through the grandfather clause.
And the Supreme Court heard this and said, you know
what this is. Uh, this n Double A CP group.
I've not heard of them before, but they present a
pretty good case. So we're going to go ahead and
overturn this grandfather clause. And you know, this is nineteen fifteen.
(13:20):
The Double A CP had only met for the very
first time six years before, and all of a sudden
they're overturning UM race based discrimination laws about voting at
the Supreme Court. And that definitely caught the attention of
people in the civil rights UM community for sure. Yeah.
That's why. I mean, it's when you look back through history,
this the state's rights argument that we still here today
(13:43):
is such a tricky thing because you know, states should
be allowed to do a lot of things as they
see fit, but you can't you can't disenfranchise voters, willfully
disenfranchise voters, Uh, And that's when the federal government comes
in and people start crying foul that they want to
be able to run their elections their way, which means
(14:03):
we don't want black people to vote, and you just
can't do that. You know. I've been thinking about this
recently since we did our Clan episode, because I noticed
that every time the clan went away, it was after
the federal government intervened because the states wouldn't write. And
something I came up with, like just a good rule
of thumb or a good litmus test, is does this
(14:25):
law discriminate against anybody's right anybody? It doesn't matter what
group it is. Forget the group, take the group out
of it. Is it a discriminatory law? And I cannot
think of a single instance where a discriminatory law would
be beneficial for the greater good of of the country
um or for the health of the of democracy. I
(14:46):
just I can't think of one. Um unless you're you're discriminating,
discriminating against somebody's right to discriminate against somebody, maybe that
would be the case. But that seemed to be a
pretty good rule of thumb to me that I just
came up with, does the law discriminate yes, well, then
it's probably a pretty bad law. Hey, Josh, Yeah, that's
(15:11):
about how far into the future, I should try my
hand and what is that but years that I I
don't know, but we're all just basically whisps of ones
and zeros. I think by then. Another big thing that
kind of happened early on it was we talked about
Birth of the Nation in our episode on the Clan,
(15:35):
and they in Double A CP got together and they said,
let's boycott this terrible movie. And the boycott didn't do
a lot in terms of shutting anything down in terms
of Birth of a Nation, but it did draw them
some finally some mainstream publicity, and um got them written
up in newspapers at least, right, So, I mean they
(15:56):
had some early successes, um, and especially with overturning the
grandfather clause. But I don't know if it was after
this or around this time they really kind of redoubled
their efforts back onto the original intention, which was to
do something about lynching, to get an anti leg anti
(16:17):
lynching law, national federal law passed in the United States.
And UM, what's crazy is that that still hasn't happened,
and that is recently, is June of we we failed
to do it yet again, um, which is just nuts
to me. But the the n double A cp UM
(16:38):
was really trying to get this to get legislation passed.
You know, even back then it just made sense. Now
today it's just shameful that we don't have something. But
the thing that kind of redoubled or refocused the double
A CPS efforts on UM anti lynching legislation was the
lynching of a teenager named Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas
(16:58):
in nineteen sixteen. And even as far as lynchings go,
this was particularly gruesome. Yeah. I mean, not only was
the act gruesome, which was he was tortured, um, hanged,
set on fire, uh and beaten, but it was in
front of oh. Estimates range from eight to seventeen thousand
(17:20):
people like basically the size of a small, you know,
hockey arena, medium, medium sized hockey arena. You're like, I'm
not going above medium. Well, I'm trying to think these days,
how much does like your average NBA hockey arena. Hold,
it's more like, how I don't I'm such a terrible
(17:41):
judge of anything like that. So well, let's just say
a medium sized hockey arena. I think they got it across.
And the only reason I'm saying that is because it's
if you try and if you go to a pro
sports game or a big concert, try to imagine that
many people gathered together to watch a man, a human
being beat burned and hanged in front of your face.
(18:03):
And I tried to put myself in the not in
the mindset, but out of all those people, like how
many of those fifteen thousand people were fully charged do this?
Do this? And how many as it happened, were like,
my god, what is happened to us as human beings
and Americans? Were there any people there that regretted what
(18:27):
was going on? I'm sure some, And if they didn't
regretted during they I'm sure some regretted it afterward. But
I think one of the things that made Jesse Washington's
lynching so disturbing to the rest of the nation was
that it was reported that there was a carnival like
atmosphere where people were enjoying themselves and enjoying their time,
(18:47):
gathered together with Um all the other residents of Waco
and and lynching this this teenager. UM and the n
double a c P sent an investigator there to to
basically document the whole thing, and she came back with
this report that became something called the UM the Horror
(19:08):
of Waco or the Waco Horror and UM the n
double A CP said we're going to we're gonna get
this out there. We're gonna tell the world about this,
and they definitely did, and it had a really big impact.
You know, what it reminds me of is is the
only thing I can compare it to these days is
when a UM, a high profile death row inmate is
(19:29):
executed and outside the prison they have those parties and stuff. Uh.
You know, I don't want to wait into the capital
punishment debate here, but there's something about that blood lust
that just feels really gross to me. Yeah, and that's
my official statement. You're talking about somebody's life and vengeance.
(19:50):
Anytime vengeance is driving things, it's usually time to take
a pause and reflect on what you're doing. You know,
I've got all the rules of coming out today, Josh. Yeah. Um.
So yeah, So they put out these pictures, like you said, Um,
we're covered in mainstream newspapers in you know, I think
(20:15):
it shocked the country. Um, obviously not enough, but it
was a big wake up call. I think to a
lot of people. What happened in Waco and the end
in double a CP was able to UM to really
pivot on this and bring up something like the Dire Bill,
which I think was the first piece of anti lynching
(20:35):
legislation UM sponsored by Leonidas another great name, Leonidas Dire,
Republican Congressman from Missouri, UM that died in the Senate.
I think it passed the House in two and then
died in a Senate after a filibuster from the Southern Democrats, Yes,
(20:56):
the Dixiecrats UM. And that was just the first of
many many ato. Yeah, apparently over like by the middle
of the century, there were two hundred anti lynching bills
that were introduced and died in Congress just by the
mid century. And like I was saying, as recently as
m June of there was a h anti lynching law
(21:17):
that was that passed the Senate unanimously one zero, and
then it went over to the House where it passed
four hundred and fifteen four and ten to four. Then
the only thing the House did was changed the name
to the Emmett Till Anti Lynching Law, which means then
(21:40):
it had to go back to the Senate to be
passed again. Because that one change has had been made,
the name had been changed, and when it got back
to the Senate, Ran Paul from Kentucky said, I don't
feel good about this, even though he was part of
the unanimous Senate that had passed it unanimously just before,
and no other change was made except for the name. Um,
and that really ticked a lot of people off. But
(22:02):
still to this day that law was blocked and the
United States still does not have a law that makes
lynching a federal crime. Yeah, so if you want to,
I mean, this was really big news. Um. So I'm
sure a lot of people know about this, But if
you're curious about Ran Paul's defense was he said, quote,
(22:24):
this bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining
it so broadly as to include a minor bruise or abrasion.
Our national history of Rachiel terrorism demands much more serious
than seriousness than that. So what he was contending was, uh,
he wanted he wants the language changed, um, because in
(22:44):
the language now it says the standard in federal hate
crimes is serious or I'm sorry, is um bodily injury.
And I think he wants it changed to serious bodily injury.
In other words, if someone gets punched in the ace,
it would be called and considered a lynching in the
way it's written now. And he said there should be
(23:06):
substantial risk of death and extreme physical pain in order
to qualify as lynching. Otherwise, he said, it disrespects what
real lynchings were. Uh, so take that for what it is, Um,
for what it's worth. The Senate formally apologized in two
thousand five for failing to outlaw lynching. So they apologize
(23:29):
into thousand five, and still it hasn't been put forward
on the books. Yeah. So, UM, the like we said,
the the n double a c p UM for decades
and decades leading up to the Civil rights era, UM
was very much, uh focused on preventing lynching, on getting
(23:49):
lynching outlawed. I'm bringing attention to the huge, massive issue
of lynching in the United States. UM. They had a
flag that they would unfurl outside of their headquarters in
New York whenever, UM a lynching was reported, and it
just said a man was lynched yesterday, UM, which I
read it. Yeah, I read it, and I was like, wow,
that's you know, that must have been something that I
(24:11):
saw a picture of it and it's one of those
ones where a picture is worth a thousand words, Like
don't you see it? It really drives home what they
were doing, um and really kind of makes you really
like the n double a C P. Like, yeah, go
get them, you know, let's get lynching outlawed. Yeah. I
mean you talked about the numbers over that time period.
The four thousand plus comes out to uh more than
(24:34):
one lynching a week in the United States over that
period that was like verified, known and reported, so clearly
you know, probably more than that. Um. So yeah, this
is happening literally on a weekly basis in the United States.
Someone is going out on their own vigilante style and
hanging uh. Not always hanging a black man, sometimes worse. Yeah,
(24:57):
I mean if you can. There were sometimes they would
just burn the whole black section of town down, like
in in nineteen seventeen St. Louis saw um a race massacre,
just like there had been in Springfield not too long before.
So um, like, yeah, it wasn't just lynching, it was
just mob violence and enforcement of segregation. I think the
(25:18):
thing that set off um the St. Louis uh riot
was a black family moved into a white neighborhood. If
I'm not mistaken, that was the instance that set it off.
So yeah, it was a yeah, that was a real problem.
Racial violence was an even bigger problem than it is
today back before the Civil rights eara right, So during
(25:42):
the civil rights era, obviously the in A CP is
going to be very active. Um saw some really great successes.
They're sort of leading the way, lobbying in the capitol,
trying just scores and scores of cases in the courts, UM,
helping people register to vote, taking part in Mississippi's Freedom
Summer in nineteen sixty four. Um, if you don't know,
(26:05):
if you know the name Rosa Parks and know what
she did, you may not know that she was the
Montgomery in Double a CP secretary, so she actually worked
for the organization. Yeah, I don't remember. Did we do
a whole episode on Rosa Parks in the bus boycott
or was it part of another episode we did. I
can't remember all of our videos and everything is just
(26:26):
a big stew in my head at this point. Well,
we did. We did the one on the freedom schools
for sure, UM, and I don't remember what we did,
but we talked a lot about Rosa Parks. And I
don't know if it was her own episode or not.
If not, she deserves her own episode. But yeah, she
she was a secretary for the Double A CP in
Birmingham or Montgomery. I'm sorry. And if you start to
(26:49):
look at some of the big events of the civil
rights Sarah, you start to realize that, oh, wait a minute,
that was an in Double A CP field officer or
those purse those but were um, you know, uh, members
of the local in Double A CP branch. There were
a lot of like legal strategies and cases that were
launched by the Double A CP that appeared to just
(27:10):
be direct action like Rosa Parks had had enough and
wasn't going to get up that day. Um that that
when you peel back the layer a little bit. This
is part of a larger strategy of trying to force
lawsuits in court cases so that they can um go
all the way up to the Supreme Court. And sometimes
they were very very effective. Yeah, I mean notably, uh
(27:32):
in the in the mid nineteen fifties, they set their
sights on the school system and separate but equal. They
wanted to take that down and Brown versus versus Board
of Education, you know, one of the landmark cases in
the history of this country. UM Thorogood Marshall in in
Double a CP lawyer who was actually later on in
(27:52):
the late sixties became the first black Supreme Court justice.
He argued, um, that segregation in public school rules is
I mean, it is flat out, very clearly unconstitutional. And
this is one of those times where every justice on
the Court agreed and said, yeah, that that that is
not constitutional in any way. Right. Um, so I think
(28:17):
they said that we uh, that we need to desegregate
with all all haste. I can't remember the exact wording,
but it was. It was vague enough that it was, yeah,
they're like, what exactly constitutes lickity split? Like, sure, it's
faster than a turtles crawl, but is it as fast
as a hair running? Um? And the Supreme Court but
(28:41):
that there was a huge backlash to that. It wasn't
just like, you know, especially the Southern States were like,
all right, you know, we had a pretty good run
at a segregated school system. It's you know, it's it's
run its course, and now it's time to disegregate. That's
not at all how it went. At the very least
local municipalities and even states tried to come up with
(29:03):
new laws that provided loopholes to segregation. UM. Some states said, well, fine,
maybe we'll just abolish public schools altogether and then we
don't have to follow this this federal law any longer. UM.
There were there was physical violence. There was just a
tremendous amount of pushback to the idea of desegregating schools,
(29:24):
and the whole thing like really kind of found its
fruition at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, UM,
which was I don't I don't know if it was
the first high school to be desegregated, UM or if
it was just the one that that was the most
nuts or the first one that was the most nuts.
(29:46):
But the the governor of Arkansas said not on my watch,
and he called out something like ten thousand National Guard
troops to be there on the first day of school,
I think September four, even to block the entry of
the kids who are known as the Little Rock nine
nine African American high school students whose bravery is just
(30:09):
breathtaking when you stop and think about it, who were
trying to go into this newly desegregated high school to
go to class and they were blocked for something like
I think twenty days before they could finally make their
way in. Yeah. This was after the Little Rock school
Board unanimously voted to integrate their schools. They were going
(30:30):
to start with high school that year, uh, and then
followed the following year with junior high and elementary school.
And like you said, those nine and not only brave kids,
but you know, families of those kids, because they all
had to endure what was coming obviously, Um, they tried
and it got Uh. This is the part that's really confusing,
(30:52):
because Governor Falbos went to Newport, Rhode Island to meet
with President Eisenhower about this. It's described as a brief meeting,
and Eisenhower supposedly thought that Falbos had agreed to enroll
these students and said that, you know, to go ahead
and keep those troops there to keep everything safe. And
(31:12):
I don't know if that was a genuine misunderstanding. UM.
I read lots of accounts of this, and it seems
to have been a misunderstanding. Uh. He got back to
a Little Rock, though, and there was a court order
on September from a federal judge that said you got
to get those troops out of there and let these
kids go to school. And they slipped him in, literally
(31:35):
slipped him in the side door, and a full scale
riot erupted. And uh, he you know, he allowed this
violence to happen, couldn't stop it, and they called up
for federal help at that time, and that's when Eisenhower
had to step in an issue Executive Order one oh
seven three zero, which called him the hundred and first Airborne.
(31:56):
The white troops of the one first Airborne, they withdrew
the Black troops. And um, they they didn't stay there
all year, but there were army units there for the
remainder of the academic year. Um. And one, one of
the Little Rock nine, UM was a senior and he graduated,
became one of the first African American students to graduate
(32:18):
from public high school in the US or from an
integrated high school. UM. I think four of the nine
who didn't four of the eight who didn't graduate, we're
willing to go back the next year. The others are like,
forget that, man, this is crazy. We literally need the
army to enforce it. Yeah. I mean when one girl
(32:39):
was pushed down the stairs, one girl had acid thrown
on her face. Um, they were berated and harangued on
a daily basis, not just by like students, but by
parents and stuff. It was just one of the ugliest
chapters of American history was UM desegregation of schools and
desegregation in general, but school was in particular because we're
(33:01):
talking about kids here, you know what I'm saying, kids
who are being subjected to that is about enough for
adults too, but for for you know, even teenagers on doubt,
it's just disgusting. Should we take another break? Yes, all right,
we're going to take a break, and we're going to
come back and wrap it up with the post civil
rights area years and where we stand today with the
(33:23):
a c P right after this, So chuck. The Double
(33:51):
a CP definitely had a huge hand along with a
bunch of other groups including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
and the Student Non Lenk Coordinating Committee, just a lot
of different groups UM to help get some massive legislation
pass Remember we said from the outset, the Double a
CP had always been UM focused on social justice and
(34:14):
change improvement in the lives of African Americans through legislation
through basically federal government intervention saying Okay, everybody's equal. Now
we're going to enforce that. And they did it. They
got it passed with the Civil Rights Act, the Voting
Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, um, the sweeping UH
(34:36):
reforms that were passed in the sixties. They basically achieved
their goal. And what's ironic is from almost that point
forward they were like, Okay, well, how do we how
do we proceed from here? And there's been a lot
of um opportunity for people to take pop shots at
the nub a CP in question the relevancy and the
post civil rights era UM, which I think when you
(34:58):
really kind of dig into it, is generally unfair, but
in some cases it's been warranted too. And you can
make a case that the a CP is still to
this day trying to figure out their their bearings again
in a post civil rights era. Yeah, this kind of
started in the seventies when there was a bit of
an ideological shift in protest and how that looks um
(35:22):
and instead of in the courtroom, we did great episode
on the Black Power or no, we did a Black Panther,
but it was part of the black power movement UM,
and that was a little more in fashion at the time,
a little more in your face kind of activism. The
indelible in double a CP I think was sort of
looked at a little bit is like, well, you know
that your that your grandfather's organization impression too. Yeah, and
(35:46):
like we wanna we want to get up in your
face and really make some news and make some change
that way. UM. I think revenue stayed pretty high, uh
in the mid seventies until they started getting hit with
a lot of lawsuits. There were always in court defending
things as well as is trying to get UM legislation
passed and and prosecuting things. But that left them on
(36:09):
the verge of bankruptcy at one point. Uh, there were
a couple of high profile presidents that were fired. UM,
there were allegations of financial mismanagement. UM. They had to
lay off a lot of its workforce in two thousand seven,
and so it's just it's been a little bit tougher
ROADAHO since the civil rights era. UM. In two thousand four,
(36:31):
the I R S Gun involved because they are a
nonprofit and they said you're supposed to be a nonpartisan
group here, and you're saying things in particular, UH, this
speech in two thousand four, which is um pretty much
very anti Bush and you can't do that as a nonprofit.
So it's been sort of a more um irregular path
(36:54):
that they've been on, and they've been trying to find
their way. I think, yeah, the n double a c
P has kind of been stuck in between a rock
and a hard place thing where they're accused on one
side of being way too moderate and not really active enough.
On the other side, they're accused of being anti republican,
you know, And they actually came out against that i
r S threat and investigation. There was a two year
(37:14):
investigation into whether or not they should hold their five
oh one C three status um, and they they came back.
They blasted back. Rather than just kind of taking it.
They said, well, wait a minute, Um, this is the
Bush Administration's i r S saying we shouldn't be talking
smack about President Bush or criticizing President Bush. That seems
fairly politically motivated. And the i r S ended up
(37:35):
dropping that investigation and they kept their five O one
C three status. So good for them on that tip.
But one of the other big problems I read, um,
you kind of said, like there was this especially during
the Black Power movement of the seventies, they were criticized
as not being in your face enough, of being just
too bureaucratic and slow moving. The same exact accusations are
(37:55):
being leveled against them still today. UM very much in
the face of the Black Lives Matter movement. UM. And
one of the big problems that the Double A c
P has is there's a it's a really centralized organization.
There's like, I think, branches across the United States. There's
a lot of different branches to keep up with. There's
(38:18):
a sixty four member board. It's amazing that they get
anything done, but that that huge UM, that that large
board has a big a lot of control over the
individual branches. Like apparently, if you're a branch, if you
want to go out and join like a march, you know,
against the death of George Floyd or against police brutality
(38:40):
or something like that, you want to get into the streets,
you have to get permission from the Double A CP
board first. UM. And that board is aging as well.
And there's a lot of criticism about it being slow moving,
about being out of touch, and about it being way
too bloated a bureaucracy to have a big impact like
it needs to have on the immediat lives of black
(39:01):
people and people of color in general today. So there's
a huge transition that the Double A CP is undergoing
right now. And um, I don't know that they have
found their way, but they seem to be rather aware
that they do need to find their way again. Um,
because it's an organization that depends largely on membership dues,
and if people think you're relevant or don't even realize
(39:22):
you're still around, they're not going to join and give
you membership dues. And it's going to make it harder
to actually get anything done. Do I need to say it?
Please do Josh Clark streamline get rid of that red
tape Josh Clark instead of like that Nixon like like
peace sign for victory thing, I'm gonna somehow replace my
(39:45):
fingers with all thumbs. This is gonna be like rule
of thumbs every which way. I love it. Uh. In
tw eleven, uh in Double A CP really kind of
formalize their march into the twenty one century. Uh. I
guess about eleven years too late. Uh, not too late,
but calendar wise. And they said that their focus were
(40:07):
what they call the six game changers, which right now
are economics, sustainability, education, health, public safety and criminal justice,
voting rights and political representation, and youth and young adult engagement.
And they're still at it these days. You can see
them protesting, litigating, lobbying. It might be over Confederate statues
(40:32):
in public squares. It might be in the form of
doing a sit in in the office of former Attorney
General Jeff Sessions. UM, it might be you know, reaching
out to Black Lives Matter and and people who were
part of that organization to see how they can work together. Uh,
They're they're trying, They're doing their best. I think now
(40:53):
it's about a half a million members, about twenty nine
million dollars as an organization in what did you say,
it's more than two thousand branches. Yeah, yeah, which is
that's a big lumbering organization, you know it is. Um.
One of the other problems I saw that they were
running into is that, like I said, they were kind
(41:14):
of victims of their own success. When you're agitating for legislation,
when the legislation gets past, what do you do next?
And one of the things that they're the double A
CP is credited for is paving the way for African
American office holders. And I was reading um something from
Wan Williams, who I guess is conservative now he defected
from MPR over to Fox years and years ago, but
(41:37):
he was saying that, Um, the irony of the election
of Obama and um other black office holders is that
it makes the N double A CP seem less relevant
because then people say, Okay, well, you know, the N
double A CP got these these guys into power, and
now we we can rely on them to make the
changes that the double A c P has been trying
(41:58):
to make. And so it's kind of like, yeah, there's
there there, They're they've achieved the changes that they've wanted to,
but now they have to figure out, Okay, what what's left?
What what what else needs to be UM focused on?
And how do we change that following the course that
we've plotted in the organization that we've we've structured for ourselves.
(42:18):
So thing's gonna be really interesting to see what the
double A CP does over the next like ten or
twenty years. I think the six Game Changers is uh
pretty good foundation. I agree, So hazzah to the Double
A c P. We're glad that we live in a
world that they're around, although we're sad that we live
in a world where they're needed. You know, Wow, boy,
(42:40):
do I need to say it? I just grew an
extra thumb. Think. Okay, Well, since chucked his laugh like that,
I think everybody's time for listener mail. This is from
a six year old and if you want to get
the listener mail, just be six mm hmm. That's my advice. Yeah. Uh, hi,
(43:00):
Josh and Chuck. My name is Christopher. I'm six years
old and from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My mommy introduced me
to your show recently because I am very interested in
learning about everything and I love your podcast. Um, this
kid is like basically my daughter's age, by the way,
who could not care less about what I do. Well,
(43:20):
that's that's actually not true, but she certainly doesn't listen.
I had a movie question on the car the O day.
She said, is that Josh? She didn't. It's awesome. I
can't remember who I was interviewing, but did she say
that every time? No, she wondered if it was you.
Was it Mark Ruffalo because people say it sound like
Mark Ruffalo. No, but he tweeted about us once didn't
(43:42):
he no Navajo co talkers. Okay, I need to get
him on the show. Yeah you do. I really liked
the episode in Oregami. It's one of my favorites. I
also really like the one on Monopoly, and also the
one about peanut Butter. I think the more I listen,
the more favorites I'll have. Have you done an episode
(44:03):
on Harry Potter? If you have it, maybe you should.
I'm reading through the books now with my mommy. It's adorable.
I'm hoping that you might read my letter on listener
mail and I'll get to hear it. If you do,
can you tell me which episode? But if not, that's okay.
I just want to let you know that I think
you guys are really interesting and smart. Love love Christopher
(44:26):
mckelcher in. And then get this. My mom had to
type this for me, but I told her what to right.
Very nice dictated by Christopher. That's pretty great. Thanks a lot, Christopher.
We appreciate you. Um we have not done a Harry
Potter episode, and maybe we will some day, and if
we do, it will be because you asked for how
(44:46):
about that? Great? And Chuck, we just got to introduce
a six year old to the history of the N
double a CP I love it. Yeah. So if you
want to be like Christopher and get in touch with
us and tell us that you're six, you better be
six if you say that. Um. You can hit us
up via email at stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
(45:11):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeart Radio.
For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows. H
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I
Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh,
and there's Chuck and Jerry's out there somewhere. Uh, and
this is stuff you should Know N double A CP edition.
(00:21):
That's right. I was thinking about this, well, I was researching, Chuck.
No one ever says N A A c P. I've
never heard anybody say everyone says N double A c P,
which I think kind of gives the whole thing, Uh,
kind of like a like an old friend kind of
feel to it, you know what I'm saying. Well, yeah,
I mean since you brought that up. Um, there have
(00:44):
been people questioning the name in modern times of National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and some people
have floated African Americans, so in in double A double
A I guess could be a way that you would
say that, but um, they this was I think from
(01:04):
two thousand seven, So the leader of the Double A
CP at the time, I think there's a there's so
much in the name, so much currency at this point. Yeah,
that switching it is kind of tough. And also, um,
he said, you know, we're kind of about the rights
of many kinds of people, UM, so we don't want
(01:26):
to just say African Americans. So yeah, and there's a
lot lots of lengthy articles, but it seemed to make sense.
And from actually what i've what I've read is the UM,
the double A CP is kind of in this lengthy
process of UM kind of reinventing itself or re establishing itself.
And it seems like one of the things that they
are starting to kind of go for is UM, especially
(01:48):
economic equality for all people. So that really kind of
jibes with you know this uh that it's almost like
they grew into the name finally now in the twenty
one century, which is surprising. It's kind of neat. Yeah,
it should be hot back in the old way back machine.
It's been a little while. We gotta put some air
in the tires first. But yes, did we get in
(02:11):
that thing at all last year? I don't think so,
which is surprising. You know, we should have been getting
that thing every day. Yeah, I know, and we totally didn't.
But okay, so here we go. We're getting in the
way back and all right, well we're gonna go back
to uh, let's go back to nineteen o nine. Who
(02:35):
might as well go back to when the organization was founded,
and the reason why was because, well, for lots of reasons,
but I think this sort of inciting incident was in
August of nineteen o eight when in Springfield, Illinois, there
were two gentlemen arrested on suspicion of rape and attempted
(02:55):
rape and murder, and the cops there were a little
afraid of what might happen because, as you will see
in this episode, there was a tendency for extra judicial
violence a k a. Lynchings to happen if people got
worked up. So they said, let's get these guys out
of here, let's take them to another town. The mob
(03:16):
of people show up and realized that they have been
moved and did not take kindly to that and rioted
in Springfield. Yeah. So, like as a result of this
this Springfield riot, there were like two thousand black residents
of Springfield, Illinois who were displaced. They just didn't have
homes anymore because they've been burned to the ground. Um.
(03:36):
Six people were murdered. Um. Two people were lynched. Two
innocent men were lynched basically as stand ins for the
two men that they had originally intended to lynch. Yeah,
sixteen people ended up UM losing their lives over those
three days, and nine black people UM, seven white people.
Five died from conflict with the state militia that was
(03:58):
called in in two white people died by suicide. And
for many many years up until I think semi recently,
the seven white people that died, those deaths were attributed
to UM to being killed by black people that were there,
and that is not the case. They were literally rewriting
history in that case. One of the other big things
(04:19):
about this too is UM aside from the fact that
it happened, and this was you know, these happened with
enough frequency like that it was a it was a
real problem. UM. But one of the other things about
these these you know, race riots or UM massacres of
(04:40):
black residents you know usually that evolved out of a
lynching UM, was that they went unpunished. UM. Oftentimes they
were uninvestigated. There just wasn't much, if anything done about them.
So the kind of UM it became clear that this
is a larger issue was already very clear among the
African American community in the United States, but it UM
(05:05):
kind of caught the the attention of UM some connected
white um social justice activists who were working at the
time too, that's right. Uh So in nineteen o nine,
a man named W. E. B. Du Bois, which is
one of the great all time names if you've got
(05:25):
three initials and that's what you're gonna roll with in
Duba is a pretty killer name too. But he was
a humanities professor, he was a writer. Um, he was
the first African American to earn a doctorate degree from
a university in the United States, Harvard. That's right. He
got together with forty other social activists in New York
(05:47):
and uh, it was you know, it was it was
mixed races. It was a group of black people and
white people, mixed religions. There were Jewish people there. Um.
That was described as a group of black and white activist,
Jews and Gentiles in the Library of Congress. And they
chose February twelve to get together because that was Abraham
Lincoln's birthday and that is where they established their first
(06:10):
charter as a group. Yeah. The first time they met, um,
they were not considered the n double a CP. It
wasn't until their second meeting the first time they called
themselves the National Negro Committee, and then in nineteen ten
when they met again, they said, well, let's call ourselves
the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and
the n double a CP was officially born, although they
(06:32):
consider the actual founding back in nineteen o nine, and
like you said, yeah, there was. It was multi racial,
multi ethnic, UM, and white people were involved because they
were very much concerned about the quality of life and
the um viability of getting ahead for African Americans in
(06:55):
in the United States at the time. And for UM
this organization to really kind of find its legs and
find its footing and survive, it's like crucial first few years. UM,
it needed very well connected, very wealthy white supporters, and
so there was an integration at the highest levels. And
(07:17):
then eventually within a few years it was kind of
like okay, it's it's you know, we it's time for
us to step back. We've we've established this thing UM
and and it can kind of go indefinitely from here. Yeah.
So getting back to that charter, I think it's the
words are pretty important. It said it was to promote
equality of rights and eradicate cast or race prejudice among
(07:40):
citizens in the United States. To advance the interest of
colored citizens, to secure for them impartial suffrage, and to
increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education
for their children, employment according to their ability, and complete
equality before the law. And I think it's pretty import
and because it really kind of laid the groundwork for
(08:03):
what UM. I mean, you know, there have been all
sorts of activist groups over the years in the African
American community, and there's was always sort of about let's
attack this in the courts, and let's attack it from
let's attack these systems in the courts that are you know,
where the cards are so stacked against us by law,
(08:24):
and let's get some of these laws overturned. Yeah, and
that was I mean, that's still been their strategy basically
throughout it was. It was the strategy from the beginning
and it still is today, which is UM and not
an opposition, but it's it's complementary to other strategies like
direct action, which is like UM, you know, going to
(08:46):
UH counter and sitting in and protest to segregated lunch
counter or not giving your seat up on a bus. UM.
And you know, during the civil rights ares, we'll see
like the n Double A c P had an involvement
direct action, but it's always been known as like this
like just shooting for the biggest trophies of all, you know,
like change, fundamental change at the national level legislatively. Um,
(09:11):
that's what they've always kind of been about, the Double
A CP. Yeah. So some of these, uh, some of
the folks in the very first group, um, the first
president was a constitutional lawyer named Moore Field story great man.
There was a woman named Florence Kelly who was also
an attorney who worked a lot in uh an employment reform.
(09:32):
Do you remember her from the Francis Perkins episode. She
was the woman who inspired Francis Perkins. Yeah, she is great.
Who else? Uh, Well, they were you know, they needed
to um make some way in the press. That was
sort of one of the big problems at the time
is you know, lynchings weren't being covered in the press.
A lot of their rights that were being trampled on
(09:53):
weren't covered in the mainstream press. So they had a
good group of writers, um essayist, journe list that would
get in there and they would, you know, they would
they founded their own paper, which was huge. The crisis
which is still around today their magazine, but mainly just
trying to get recognized in mainstream newspapers with their work. Yeah. Again,
(10:14):
some of the early supporters and UM people who were
founding members had big time connections in the press, like
one guy Oswald Garrison Villard. He was the publisher of
the New York Evening Post and the Nation magazine, so
he could very easily get stories about things like lynchings
(10:35):
into his his paper and his magazine UM, where other
other places wouldn't print that kind of stuff. And then yeah,
as the subscribership of the Crisis Crew, UM had a
bigger and bigger impact. So yeah, kind of part and parcel.
It seemed like with this legislative action was generating public
support through the press. It's kind of like this two
(10:56):
pronged approach. All right, should we take a little pause
for the cause. Yeah, alright, we're gonna take a break
and be right back to talk about some of their
early successes right after this. So if you look at
(11:32):
some of the early successes in the first part of
the twentieth century, one of the big ones you can
point to is in Oklahoma in nineteen ten, where they
had a state regulation, uh that limited the rights of
black citizens to vote. It was a grandfather clause basically
where they said, you need and I think we talked
(11:54):
about this in the Voter Suppression EPP. But um, you
need to be able to pass a literacy tests and
order to be eligible to vote unless you had a
grandfather who voted in eighteen sixty six. And side note,
this is before black people were allowed to vote in Oklahoma.
So they basically were saying, if you're illiterate and you're white,
(12:15):
you can vote. If you're illiterate and you're black, you can't. Yeah,
that Oklahoma law was particularly agreed to say. It was
one of I think like seven or eight states that
had a grandfather clause. But Oklahomas said, um, not only
if your grandfather could vote in eighteen sixty six, if
he lived in another country in eighteen sixty six and
would have been eligible to vote or could vote in
(12:35):
that country, you your grandfathered in. So basically, as long
as you weren't black, you could you could vote, even
if you were illiterate. So UM, the n double a
CP filed suit against this um in a very famous
case called Gwyn versus the US. UM and Gwyn was
named after Frank gwyn And who, along with J. J. Bale,
(12:56):
where a couple of elections officers who had who had
basically been charged with disenfranchising black voters through the grandfather clause.
And the Supreme Court heard this and said, you know
what this is. Uh, this n Double A CP group.
I've not heard of them before, but they present a
pretty good case. So we're going to go ahead and
overturn this grandfather clause. And you know, this is nineteen fifteen.
(13:20):
The Double A CP had only met for the very
first time six years before, and all of a sudden
they're overturning UM race based discrimination laws about voting at
the Supreme Court. And that definitely caught the attention of
people in the civil rights UM community for sure. Yeah.
That's why. I mean, it's when you look back through history,
this the state's rights argument that we still here today
(13:43):
is such a tricky thing because you know, states should
be allowed to do a lot of things as they
see fit, but you can't you can't disenfranchise voters, willfully
disenfranchise voters, Uh, And that's when the federal government comes
in and people start crying foul that they want to
be able to run their elections their way, which means
(14:03):
we don't want black people to vote, and you just
can't do that. You know. I've been thinking about this
recently since we did our Clan episode, because I noticed
that every time the clan went away, it was after
the federal government intervened because the states wouldn't write. And
something I came up with, like just a good rule
of thumb or a good litmus test, is does this
(14:25):
law discriminate against anybody's right anybody? It doesn't matter what
group it is. Forget the group, take the group out
of it. Is it a discriminatory law? And I cannot
think of a single instance where a discriminatory law would
be beneficial for the greater good of of the country
um or for the health of the of democracy. I
(14:46):
just I can't think of one. Um unless you're you're discriminating,
discriminating against somebody's right to discriminate against somebody, maybe that
would be the case. But that seemed to be a
pretty good rule of thumb to me that I just
came up with, does the law discriminate yes, well, then
it's probably a pretty bad law. Hey, Josh, Yeah, that's
(15:11):
about how far into the future, I should try my
hand and what is that but years that I I
don't know, but we're all just basically whisps of ones
and zeros. I think by then. Another big thing that
kind of happened early on it was we talked about
Birth of the Nation in our episode on the Clan,
(15:35):
and they in Double A CP got together and they said,
let's boycott this terrible movie. And the boycott didn't do
a lot in terms of shutting anything down in terms
of Birth of a Nation, but it did draw them
some finally some mainstream publicity, and um got them written
up in newspapers at least, right, So, I mean they
(15:56):
had some early successes, um, and especially with overturning the
grandfather clause. But I don't know if it was after
this or around this time they really kind of redoubled
their efforts back onto the original intention, which was to
do something about lynching, to get an anti leg anti
(16:17):
lynching law, national federal law passed in the United States.
And UM, what's crazy is that that still hasn't happened,
and that is recently, is June of we we failed
to do it yet again, um, which is just nuts
to me. But the the n double A cp UM
(16:38):
was really trying to get this to get legislation passed.
You know, even back then it just made sense. Now
today it's just shameful that we don't have something. But
the thing that kind of redoubled or refocused the double
A CPS efforts on UM anti lynching legislation was the
lynching of a teenager named Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas
(16:58):
in nineteen sixteen. And even as far as lynchings go,
this was particularly gruesome. Yeah. I mean, not only was
the act gruesome, which was he was tortured, um, hanged,
set on fire, uh and beaten, but it was in
front of oh. Estimates range from eight to seventeen thousand
(17:20):
people like basically the size of a small, you know,
hockey arena, medium, medium sized hockey arena. You're like, I'm
not going above medium. Well, I'm trying to think these days,
how much does like your average NBA hockey arena. Hold,
it's more like, how I don't I'm such a terrible
(17:41):
judge of anything like that. So well, let's just say
a medium sized hockey arena. I think they got it across.
And the only reason I'm saying that is because it's
if you try and if you go to a pro
sports game or a big concert, try to imagine that
many people gathered together to watch a man, a human
being beat burned and hanged in front of your face.
(18:03):
And I tried to put myself in the not in
the mindset, but out of all those people, like how
many of those fifteen thousand people were fully charged do this?
Do this? And how many as it happened, were like,
my god, what is happened to us as human beings
and Americans? Were there any people there that regretted what
(18:27):
was going on? I'm sure some, And if they didn't
regretted during they I'm sure some regretted it afterward. But
I think one of the things that made Jesse Washington's
lynching so disturbing to the rest of the nation was
that it was reported that there was a carnival like
atmosphere where people were enjoying themselves and enjoying their time,
(18:47):
gathered together with Um all the other residents of Waco
and and lynching this this teenager. UM and the n
double a c P sent an investigator there to to
basically document the whole thing, and she came back with
this report that became something called the UM the Horror
(19:08):
of Waco or the Waco Horror and UM the n
double A CP said we're going to we're gonna get
this out there. We're gonna tell the world about this,
and they definitely did, and it had a really big impact.
You know, what it reminds me of is is the
only thing I can compare it to these days is
when a UM, a high profile death row inmate is
(19:29):
executed and outside the prison they have those parties and stuff. Uh.
You know, I don't want to wait into the capital
punishment debate here, but there's something about that blood lust
that just feels really gross to me. Yeah, and that's
my official statement. You're talking about somebody's life and vengeance.
(19:50):
Anytime vengeance is driving things, it's usually time to take
a pause and reflect on what you're doing. You know,
I've got all the rules of coming out today, Josh. Yeah. Um.
So yeah, So they put out these pictures, like you said, Um,
we're covered in mainstream newspapers in you know, I think
(20:15):
it shocked the country. Um, obviously not enough, but it
was a big wake up call. I think to a
lot of people. What happened in Waco and the end
in double a CP was able to UM to really
pivot on this and bring up something like the Dire Bill,
which I think was the first piece of anti lynching
(20:35):
legislation UM sponsored by Leonidas another great name, Leonidas Dire,
Republican Congressman from Missouri, UM that died in the Senate.
I think it passed the House in two and then
died in a Senate after a filibuster from the Southern Democrats, Yes,
(20:56):
the Dixiecrats UM. And that was just the first of
many many ato. Yeah, apparently over like by the middle
of the century, there were two hundred anti lynching bills
that were introduced and died in Congress just by the
mid century. And like I was saying, as recently as
m June of there was a h anti lynching law
(21:17):
that was that passed the Senate unanimously one zero, and
then it went over to the House where it passed
four hundred and fifteen four and ten to four. Then
the only thing the House did was changed the name
to the Emmett Till Anti Lynching Law, which means then
(21:40):
it had to go back to the Senate to be
passed again. Because that one change has had been made,
the name had been changed, and when it got back
to the Senate, Ran Paul from Kentucky said, I don't
feel good about this, even though he was part of
the unanimous Senate that had passed it unanimously just before,
and no other change was made except for the name. Um,
and that really ticked a lot of people off. But
(22:02):
still to this day that law was blocked and the
United States still does not have a law that makes
lynching a federal crime. Yeah, so if you want to,
I mean, this was really big news. Um. So I'm
sure a lot of people know about this, But if
you're curious about Ran Paul's defense was he said, quote,
(22:24):
this bill would cheapen the meaning of lynching by defining
it so broadly as to include a minor bruise or abrasion.
Our national history of Rachiel terrorism demands much more serious
than seriousness than that. So what he was contending was, uh,
he wanted he wants the language changed, um, because in
(22:44):
the language now it says the standard in federal hate
crimes is serious or I'm sorry, is um bodily injury.
And I think he wants it changed to serious bodily injury.
In other words, if someone gets punched in the ace,
it would be called and considered a lynching in the
way it's written now. And he said there should be
(23:06):
substantial risk of death and extreme physical pain in order
to qualify as lynching. Otherwise, he said, it disrespects what
real lynchings were. Uh, so take that for what it is, Um,
for what it's worth. The Senate formally apologized in two
thousand five for failing to outlaw lynching. So they apologize
(23:29):
into thousand five, and still it hasn't been put forward
on the books. Yeah. So, UM, the like we said,
the the n double a c p UM for decades
and decades leading up to the Civil rights era, UM
was very much, uh focused on preventing lynching, on getting
(23:49):
lynching outlawed. I'm bringing attention to the huge, massive issue
of lynching in the United States. UM. They had a
flag that they would unfurl outside of their headquarters in
New York whenever, UM a lynching was reported, and it
just said a man was lynched yesterday, UM, which I
read it. Yeah, I read it, and I was like, wow,
that's you know, that must have been something that I
(24:11):
saw a picture of it and it's one of those
ones where a picture is worth a thousand words, Like
don't you see it? It really drives home what they
were doing, um and really kind of makes you really
like the n double a C P. Like, yeah, go
get them, you know, let's get lynching outlawed. Yeah. I
mean you talked about the numbers over that time period.
The four thousand plus comes out to uh more than
(24:34):
one lynching a week in the United States over that
period that was like verified, known and reported, so clearly
you know, probably more than that. Um. So yeah, this
is happening literally on a weekly basis in the United States.
Someone is going out on their own vigilante style and
hanging uh. Not always hanging a black man, sometimes worse. Yeah,
(24:57):
I mean if you can. There were sometimes they would
just burn the whole black section of town down, like
in in nineteen seventeen St. Louis saw um a race massacre,
just like there had been in Springfield not too long before.
So um, like, yeah, it wasn't just lynching, it was
just mob violence and enforcement of segregation. I think the
(25:18):
thing that set off um the St. Louis uh riot
was a black family moved into a white neighborhood. If
I'm not mistaken, that was the instance that set it off.
So yeah, it was a yeah, that was a real problem.
Racial violence was an even bigger problem than it is
today back before the Civil rights eara right, So during
(25:42):
the civil rights era, obviously the in A CP is
going to be very active. Um saw some really great successes.
They're sort of leading the way, lobbying in the capitol,
trying just scores and scores of cases in the courts, UM,
helping people register to vote, taking part in Mississippi's Freedom
Summer in nineteen sixty four. Um, if you don't know,
(26:05):
if you know the name Rosa Parks and know what
she did, you may not know that she was the
Montgomery in Double a CP secretary, so she actually worked
for the organization. Yeah, I don't remember. Did we do
a whole episode on Rosa Parks in the bus boycott
or was it part of another episode we did. I
can't remember all of our videos and everything is just
(26:26):
a big stew in my head at this point. Well,
we did. We did the one on the freedom schools
for sure, UM, and I don't remember what we did,
but we talked a lot about Rosa Parks. And I
don't know if it was her own episode or not.
If not, she deserves her own episode. But yeah, she
she was a secretary for the Double A CP in
Birmingham or Montgomery. I'm sorry. And if you start to
(26:49):
look at some of the big events of the civil
rights Sarah, you start to realize that, oh, wait a minute,
that was an in Double A CP field officer or
those purse those but were um, you know, uh, members
of the local in Double A CP branch. There were
a lot of like legal strategies and cases that were
launched by the Double A CP that appeared to just
(27:10):
be direct action like Rosa Parks had had enough and
wasn't going to get up that day. Um that that
when you peel back the layer a little bit. This
is part of a larger strategy of trying to force
lawsuits in court cases so that they can um go
all the way up to the Supreme Court. And sometimes
they were very very effective. Yeah, I mean notably, uh
(27:32):
in the in the mid nineteen fifties, they set their
sights on the school system and separate but equal. They
wanted to take that down and Brown versus versus Board
of Education, you know, one of the landmark cases in
the history of this country. UM Thorogood Marshall in in
Double a CP lawyer who was actually later on in
(27:52):
the late sixties became the first black Supreme Court justice.
He argued, um, that segregation in public school rules is
I mean, it is flat out, very clearly unconstitutional. And
this is one of those times where every justice on
the Court agreed and said, yeah, that that that is
not constitutional in any way. Right. Um, so I think
(28:17):
they said that we uh, that we need to desegregate
with all all haste. I can't remember the exact wording,
but it was. It was vague enough that it was, yeah,
they're like, what exactly constitutes lickity split? Like, sure, it's
faster than a turtles crawl, but is it as fast
as a hair running? Um? And the Supreme Court but
(28:41):
that there was a huge backlash to that. It wasn't
just like, you know, especially the Southern States were like,
all right, you know, we had a pretty good run
at a segregated school system. It's you know, it's it's
run its course, and now it's time to disegregate. That's
not at all how it went. At the very least
local municipalities and even states tried to come up with
(29:03):
new laws that provided loopholes to segregation. UM. Some states said, well, fine,
maybe we'll just abolish public schools altogether and then we
don't have to follow this this federal law any longer. UM.
There were there was physical violence. There was just a
tremendous amount of pushback to the idea of desegregating schools,
(29:24):
and the whole thing like really kind of found its
fruition at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, UM,
which was I don't I don't know if it was
the first high school to be desegregated, UM or if
it was just the one that that was the most
nuts or the first one that was the most nuts.
(29:46):
But the the governor of Arkansas said not on my watch,
and he called out something like ten thousand National Guard
troops to be there on the first day of school,
I think September four, even to block the entry of
the kids who are known as the Little Rock nine
nine African American high school students whose bravery is just
(30:09):
breathtaking when you stop and think about it, who were
trying to go into this newly desegregated high school to
go to class and they were blocked for something like
I think twenty days before they could finally make their
way in. Yeah. This was after the Little Rock school
Board unanimously voted to integrate their schools. They were going
(30:30):
to start with high school that year, uh, and then
followed the following year with junior high and elementary school.
And like you said, those nine and not only brave kids,
but you know, families of those kids, because they all
had to endure what was coming obviously, Um, they tried
and it got Uh. This is the part that's really confusing,
(30:52):
because Governor Falbos went to Newport, Rhode Island to meet
with President Eisenhower about this. It's described as a brief meeting,
and Eisenhower supposedly thought that Falbos had agreed to enroll
these students and said that, you know, to go ahead
and keep those troops there to keep everything safe. And
(31:12):
I don't know if that was a genuine misunderstanding. UM.
I read lots of accounts of this, and it seems
to have been a misunderstanding. Uh. He got back to
a Little Rock, though, and there was a court order
on September from a federal judge that said you got
to get those troops out of there and let these
kids go to school. And they slipped him in, literally
(31:35):
slipped him in the side door, and a full scale
riot erupted. And uh, he you know, he allowed this
violence to happen, couldn't stop it, and they called up
for federal help at that time, and that's when Eisenhower
had to step in an issue Executive Order one oh
seven three zero, which called him the hundred and first Airborne.
(31:56):
The white troops of the one first Airborne, they withdrew
the Black troops. And um, they they didn't stay there
all year, but there were army units there for the
remainder of the academic year. Um. And one, one of
the Little Rock nine, UM was a senior and he graduated,
became one of the first African American students to graduate
(32:18):
from public high school in the US or from an
integrated high school. UM. I think four of the nine
who didn't four of the eight who didn't graduate, we're
willing to go back the next year. The others are like,
forget that, man, this is crazy. We literally need the
army to enforce it. Yeah. I mean when one girl
(32:39):
was pushed down the stairs, one girl had acid thrown
on her face. Um, they were berated and harangued on
a daily basis, not just by like students, but by
parents and stuff. It was just one of the ugliest
chapters of American history was UM desegregation of schools and
desegregation in general, but school was in particular because we're
(33:01):
talking about kids here, you know what I'm saying, kids
who are being subjected to that is about enough for
adults too, but for for you know, even teenagers on doubt,
it's just disgusting. Should we take another break? Yes, all right,
we're going to take a break, and we're going to
come back and wrap it up with the post civil
rights area years and where we stand today with the
(33:23):
a c P right after this, So chuck. The Double
(33:51):
a CP definitely had a huge hand along with a
bunch of other groups including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
and the Student Non Lenk Coordinating Committee, just a lot
of different groups UM to help get some massive legislation
pass Remember we said from the outset, the Double a
CP had always been UM focused on social justice and
(34:14):
change improvement in the lives of African Americans through legislation
through basically federal government intervention saying Okay, everybody's equal. Now
we're going to enforce that. And they did it. They
got it passed with the Civil Rights Act, the Voting
Rights Act, the Fair Housing Act, um, the sweeping UH
(34:36):
reforms that were passed in the sixties. They basically achieved
their goal. And what's ironic is from almost that point
forward they were like, Okay, well, how do we how
do we proceed from here? And there's been a lot
of um opportunity for people to take pop shots at
the nub a CP in question the relevancy and the
post civil rights era UM, which I think when you
(34:58):
really kind of dig into it, is generally unfair, but
in some cases it's been warranted too. And you can
make a case that the a CP is still to
this day trying to figure out their their bearings again
in a post civil rights era. Yeah, this kind of
started in the seventies when there was a bit of
an ideological shift in protest and how that looks um
(35:22):
and instead of in the courtroom, we did great episode
on the Black Power or no, we did a Black Panther,
but it was part of the black power movement UM,
and that was a little more in fashion at the time,
a little more in your face kind of activism. The
indelible in double a CP I think was sort of
looked at a little bit is like, well, you know
that your that your grandfather's organization impression too. Yeah, and
(35:46):
like we wanna we want to get up in your
face and really make some news and make some change
that way. UM. I think revenue stayed pretty high, uh
in the mid seventies until they started getting hit with
a lot of lawsuits. There were always in court defending
things as well as is trying to get UM legislation
passed and and prosecuting things. But that left them on
(36:09):
the verge of bankruptcy at one point. Uh, there were
a couple of high profile presidents that were fired. UM,
there were allegations of financial mismanagement. UM. They had to
lay off a lot of its workforce in two thousand seven,
and so it's just it's been a little bit tougher
ROADAHO since the civil rights era. UM. In two thousand four,
(36:31):
the I R S Gun involved because they are a
nonprofit and they said you're supposed to be a nonpartisan
group here, and you're saying things in particular, UH, this
speech in two thousand four, which is um pretty much
very anti Bush and you can't do that as a nonprofit.
So it's been sort of a more um irregular path
(36:54):
that they've been on, and they've been trying to find
their way. I think, yeah, the n double a c
P has kind of been stuck in between a rock
and a hard place thing where they're accused on one
side of being way too moderate and not really active enough.
On the other side, they're accused of being anti republican,
you know, And they actually came out against that i
r S threat and investigation. There was a two year
(37:14):
investigation into whether or not they should hold their five
oh one C three status um, and they they came back.
They blasted back. Rather than just kind of taking it.
They said, well, wait a minute, Um, this is the
Bush Administration's i r S saying we shouldn't be talking
smack about President Bush or criticizing President Bush. That seems
fairly politically motivated. And the i r S ended up
(37:35):
dropping that investigation and they kept their five O one
C three status. So good for them on that tip.
But one of the other big problems I read, um,
you kind of said, like there was this especially during
the Black Power movement of the seventies, they were criticized
as not being in your face enough, of being just
too bureaucratic and slow moving. The same exact accusations are
(37:55):
being leveled against them still today. UM very much in
the face of the Black Lives Matter movement. UM. And
one of the big problems that the Double A c
P has is there's a it's a really centralized organization.
There's like, I think, branches across the United States. There's
a lot of different branches to keep up with. There's
(38:18):
a sixty four member board. It's amazing that they get
anything done, but that that huge UM, that that large
board has a big a lot of control over the
individual branches. Like apparently, if you're a branch, if you
want to go out and join like a march, you know,
against the death of George Floyd or against police brutality
(38:40):
or something like that, you want to get into the streets,
you have to get permission from the Double A CP
board first. UM. And that board is aging as well.
And there's a lot of criticism about it being slow moving,
about being out of touch, and about it being way
too bloated a bureaucracy to have a big impact like
it needs to have on the immediat lives of black
(39:01):
people and people of color in general today. So there's
a huge transition that the Double A CP is undergoing
right now. And um, I don't know that they have
found their way, but they seem to be rather aware
that they do need to find their way again. Um,
because it's an organization that depends largely on membership dues,
and if people think you're relevant or don't even realize
(39:22):
you're still around, they're not going to join and give
you membership dues. And it's going to make it harder
to actually get anything done. Do I need to say it?
Please do Josh Clark streamline get rid of that red
tape Josh Clark instead of like that Nixon like like
peace sign for victory thing, I'm gonna somehow replace my
(39:45):
fingers with all thumbs. This is gonna be like rule
of thumbs every which way. I love it. Uh. In
tw eleven, uh in Double A CP really kind of
formalize their march into the twenty one century. Uh. I
guess about eleven years too late. Uh, not too late,
but calendar wise. And they said that their focus were
(40:07):
what they call the six game changers, which right now
are economics, sustainability, education, health, public safety and criminal justice,
voting rights and political representation, and youth and young adult engagement.
And they're still at it these days. You can see
them protesting, litigating, lobbying. It might be over Confederate statues
(40:32):
in public squares. It might be in the form of
doing a sit in in the office of former Attorney
General Jeff Sessions. UM, it might be you know, reaching
out to Black Lives Matter and and people who were
part of that organization to see how they can work together. Uh,
They're they're trying, They're doing their best. I think now
(40:53):
it's about a half a million members, about twenty nine
million dollars as an organization in what did you say,
it's more than two thousand branches. Yeah, yeah, which is
that's a big lumbering organization, you know it is. Um.
One of the other problems I saw that they were
running into is that, like I said, they were kind
(41:14):
of victims of their own success. When you're agitating for legislation,
when the legislation gets past, what do you do next?
And one of the things that they're the double A
CP is credited for is paving the way for African
American office holders. And I was reading um something from
Wan Williams, who I guess is conservative now he defected
from MPR over to Fox years and years ago, but
(41:37):
he was saying that, Um, the irony of the election
of Obama and um other black office holders is that
it makes the N double A CP seem less relevant
because then people say, Okay, well, you know, the N
double A CP got these these guys into power, and
now we we can rely on them to make the
changes that the double A c P has been trying
(41:58):
to make. And so it's kind of like, yeah, there's
there there, They're they've achieved the changes that they've wanted to,
but now they have to figure out, Okay, what what's left?
What what what else needs to be UM focused on?
And how do we change that following the course that
we've plotted in the organization that we've we've structured for ourselves.
(42:18):
So thing's gonna be really interesting to see what the
double A CP does over the next like ten or
twenty years. I think the six Game Changers is uh
pretty good foundation. I agree, So hazzah to the Double
A c P. We're glad that we live in a
world that they're around, although we're sad that we live
in a world where they're needed. You know, Wow, boy,
(42:40):
do I need to say it? I just grew an
extra thumb. Think. Okay, Well, since chucked his laugh like that,
I think everybody's time for listener mail. This is from
a six year old and if you want to get
the listener mail, just be six mm hmm. That's my advice. Yeah. Uh, hi,
(43:00):
Josh and Chuck. My name is Christopher. I'm six years
old and from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. My mommy introduced me
to your show recently because I am very interested in
learning about everything and I love your podcast. Um, this
kid is like basically my daughter's age, by the way,
who could not care less about what I do. Well,
(43:20):
that's that's actually not true, but she certainly doesn't listen.
I had a movie question on the car the O day.
She said, is that Josh? She didn't. It's awesome. I
can't remember who I was interviewing, but did she say
that every time? No, she wondered if it was you.
Was it Mark Ruffalo because people say it sound like
Mark Ruffalo. No, but he tweeted about us once didn't
(43:42):
he no Navajo co talkers. Okay, I need to get
him on the show. Yeah you do. I really liked
the episode in Oregami. It's one of my favorites. I
also really like the one on Monopoly, and also the
one about peanut Butter. I think the more I listen,
the more favorites I'll have. Have you done an episode
(44:03):
on Harry Potter? If you have it, maybe you should.
I'm reading through the books now with my mommy. It's adorable.
I'm hoping that you might read my letter on listener
mail and I'll get to hear it. If you do,
can you tell me which episode? But if not, that's okay.
I just want to let you know that I think
you guys are really interesting and smart. Love love Christopher
(44:26):
mckelcher in. And then get this. My mom had to
type this for me, but I told her what to right.
Very nice dictated by Christopher. That's pretty great. Thanks a lot, Christopher.
We appreciate you. Um we have not done a Harry
Potter episode, and maybe we will some day, and if
we do, it will be because you asked for how
(44:46):
about that? Great? And Chuck, we just got to introduce
a six year old to the history of the N
double a CP I love it. Yeah. So if you
want to be like Christopher and get in touch with
us and tell us that you're six, you better be
six if you say that. Um. You can hit us
up via email at stuff podcast at iHeart radio dot com.
(45:11):
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