My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 225 - It’s Jenga

Episode Date: June 4, 2020

Karen and Georgia cover the life of Ida B. Wells and the Stonewall uprising.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello. And welcome.

To my favorite murder. The podcast. It sure is. For this new America. It sure isn't. I mean, we'll do our best. Is this the old America that we read so much about? I mean, what the fuck?

What the fuck? To just start it off, like it nothing is ever going to be the same again. No, it's true. And it's amazing. And well, yeah, there's definitely so many good parts about it. Yeah. Like we keep being shown the bad parts, but the good thing is then we're also, if you're looking correctly, you're also being shown the good parts.

That's right. There's progress being made in, we were just talking about, Jordan and I were just talking about how in the, say, past 48 hours, so much has changed. So many things have happened. So much information has come over the wire. I get all my information through an old teletype. No, you just, we were accidentally just watching the wire this whole time. Oh my God.

I love the wire. Stringer bell. Save me. That's why it's so stressful, but no, there's just, yeah, I mean, guys, I think you know better than anybody that we don't know how to talk about socio-political, race-relational things. We didn't go to college as we've said multiple times. I mean, that's number one.

I mean, we're both educated by social media as everybody is these days. We're all reading the same articles, we're all looking at the same reactions. So this will be more of a, we're just kind of repeat back a lot of things that you've probably already heard, but you know, we're here as two acknowledged, privileged, white women who want to support and are doing everything they can and acknowledge that we're not, we don't know shit and we're doing our best to know shit. And because so many of our listeners think fucking God want to know shit too, we're having a conversation with you guys about it.

Or maybe even what a lot of us are learning is that it's not a conversation, we need to zip it and listen to people who we haven't been listening to all of our lives and start actually acknowledging the only way to get rid of these white blind spots that a lot of us have or this complete ignorance of other people's experience is to stop talking about ourselves and putting ourselves in the center of everything and instead step back and be the observer where you can actually learn. And I think that whole thing that happened when everyone put up their black square and everyone, you know, the intent behind that, I believe there was a good intention of stop

talking about your dumb shit and pay attention to this incredibly important movement that's actually exploding in the most real and unbelievable way right in front of us. But then that got turned into like you, like it's an excuse for white people to not have to participate in discomfort. And so I think there was a nice kind of fix on that because I think a lot of people were like, got it, that's not the way you actually have to keep participating and you have to keep listening. And what you're doing is just being asked to instead of giving your opinion or being

like, I'm so sad and I'm so upset, who gives a shit if you're a sad or upset, let's hear from the people that this actually really affects in a day to day. Let's hear from the people who are constantly in danger because law enforcement is violent with with black people and people of color. You know what it felt like to me was like, we're all in a boat, okay, and the white people are running from side to side on the boat to be like, don't tip, don't tip, we have to run to the side, we have to run that side, we're making the boat tip on that side. The people of color are in the middle of the boat being like, can you guys all calm the

fuck down and just stand in the middle with us and stand here with us and stop fucking tipping the boat unintentionally, but you're causing the boat to tip. Yeah, it absolutely does. But I think what is impressive is before what would have taken four years for the running side to side to stop and a lot of arguing of like, well, here's some dumb political stance that actually isn't related and doesn't make sense, instead of any of that, there's just people are learning this very quick, like, oops, that was a mistake. And the discomfort, I think this is maybe for me personally, what I've learned in the

last four years of doing this podcast, which is basically the theme of this podcast is mistakes in many ways. Oops, sorry about that. Right. What I've learned is the pain of your mistake and the shame you feel because you made a mistake and you got called out as privileged, racist, blind, whatever it is, you should be say thank you for that pain because it is nothing compared to the pain of somebody watching a family member get shot in front of them because they didn't do the right thing

or they whatever, they've just basically been profiled. It's nothing compared to the pain of being in constant fear of your life. It is just an ego personal thing that you can absolutely get over easily. And all you have to do is say, sorry, and I'm going to do better, the end and stop talking about yourself. That's all. Every... As we talk about ourselves for, oh, seven minutes straight.

Every tweet I've put up that hasn't just been a retweet of someone smarter than me, who knows more than me, I've deleted because I don't even realize how fucking self-centered it sounds even when I'm like, fuck this and fuck that. And here's what I think. It's like, you don't realize how much it is about you when you're blabbing your mouth until you fucking see it and you're like, shut up. I don't get a fucking voice in this. I get to support other voices.

Well, yeah, and the whole point of social media is blabbing your mouth and making it about ourselves. But people are making the switch. People are turning it around. People are... I think what I'm seeing is people getting that in a real way and being like, oh, right. No one wants to hear my dumb joke right now. Or sometimes they do.

I mean, there's people being very funny and on topic in my timeline at Twitter. People I love. Well, I think the comedic voice is so necessary and you have funny, biting things to say that advance the narrative, but I think people like me, who's just like, I hate Jimmy Fallon. It's like, it's not fucking helping anyone. It's not gonna help. Well, and also that's the... I think that's kind of the comforting, easy thing where you're like, oh, I'm gonna stand

back and kind of cancel people. That'll do it. And it's like, everyone's kind of learning, essentially, if you can't put your body out next to people of color and black people who are protesting, if that's not something you can do, then you have to give money. It's pretty much, that's it. And you also have to stake your claim because as some brilliant person put it in the one millionth tweet that I've read over the past four days, whatever.

Another really great thing that people who can't give money, who can't and won't protest for whatever reason is to call and tweet at and just barrage the people who are quote-unquote in charge of making these legislations, of creating these laws that fucking just completely discount people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged and disadvantaged because of a hundred and fucking 50 years of racism. And so you can do something. This really smart person said, it's no longer Democrats versus Republicans. But the only thing it is now is racist against anti-racist people.

And you have to declare your side because with white people, it could be anything. So basically, you have to just put up or shut up, which I think is kind of that is incredibly fascinating. And I also think that the movement, the action people are taking that is peaceful, quiet, peaceful protesting that at some point, the police are just like, and now we're going to tear gas you, is proving everyone's point. And it's a point that most white people never had to acknowledge, talk about or think about for up until this moment in history, at least in my generation, you would hear about it,

talk about it. We would, every once in a while, people would tweet at us of like, you can't, you know, talking about jail term reform or talking about this, talking about that, where I honestly didn't understand where I'd be like, but we want serial killers to rot in jail. That's what we're thinking. And they're just like, no, this overall, you know, the privatization of prisons means that the more people you imprison, the more lucrative you're fucking businesses. And so, and because of this systemic racism throughout our country, the people who are

going to prison are the people who are less, who have more disadvantages with money, with education, you know, and they're going to prison. And so, it's a system that's put in, that is, you know, racist because our country was built on the fucking backs of black people. And that's, and now, and it's been, you know, you can't take one piece out of it. It's like fucking Jenga. You can't take one piece out without the rest of it falling. So the people who make money on fucking private prisons are not going to be okay with, you

know, with reform, with police reform. They're not going to be okay with affordable housing. They're not going, you know, back, you know, fucking, not 40 years ago, they're not going to be okay with schools being unsegregated. It's just, it's people who are making so much fucking money. It's people who are grabbing money, who don't fucking need any more money. Well, also, somebody made that really good point, too. It's this, what's so exciting about this period of time, this presence of it, where there's

many good intentioned people who don't suffer at the hands of police brutality. And so kind of, it's easy. It has been easy for us to go, I don't know if it's that important. I don't know. It seems like, and then just basically now that we all walk around with a video recorder in our hands, that is our phone, thank God. And there are people, I mean, we've all seen it on social media, people recording a person down on the ground with their hands zip tied behind their back, their cross-legged, which

is the position that's all cop needs to do is put them, put you down like that and you can't move or do anything. My point is that then someone goes up and kick someone in the face when they're already down. And so that's the kind of thing where for all the people that would be very, it's so uncomfortable to go, oh, but you know, these people mean well and we need the police force and all these things, all that fucking shit gets washed away when you see how people are treated when the cops don't like them.

Because they don't, it's shocking. Because they don't get to say anymore, well, just don't resist arrest. They don't get to say that anymore because it is not, yeah, you and I, we could not resist arrest. George Floyd did not resist arrest. He was peacefully entire time. They have two angles on his arrest. That's right.

Two angles on his arrest. He did everything the cop says. Because Rodney King was fucking crawling away and we saw that fucking, God, 25 years ago. I mean, yeah, he was not resisting arrest, but now it's up in your face. It's on, you know, social media and we're the younger generation who won't deny it. And it's almost like I fucking hate saying this, but like the fact that we're all on lockdown right now and in this global pandemic and you know, it's, it's this perfect storm of people who get perfect storm of like we're all, it's almost like we've been priming for

the past two and a half months to come together and get out there and fucking and show and protest. Well, and that's what that guy, the most. So if you live in Los Angeles, you probably saw this clip or somebody retweeted it. It's incredible because there was, you know, hundreds of peaceful, I would dare say silent protesters standing outside Mayor Eric Garcetti's house. Oh my God. It was one of the most mind blowing visuals I've seen in a while because you couldn't

go, oh, that's so scary or, oh, they're, they're bad or whatever. It was people literally standing and not moving and not talking, just standing in front of the mayor's house like, see, you have to do something huge crowd of people. It was really big. It was so quiet and it's a super rich area of LA and then the reporter goes and finds a neighbor. So it's this white guy standing there with a mask on. Total step dad looking like normal guy.

And the second the clip starts, I get mad because I'm like, of course you find this guy that's going to start complaining how he can't pull out of his driveway. Fox news too. So you're like, oh, you're going to find the most fucking right. Well, a Fox news affiliate. Yes. Thank you. Yeah.

As opposed to the network. And she says, what do you think about all these people and what they're trying to, she, the way she asked the question, I didn't love this man then in the plainest, clearest way explains why it's happening. And basically says when you steal the land from the native people and build a country on the backs of black people and take away all their freedom and abuse them and don't give them equal rights. And then you have a president who lets this, I mean, he basically lays it out.

Yeah. Clearly and quickly. Yes. In this way where I was like, who are you? That's when you start to see that that's the majority, that that's your average person on the street, that we're all kind of watching these same videos and going, holy fucking shit. We can't, it can't be this way anymore.

I think, I mean, that's what I like to think. I mean, I love that it's so, but for every one of those I see, I see when I see white people rioting, spray painting, fucking stealing shit, I get my blood boils. That's not sure. We're not there to do that. We're there to support people of color, stand behind them, stand in front of them when they are being attacked by the fucking riot police. Yeah.

We're support. We're support. Right. There's many people who theorize that's the idea. They're agent provocateurs. They're there to actually do it, to make it worse. And everyone, I hope, saw that video of those fucking girls that were spray painting in the front of the Starbucks at the farmer's market.

That was farmer's market. Yeah. Yeah. And that woman walks up and is like, what the hell are you doing? Give me that. And then they bitch at her. And I was like, those two girls are not the kind of people I know that go to protest. They are something else because why the fuck are you doing that?

Like what are you doing? And then if someone comes up and goes, don't do that, you'd go, oh, I, sorry. I, you know, you would base, if you were of a certain mindset, you'd say sorry. And they were just like, basically fuck you. This isn't mass destruction. This is, you know, there's a fucking reason that you should be there. And there are things you can do to be supportive. The same thing happened in the fucking 60s and the 70s with the Vietnam protests.

They sent that fucking FBI and CIA would send in fucking, you know, undercover agents to fuck shit up that gave them an excuse to kill people at fucking Kent State. To fucking fire rubber bullets and to, you know, and to make, to make the, you know, middle conservative people hate what they saw and hate us. Cause it's, cause it's about optics, but right. What I think is fascinating is you cannot, you can't, it's very difficult now to argue with these optics when there are 50, like basically they look like stormtroopers standing at the Lincoln Memorial.

Oh my God. And that visual is just like this. We are now in the dystopian America that everyone's been holding their breath about. And that's why all of this is, I mean, look, and we're just, again, we're just talking about this off social media. We're just talking about this as it comes in and as we're reacting to it. But what's amazing is this kind of, you can feel the slow collection of we're not letting this happen here.

We can't let this happen here. And the rest of the world is watching us and supporting it. I mean, that fucking protest in France where they just piled up all those free mopeds and let them with them on fire, the fucking scooters, electric scooters, you're just like, hell, yes, like, like people all over the world agree with these protesters, agree with this action, agree that this whole situation and the, and the administration that is basically has been causing it for four years. It has to change.

It's crazy how four years ago we put out a podcast right after that motherfucking piece of shit got elected somehow and we're scared and we're afraid of what was going to happen. And suddenly it's all happening at once. Yeah. Yeah. But it's, this is fucking history. This is, it's going to change from here. Yes.

I had a long conversation with my therapist this morning as I do many, many days a week. And this is my favorite thing that she said, because I was telling her, I was like, we're so nervous to even talk about this because we don't want to be wrong. And we don't want to say some fucking ignorant thing. You and I, we've done, yeah, like that we've done it in the past. Or you say something where you're just like, oh, I think I'm just sharing my thoughts. And then 50 people text you of like, and then you're just like, then you, my first reaction is always like, but I'm not wrong.

Right. And you can't say that I'm that person. Or my intentions are this or my intentions are that. She said this, which I love, do not fear being wrong because regret wakes you up to what you're not doing right, which means you have a mind that can notice things, which means you have a mind that can change and grow. Amazing. And that's the key.

So that momentary, I'm not the person I want to be, or I'm dumber than I thought I was, or I'm more racist than I thought I was. Yeah, it's, it's, it's not, it's, you can track that and then do something about it. There are people who cannot, and that's why they can't discuss it. There are people when you experience the rage of the people who are saying, how dare you support Black Lives Matter? That's a person who is so afraid. They're so afraid.

They don't know how they can belong in this world and they can't change. And I think that's kind of what a lot of those side of people are saying is, how dare you make me question myself? How dare you make me take responsibility for what I've been doing and getting and benefiting from? It's not. It's the whole argument. It's surprising.

It's that whole argument of like, well, you know, I feel like we're starting to wake up of like people who, you know, with the whole thing of white privilege isn't, isn't directed at people who grew up without any hardships in their lives. You know? It's not that. It's people, it's us understanding that although there were hardships in our lives, being, the color of our skin was never one of them. And it always is that for people of color.

And I think we're finally waking up to that and understanding, like even me being Jewish, it's like, but you can't tell by looking at me, so I have a fucking privilege, you know? And that somebody wrote this really amazing thing that was being, being a racist isn't, doesn't translate to anger and hatred and active. So a lot of people go, I'm not racist because that they're thinking of those horrible people in the South when the schools were getting integrated and they were screaming at children, that little girl that was walking in by herself to that school and they're going, I'm not that person, right.

But so you're not actively enraged at people of color. It doesn't mean you're not racist because what that means is that you have blind spots and issues and things where you don't understand the real world in the way that other people do. And the thing we're talking about at the moment because the thing that is can't continue is black people being killed by the police because the police can kill them without any repercussions. That's all.

That's what has to change. And basically, like the authorities are going, not only when we not change it, we're going to try to kill more of you. And that's why people are standing up and going, no, no, not anymore. We all watched Ferguson held our breath and hoped that that small group of mostly black protesters were going to get it done for themselves because no one wanted to get their hands dirty and no one wanted to take responsibility. Of course.

But we got you. We got you. And now that we, I think almost like there's something about the pandemic that kind of cracked through. So everyone's kind of seeing this thing where it's just like, oh yeah, this matters and how we're connected to each other matters and whether or not people live or die fucking counts to me and matters. And black lives matter.

Black lives matter. Black lives matter. Should we sit? So we're going to put up a bunch of media recommendations on the Exactly Right blog. So go to ExactlyRight.com if you want to get some podcast recommendations, book recommendations, film, TV, things that you can read to and support and try to understand a little better. What your deeply rooted secret to you even racist tendencies are and it's really important to look at yourself like that and to understand what you're doing wrong so that you can try

to be an ally. Yeah. And one of the most kind of like, I remember this so well when that crazy fucking thing happened on our Facebook page and we were just like, what? And it was, we basically had to shut it down because it was like, there was a racist flare up and it was so crazy and we didn't really even know it was happening. And when we were, I did the very stupid thing of actually trying to argue with people on Twitter for 10 minutes where I was like, no, we wouldn't do that and we're not like that

and we're your allies. And this young girl, I'm assuming it was the person who was in their picture, me going, we're not like this, we're your allies and this young woman, I believe if she was a young woman of color who wrote back and said, you don't get to say you're our allies, we decide. And that's what made me A, stop arguing and B, go, oh shit, I'm actually telling people stuff like this and I don't know these details. I should, I should know that. I should know this.

If I don't speak the language, I can't be out here telling people how it is because I don't fucking know. I'm this and I'm that. Yeah. I'm like, yeah, nobody wants to think they're that person too fucking bad, just accept it. And now the work is, how do we change it? There's so many lessons that to be learned right now. If we, including you and I and everyone is listening, open their fucking minds and ears

and Twitter feed and, and learn, we can all learn right now and become better fucking people. Yeah. And before we do that, to help, to help people. Cause yeah. Yes. Yeah. And then in, in the meantime, if you can give money and give money and if not, there's,

I've retweeted several and I know there's so many guides out there for people who if you can't protest, here's a list of things you can do. If you don't have money, here's a list of things you can do. I think it's so exciting that those kinds of lists are being made for people. The shop is black owned, you know, bookstores, restaurants, shit in your area where you can support black owned businesses and people of color owned businesses is really important. Yeah. You don't, any kind of frustration or, you know, whatever you're feeling, you don't

have to fold in on yourself and collapse because you're having negative feelings. You take those negative feelings, you interpret them as energy that needs to be put towards someone who needs your help and then go help. And you know why? Because fucking capitalism has been, here we go. Oh shit. Sorry. All I'm saying is let's weaponize capitalism for people of color instead of against them,

which it's been since capitalism existed in this fucking country. So you can put your money in places that can support those people who capitalism doesn't fucking work for. Yeah. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered. Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year.

Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen January is going to be my month for Hello Fresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much.

I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since early fall. So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello Fresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20.

Goodbye. Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wondery's podcast against the odds. In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy farm town of Chowchilla, California. They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for ransom. Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry. As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges.

Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. So today I'm going to tell you about a really powerful, amazing badass woman named Ida B. Wells. Great. She was an investigative journalist, an educator, and one of the founders of the NAACP. And she's incredible. I got a lot of information from a bunch of different really great podcasts.

And so write these down, one's called A Brave Space with Dr. Meeks, that's M-E-E-K-S. A podcast called Black History in Two Minutes, hosted by Henry Lewis Gates Jr., a podcast called The Humanity Archive by Jermaine Fowler, and a podcast called This Is Karen Hunter. It's a really great podcast. And in this episode about Ida B. Wells, she talks to Dr. Greg Carr, and it's just a really great listen. Awesome. It's a really funny stand-up comic also.

Oh, okay. It's a good podcast. And then I got articles from the Chicago Tribune, an essay in the Washington Post by Keisha N. Blaine. There's a really great quick video on YouTube. It's like the TED Talks educator, so it's Ted Ed, and it's animated, and it's made by Christina M. Greer. And it's great.

It's great to show to kids. I really love it. There's an article on biography.com, and Wikipedia, of course, and there's just tons of articles and tons of books about Ida B. Wells that go into her incredible life way better than I'm about to do. But let's start. Okay. So the given is there's so much great stuff out there that's way better than everything

we're about to do. Exactly. So I think everyone knows that. Here's a little taste, and then go dive deep in. And then go. So this is the Cliffs Notes podcast, sponsored by Cliffs Notes. Oh, remember Cliffs Notes? Nope.

Never even tried to use those. That's how little I cared about homework. I wouldn't even do the Cliffs Notes. I remember people passing Cliffs Notes. If you're young, Cliffs Notes were basically, you were supposed to read Silas Marner, but you could get a real thin book and just read the Cliffs Notes, yeah, it's yellow with black. It almost looked like Police Line Do Not Cross Tape, and it basically just summed up the book and its themes and all the stuff that you were going to get asked about in class.

Because we didn't have the internet to look at that. Because there was. It's like Wikipedia. I feel like Wikipedia is the Cliffs Notes of the internet age, right? It's true. Shit. Okay, so this is a Cliffs Notes podcast. If the guy that sat in the back row wrote Cliffs Notes, if Cliff was in your class because

that's what Wikipedia is, is that you could do it too. You can write Cliffs, Wikipedia too. That's right. That's right. Okay. So, Ida Bell Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi on July 16, 1862. She's the first of six children to James and Lizzie Wells. Ida's born into slavery, and the Wells family as well as the rest of the slaves in the Confederate

states when the Emancipation Proclamation was declared about six months after Ida's birth, the Wells family were decreed free, and that's on January 1st, 1863. So after emancipation, Ida's parents were super active in the Reconstruction Movement. Her father, James, became a trustee of the historically black liberal arts college, Shaw College, which is now Rest College in Holly Springs. Rest. Huh? Say the name of the college, sorry.

Rest College. Yeah. Okay. He was known for his involvement in politics, as was her mother. They were both really active in politics, and her father founded a successful carpentry business in Holly Springs in 1867, so they were this incredible family, and it was at Shaw University that they sent Ida to receive her early schooling. But at the age of 16, she had to drop out because both of her parents and her infant

sibling died of yellow fever within like a day. Oh no. Fucking, your parents are dead, and you're 16, and one of your younger siblings is dead too within a day. That's how insane it was. And so all her siblings were going to be broken up and moved to different family members, and she's like, no fucking way, they're staying with me. So she drops out of school, finds work as a teacher in a black elementary school in

Holly Springs. She told them she was 18, and actually was 16. Can I just say, that's how I got my nipple pierced. So imagine, that's white privilege right there, that I was like, I lied about being 18, so I could get my nipple pierced, and she's like, I lied about being 18, so I could get a career as a teacher and raise my siblings. And keep my family together. Exactly.

So, you know. So, but then Ida's grandmother, who was helping raise the kids, the other siblings died from a stroke, so eventually Wells moves with her two youngest sisters to Memphis in 1883. So in Memphis, Ida continued to teach, and then during the summertime, she continued her education, and then an incident happened when she was 21 years old, that was kind of a catalyst for her activism. So on May 4th, 1884, she's 21, and she's on a train, and she buys a first class ticket to get in the women's train area, because you can't smoke in there, she doesn't want

to be around these like foul, you know, smoking dudes. And the train conductor, it's with the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, comes over to her and is like, you need to give up your seat and go back out and move to the smoking car. It's where you're black, you can't be in the first, the ladies car. And she's like, fuck this shit, I bought my ticket, I'm not leaving. And the conductor, you know, grabs her to throw her out, she bites him, uh-huh, amen. And then is forcefully, she's forcefully dragged out of the car. She hires a lawyer, she sues the Chesapeake, Ohio and Southwestern Railroad Company for

discrimination. She wins the case in the state, and then it's sent up higher and it's overturned. So, but this is something that, of course, you know, hits her in her soul. So then she writes a newspaper article about it for the living way, which is a black church weekly, she writes about her treatment on the train and how wrong it was, and she gets kind of publicity in Memphis. So she continues teaching elementary school, but she starts writing more and more and becomes a journalist and a writer.

And she's offered an editorial position for the Evening Star in Washington, DC, and she also begins writing weekly articles for the living way newspaper. So under her pen name, Aiola, she writes articles attacking Jim Crow policies, and in 1889, at 27 years old, Ida becomes the editor and co-owner of the Free Speech and Headlight, a black-owned newspaper established by the Reverend Taylor Nightingale, at 27 years old. And co-owner. Co-owner. As a black woman.

That's right. Did you say 1889? 1889, 27 years old, along with J.L. Fleming, she's just like, here we go, let's fucking do this. Let's do it. Uh-huh. So in 1891, Aiola, so she's dismissed from her teaching post by the Memphis Board of Education because of her articles, because she criticizes schools being segregated and

the conditions in the black schools. She argues that segregation means that black children are not getting a fair education and not getting the type of education they would if schools weren't segregated. So she gets kicked out, so they're like, well, then you can't be a teacher anymore, goodbye. So she's like, fuck this, I'll concentrate my energy on writing articles for the Living Way and also Free Speech and Headlight. She's quickly well-respected and becomes a well-accomplished, successful woman. She's respected among the community.

She's in the middle class, which is really rare at the time for a woman. She's not married, and she's a black woman, so that doesn't really happen at the time. But she's also, I think a lot of the podcasts I listen to stress this, she's a very normal woman trying to, she's not a savior. She's dating and she's bemoaning in her diaries, the dudes she has to date, because as soon as they find out how smart she is, they're over it, they just want a wife, so it's the same shit that every woman fucking faces, but in 18, fucking 90s. Sorry, but it also makes me think she must have been such a good writer, like a naturally,

like a natural great writer. If she was that young, had to drop out of school, and then basically picked it up to go, this happened to me, and it just flowed out of her. I just, yeah. And I think she's writing about the time, which a lot of, you know, there was probably so few people who had the privilege to do that, to write about what was going on in the black community at the time and to black people, that her having the balls to fucking do that, just in, you know, and having passion, and you can, when you read her stuff, it's

clear she has passion, that she's, it's just, you just don't want to stop reading her stuff. Yeah, so. Okay, and then the big turning point in her life happens in 1892, when a close friend of hers, she's like best friends with this couple, she's the godmother of their youngest child, it's a black man named Thomas Moss, he's lynched, which by the way, lynched doesn't mean hanged, lynched means killed by a mob because of race. So Thomas Moss, he's a family man, he's respected in the community as well, and he delivered mail by day, but he's also a part owner of the People's Grocery Store in South Memphis.

It's in a neighborhood called The Curve, and it's kind of this mixed race neighborhood. And of course, right across, or like right down the road from the People's Grocery Store, owned by black people is the white dude's grocery store. And so that's owned by a man named William Barrett, and it's just, you know, there's like a fight that breaks out between these two kids in front of his store, and it turns into this whole fucking mailing, and people are fighting, and it's like, part of her point is it doesn't matter what started it, but this is the excuse. So there is on March 3rd, 1892, an angry white mob that includes the local sheriff's office

because of course, you know, they're part of this group. They come along, and Thomas Moss, along with two other workers from the People's Grocer, Calvin McDowell, and Will Stewart are arrested and jailed. And around 2.30 that morning while they're in jail, 75 white men wearing black masks take the three black men from their jail cells at the Shelby County Jail, take them to a rail yard outside of town and shoots all three men dead with a shotgun in a horrific, horrific fashion that's reported in the newspaper so, with so many details that it's clear the newspaper man was there, you know, oh, yeah, Jesus, that kind of situation.

And so Ida finds out about one of her closest dearest friends being murdered in this way. She's devastated, and she basically becomes an investigative journalist back in the fucking 1890s. Yes. She, and puts her own life at risk by spending two months traveling around the South, and she is interviewing people who have had loved ones lynched, who have, you know, seen lynchings happen, who have been, had their lives have been torn apart by it, and she just gathers as much information as she can, and on October 26th, 1892, she publishes her research in a

pamphlet titled Southern Horrors, Lynch Law in All Its Phases. And she comes to this conclusion and has this stance that it's, from what I can tell, it's kind of a new argument, which is that what's not being addressed is that white Southerners are using the excuse of sexual violence by black men towards white women as an excuse to lynch black men. But the real reason behind it is that it's black economic progress. So she's just like, she calls bullshit that, you know, this, this black man was flirting with this white woman, or they're secretly dating, or, you know, he made lewd comments

at her. That's a fucking excuse because it makes people who think they're not racist say, well, he deserved it. He shouldn't have done that. Exactly. It's because you opened a competing grocery store across the street from my grocery store. It's because you've become middle class. It's because, you know, emancipation proclamation happened and we're fucking pissed about it.

And so we're going to think of any excuse to go back to those days that allows us to murder you because without a fucking trial, without any, you know, without, with accusations being just lobbed at anyone, it's just she calls bullshit on it, essentially. Yeah. Of course, her pamphlet is incredibly controversial. A mob storms the Memphis office of her paper, the free speech and headlight. They destroy everything, the printing press, the whole fucking building. But fortunately, Idaho was at a town at the time.

And so she's unharmed, but she's warned that she could be killed if she ever returns to Memphis. So she's like, good riddance, goodbye, fucking later days, goodbye. And she vows never to go back to Memphis again. So instead, she relocates to Chicago, where she continued to distribute her pamphlet. And in 1895, she follows up with a, with a, like, more deeply researched and detailed pamphlet. And it's a hundred page pamphlet called The Red Record, which is famous.

And in it, she described lynchings in the United States since the Emancipation Proclamation. And it covers black people's struggles in the South since the Civil War. And, you know, she's in Chicago now, so it's, you know, being told to people who can be sympathetic to what she's arguing. So The Red Record explored the high rates of lynching in the United States, which is at its peak from 1880 to 1930. She says that during Reconstruction, most Americans outside the South didn't realize, you know, how much violence was going on against black people in the South.

And she urges black people in these high risk areas to get the fuck out of town to save their families. She again connects lynching to sexual violence and shows how this, this myth that's perpetrated of this black man's lust for white women is being used as an excuse to murder black men. That's what happened for the Tulsa Race Massacre. Exactly. Exactly. The void.

Yeah. It's, yeah. Right. It's not an excuse because you're, you don't want black people to succeed. Right. So she includes pages of graphic accounts about specific lynchings, and she shows that lynching is a tool of white supremacy to prevent social advancement of black people. So The Red Record has far-reaching influence, and so both of her pamphlets, Southern Horrors

and The Red Record, the Northerners are horrified by what they read, and they didn't really know supposedly, you know, about these lynchings, and they kind of believed what they had heard out of the South, which is that, you know, this person deserved it. And it was, you know, what's it called, the vigilante retaliation and vigilante justice, which she's trying to tell everyone it's not. So, you know, she starts getting really involved in civil rights. She leads the opposition against the ban, so in, at the 1893 World's Fair, World Exposition, there's a ban against African-American exhibitors, and she leads the opposition against that.

And then she starts doing speaking tours in Britain and to campaign against lynching, and they're like sympathetic, and they're like, yeah, fuck this shit, what's going on in your fucking crazy country, like they are right now. And they're shocked by the reports of lynching in America already. In 1894, before she leaves the U.S. for her second visit to Great Britain, William Penn Nixon, who's the editor of The Daily Inter Ocean, which is a Republican newspaper in Chicago, which by the way, Republican doesn't mean the same thing then as it means now, it's kind of switched at the opposite.

It was the only major white paper that persistently denounced lynching, and she tells Nixon about her planned tour, and he asked her to write for the newspaper while she was in England, like an account of what's going on. So she becomes the first African-American woman to be a paid correspondent for a mainstream white newspaper. Wow. So she tours England, Scotland, and Wales for two months, addresses audience of thousands. You know, there's these rallies among the British, and she gained extensive recognition

and credibility and an international audience of white supporters of her cause. So back home in Chicago, she marries a prominent attorney, civil rights activist and journalist named Ferdinand Barnett in 1895, and from then on, she's known as Ida B. Wells Barnett, but I fucking love this, and in one of the podcasts I listen to, they point out how so many black women back then hyphenated their names, which is so fun, like it's so common these days, but back then, it's like, no, she was already this, you know, she was not going to just change her last name. She had done so much good and so much work, and she was a known, you know, journalist,

that's just hyphenated it and added his last name and fucking kudos on him because it sounds like he was like championing his wife as a badass who could go out and do her own shit and didn't have to just have kids and stay home. He must have been into it. I mean, that's like, it's a great reminder that that type of man also exists. Exactly. It's like, yeah, I want you to be this badass. Right.

That's part of why I'm in love with you. Yeah. It's the coolest. And it seems like she waited to get married till she found that person, which is so incredible. He had founded the Chicago Conservator, it's the first black newspaper in Chicago in 1878. And so she began writing for the paper and later acquired a partial ownership of it and assumed the role of editor there. And they had, Barnett had two children from a previous marriage and then together they

had four more children, Charles, Herman, Ida and Alfreda. So after brutal assaults on the black community in Springfield, Illinois in 1908, which is a whole nother fucking conversation, Ida is like, we have to take action. So the following year, she attends a special conference for the organization that would later become known as the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and is considered a founding member. But even to other activists and other founding members of the NAACP, our fucking Ida is a little too much of a spitfire and she's a little like, this is taking too long.

You're not organized enough. And she's like a bit of a, like, how can I say this? She wasn't going to wait around for permission to do it. Exactly. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. She definitely had that attitude.

I mean, that's a problem with politics too. Right. Because a lot of times it's like, we have to go in and then you have to kind of assimilate and make sure that everybody quote unquote likes you so that you do, so that you agree and that you get support. But oftentimes I watched a whole, I watched a whole thing on Twitter this morning about this where it's like, and that's how oftentimes through politics that this, black movements get stalled out because they're being told if you just wait a little longer.

And that happened with the abolitionists where in the beginning they were saying, well get rid of slavery, but slowly and over and I literally, I just watched this video this morning. So this is, it's on my Twitter page. I retweeted it. It's a brilliant woman. Her name's Brittany Cooper and she is Brittany, Dr. Brittany Cooper. She's a PhD.

Tracy Clayton is the person who tweeted it originally. I was just retweeting hers. Hi, Tracy. And it's such, it's such a good thing, but I never thought of that where it's like, they were like, well, get rid of slavery, but can you just work 10 more years and then slowly so no one gets upset and they were like, no, do it now. It's free everybody now. Everything, you know, you have these powerful people and you have these powerful ideas and

by the time it gets through this fucking system, it's all watered down and it's all sludge. And like we should be listening at point A of the people who are yelling about it and not being fucking polite and not being, you know, conservative about their views, right? And don't, don't let people like pat you on the head and let you know that, oh, we're your good friend. We're going to help you out and then never do it. Yeah. Or we have our agenda first and once that's concluded.

So in 1909, Ida B. Wells is the most prominent anti-lynching campaigner in the United States. And among other accomplishments, she's created the first African American kindergarten in her community. She's passionate about women's rights and suffrage as well. And she's a spokeswoman and an advocate for women being successful in the workplace and having equal opportunities and creating a name for themselves. So this is all during the fucking, you know, suffrage movement as well. And she becomes part of that.

Wow. So in the years following, she focuses her work on black women's suffrage. And along with her white colleague, Belle Squire, they organized the Alpha Suffrage Club in Chicago in 1913. And it's one of the most important black suffrage organizations in Chicago. And it's founded as a way to further voting rights for all women and to teach black women how to engage in civic matters and to work to elect African Americans to city offices. So, okay.

So they're working on the Alpha Club. And at the same time, the National American Women's Suffrage Association is organizing a suffrage parade in Washington, D.C. They're like, they're the big national fucking, you know, Susan B. Anthony, everyone's on this fucking, who was actually a friend of hers. But so right before the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson in 1913, they're planning this big parade and suffragists from across the country gather to demand universal suffrage. And Ida was, of course, planning on attending with her Alpha Suffrage Club. And the head of the Illinois delegation told Ida and her delegates that they wanted to

keep the delegation entirely white. So they were like, all right, well, we're doing this whole thing. It's all for suffragists. We are. We're supporting each other. And the African American suffragists need to go to the back of the parade. And Wells is like, oh, yeah, yeah, I'm totally going to fucking do that. And so she goes, she waits with the spectators in the crowd for the parade to start.

And as the white delegation from Chicago walks by, she fucking slips under and is in line with them. And she's like, what's up, motherfuckers? I'm here and you're here because partly because I'm here too. So I'm with you. Yes. And you're not sending me to the back. That's fucking ridiculous badass.

So awesome. Yeah. Throughout the 1920s, she continues to fight and support causes for African Americans, including the right to vote, which she didn't even get herself until she was in her fifties. And in 1930s, she unsuccessfully sought elective office and when she ran as an independent for a seat in the Illinois Senate, but she doesn't make it, um, I don't Wells dies of kidney failure in Chicago on March 25th, 1931 at the age of just 68. And she had begun writing her autobiography, but never finished it.

And so instead it was edited and published by her daughter, Alfreda Barnett Duster. In 1970, it's called crusade for justice, the autobiography of IDB Wells. And then she left behind this heroic legacy of social and political activism. And since her death, numerous awards have been established in her name and the IDB Wells Memorial Foundation and the IDB Wells Museum have been established to protect, preserve and promote her legacy. And this past month in May of 2020, IDB Wells Barnett was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize.

No, I can't. Yeah. The highest award given in print journalism. She got a special citation for outstanding and courageous reporting. Fuck. Yeah. How amazing is that? It's about time.

It's fucking right. A month ago. In 2019, Congress Parkway in Chicago, I didn't fucking know this, was renamed IDB Wells Drive. Congress Parkway. Wow. Is renamed IDB Wells Drive and the home that she and her family lived in was designated a national historic landmark in 1974 and a Chicago landmark in 1995.

And her great-granddaughter, Michelle Duster, who find her on Twitter, she's awesome as well, has published two collections of IDA's original works, IDA in her own voice and IDA from abroad. And she recently said about her great-grandmother, quote, the only thing she really had was the truth. And she used journalism as a tool to not just report what was going on, but she used her skill as a journalist to the best of her ability to impact social change. And that is just a snippet of the incredible story of IDA B Wells.

Wow. That was great. Thank you. Great job. I'm ashamed to say that this isn't someone I really knew about. There are these incredible people doing incredible things with no resources. They just decide to do them because they have to and it's their calling. And despite their parents dying, despite having to drop out of high school, and a lot of these

podcasts they listen to, they talk about how don't make her the savior because then it makes people who are just normal every day, people think that they can't add anything and they can't contribute anything. When really it's people who are fucking normal and use their skills like writing to do incredible things and just don't fucking give up, they just don't give up, even when their entire business is burned to the ground, they move somewhere where they'll be listened to and start over. And she's an incredible woman.

Yeah. That was amazing, Georgia. That was, it's embarrassing as a 50-year-old woman to be learning about stuff like this, but better now, better late than never and so inspiring. So inspiring. Yeah. Oh, there was also, my therapist also said a thing I really liked. There's a writer named Rebecca Solnit and she's saying in times like this when you feel

lost and you're not sure what to do next, instead of looking for, if you look forward and there's nothing that you can see, there's not a path forward, then look back, see what people did in the past, figure out what aligns with your values and then take the next right step. Oh, I love that. Yeah. I know. Like we just have to be helpers, which just can't, we know, we know we've misstepped and

said fucked up shit and done things incorrectly and all those things where it's just like, and how do you do it now at this crucial time better? Right. Like at this time, very dire and so it's like. Well, because before we thought that intentions were all that mattered. Good intentions were all that mattered. Yeah. And now we're learning that intentions are bullshit.

You have to fucking walk the walk. It's action. At this point, where we are now, it's about action. That's right. Well, and so I was worried about this because I picked this story to do because June is Gay Pride Month. So I picked the Stonewall uprising. Hell yeah.

Hell fucking yeah. And also because when I picked this, which was like six days ago, it was like, oh yeah, you know, uprising and protest. That's cool. You know, that was before the fucking National Guard got called. Whereas you know, the vibe changed. But what's interesting as then going through it and reading it, all these things are connected. This is very much connected to the civil rights movement of the earlier in the sixties.

And that it was kind of fascinating to actually discover that as I was reading through. So just to cite some sources here, history.com saved my life on this one. I swear to God, that website. Yeah. And if you are slightly unsure about anything that has happened in the past, history.com is your place to go. That's right. Information, dates, names, accuracy, documentaries, everything.

All about it. Yeah. They know their stuff. But you can bring up a very easy to consume kind of, you know, like a short article that just gives you everything you need to know. It's really well put together. Thank you, history.com. There's also great articles in Out Magazine, pinknews.co.uk.

There's this great article in the Atlantic called an amazing 1969 account of the Stonewall Uprising by a writer named Garance Frank Ruda. And that was from 2013. It's that's incredible. The detail in Is it Incredible is incredible. So, so we can't really talk about the Stonewall Uprising until we talk about the now historic event that took place nine years before the 1960 Woolworth's lunch counter sit-in by the Greensboro Four.

So this basically, and for some people, this is, you know, just a history refresher. And for some people, this is new information. So we'll just be real basic about it. This was basically a sit-in that was organized by four black college students named Azelle Blair Jr., David Richmond, Franklin McCain, and Joseph McNeill. And they would later go on to say that it was modeled after what they saw Gandhi doing in India with the British colonialism. But the reason that they took the action was because five years earlier, 1955, 14-year-old

Emmett Till was murdered in Money, Mississippi for allegedly flirting with a white woman who was a cashier at the store where he was buying bubble gum. So relatives of this woman heard that a 14-year-old black boy had flirted with her, went to the family member's house. He was actually from Chicago. He had just come down to Mississippi to stay with some family. And they kidnapped him out of the house and beat him to death. 14-year-old boy, and he looks like a baby in a picture of him.

He looks like he's 10. His murderers were arrested, tried, and then acquitted by an all-white male jury after 67 minutes of deliberation. And then a year later, those same men that were acquitted, because they were protected by double jeopardy, confessed to the crimes in an article for Look magazine, and they were paid $4,000 for this story. So the acquittal... Wait, hold on.

Let's let that sink in. That's fucking insane. It's insane. And then later on, the white woman who was that clerk said he never... That is one of the rumors. He flirted with her and he touched her hand. And she later... In like 2018 or 2017, she later said right before she died, he never touched me.

And whatever he did, that he did not deserve what he got. But of course, it's too little to wait. I'd like to retract saying that it's insane, because that wasn't insane for the times. It was not insane for the times. It was normal for the times. And how much has changed? Really? I mean, yeah.

And that's kind of the point, is like if we don't talk about these stories and if we don't know these stories already, then we can't understand what people are so infuriated about. So the egregiousness of this, because this happened in 1955. It wasn't the late 1800s. It wasn't even 1930. It was 1955. So this was a tipping point for lots and lots of especially young black people in the South. So on February 1st, 1960, the Greensboro Four went to their local Woolworths, which was

segregated. It was a whites-only lunch counter and they sat down and they tried to order. They of course were refused service because they were black. So they just then sat there peacefully and refused to leave. The police were called, but they actually couldn't really arrest them because they weren't disturbing the peace. They were just sitting there. And also because these four men were smart enough to be in cahoots with a white business

owner who was helping them out, who knew they were going to do this. And that white business owner, the second he knew that they were in there doing it, called the press. So the press showed up to report what was happening, thus keeping everyone honest. Yeah. That thus making sure that the police knew that this was going to be reported as it happened. Yeah. If you see people getting pissed off that, you know, that journalists are being fucking

shot with rubber bullets and gassed and fucking arrested, it's because they're not supposed to be. It's, that's just not how it works. And also what a lot of people are, you know, I've seen this retweeted a ton of times that one of the checkpoints of knowing an authoritarian regime is taking over is they vilifying the press and trying to get rid of the press because the press, for as much as they, you know, we can talk about what the problems in the media, but the essentially they're there to keep people honest, they're there to tell the truth of what's happening and to make sure

that people understand the truth of what's happening. And the whole assault on, on the media with this fake news bullshit of this administration is just made people go, well, I don't have to believe what I'm reading and therefore I choose not to, and therefore I get to live in this other fantasy world. And now there's stormtroopers on the fucking Lincoln Memorial. Okay. So what a brilliant move that was by these four men to go make sure the press is there. Okay.

So they stay there all night, Woolworth's closes, they leave, they go back the next day, there's more people at this sit-in. And four days later, in addition to the Greensboro for the original four protesters, 300 people are sitting at this Woolworth's asking to be served. And so at this point now it's become national news in just that short amount of time they're saying something is happening here. And there were people like at this point, a lot of the people who participated in this protest were arrested for disorderly conduct, trespassing and disturbing the peace because

this was such a defiant act, just simply sitting. And when they're being told to leave or you can't be in here, I'm sure abused horribly, verbally, they just didn't do it. It was just that simple act of defiance of I'm not getting up from here. And so people were definitely arrested, but by this time it was national news. It was on TV, which was, which then sparked- Right. Which was new at the time too, to be actually witnessing this stuff on TV, correct me if I'm wrong, but like every family having a TV in their household wasn't, it was kind of

a new thing. Yes, for sure. And then that it isn't like we were saying before, people can't, it's, they're just sitting there. So you can't argue they're asking for it, they did something. All they're saying is this shouldn't be whites only segregation and these Jim Crow laws need to get, we need to get rid of them. They're so old and it's so, it's, it's basically killing this country.

It's, it's, it's not, it's, it's not how America should be. So at that point, it sparks a trend of sit-ins in college towns across the South. So it's now it's not just Greensboro, it's now across the South. And by the end of the summer of 1960, not only that will worse, but many other segregated businesses across the South become integrated. And that is essentially the kickoff of the civil rights movement on the national stage. And it's because of those four men who basically had the guts to sit there quietly and, and just keep showing up.

So six years later, on April 21st, 1966, inspired by the Greensboro Four, three members of a group called the Madison Society, which is one of the earliest gay rights organizations in America. And there are three guys named Andy Wichler, Dick Leitch, and Craig Rodwell. They stage what they call a sip in. Nice play on words. Love that. In the 60s, if you were gay, you could actually be charged with being, quote unquote, disorderly

just for being served alcohol in a bar. So that meant that it was legal to deny service to anyone that the bartender or anyone thought was gay and the cops could arrest anyone at a bar if they suspected that they were gay or to use the word that was used at the time, a transvestite. That's what people called themselves back then. So that that word comes up a little bit, which now is problematic, but it was actually the parlance of the time. So these three guys, Andy Wichler, Dick Leitch, and Craig Rodwell, they decide they're going

to go into bars in Greenwich Village and ask to be served drinks and then, um, and basically do the same thing of like get denied. And then, you know, so, um, they actually went to two bars first that served them because they didn't seem overtly gay to those bartenders. And then they got to Julius, so they had to leave because they were like, nope, that's sipping didn't work. They finally get to Julius's bar in Greenwich Village and they tell the bartender they're gay and they would like to order some drinks.

The bartender says you can't get out in part because Julius's three days before had been raided. So they're like, we don't want any trouble. The cops, you know, the cops are just in here. So basically now these three guys have proof that they're being discriminated against and now they can take action against the state liquor authority and now they can actually take this to the courts and when they do, there's a court case that ultimately makes this type of disorderly charge against gay people illegal.

So they couldn't, they couldn't be arrested simply for drinking in a bar anymore. Okay. Um, and it's interesting, like if you're interested in this, look into it because some of those laws were started because the mayor of New York city at the time, they had the world's fair was in 1964 and they tried to do a sweep of the city and get rid of all overtly gay like people, bars, gathering places, like cause all the tourists were going to come in and God forbid. Right.

Did you, real quick, did you watch a secret love on Netflix? No, I haven't heard of it. It's really good. It's a documentary about these two women, their lesbians and their relationship, but it talks a lot about their only friends back at the time were other gay couples in the sixties and seventies because you were not allowed to go to bars. So they would just like hang out at their houses and have parties, but it's a really good documentary, a secret love.

Secret love. Yeah. Okay, cool. Okay. But as we all know, just because you change the law, that does not mean you change society or the way society decides to look at, at people who are marginalized. So despite this little bit of progress, gay transgender and other queer people still have almost nowhere they can go and just to overtly and out be themselves in a safe environment

with this, with the exception of like a handful of gay bars in Greenwich Village, which, which is where a ton of queer people lived at the time in the city. So the gay bars that, that people knew were gay bars operate very discreetly because New York, New York city refused to grant or New York state, sorry, refused to grant liquor license to gay bars. So basically they're, they're trying to get rid of gay bars by making the operation itself illegal so that the police can justify raiding these bars and arresting queer people. But even still these bars, you know, they serve as safe havens for the surrounding gay

and queer communities. So most notable of these bars is the Stonewall Inn at 51 and 53 Christopher Street. So three member, and this is fascinating to me, three members of the Genevieve's mafia crime family by the building in 1966. And it had been a straight restaurant and nightclub and they change it into a gay one. Whoa. Because they know that there's money to be made on illegal gay bars where they're paying off the cops and everything is like under the table totally.

So to keep a low overhead, the building is bare bones, walls are painted black, they're lined with colored lights, there's no running water behind the bar, plumbing in the bathrooms constantly backs up. When customers get to the front door, there's a bouncer that looks at them through a peephole and the only people allowed inside are people who are overtly, it's visibly gay. Wow. Visibly gay. For example, like men who are, who are dressed femme or people who the bouncer already knows.

So it's almost like a private club in that way. It costs $3 to get in and then that is also worth two drink tickets once you get inside. And the main draw of the Stonewall Inn is that they allowed dancing in addition to drinking which other gay bars did not allow. Because it's men dancing together or women dancing together which is overtly gay. It's to overt, exactly. Which is also a thing that later on and I won't get too into it because it's very interesting but I don't know enough about it to talk about but essentially there is division once gay

rights and that movement start up, there's lots of division within of how you're supposed to behave. Which is expected and common but it's really interesting so it's like we just want to be accepted so act like this and then there's other groups that are going fuck that shit which I personally love. Okay, so I always love those people the most. So the other draw for the, the other draw for Stonewall is that it's, it welcomes queer people of all races and even underage queer kids because it's so common back then if people's

families found out they were gay they'd just get kicked out of the house and they literally lived on the streets in New York City. Most of them would go to the big city thinking they would be accepted there and so that was a, that was a big part of it too, homeless gay kids which is still a big issue today but especially back then when it was like, it was unthinkable and parents felt very justified in just cutting their child off. So it's actually an even mix at the Stonewall and it's an even mix of white, black and brown people ranging in ages from late teens to mid 30s and of course for the homeless youth

with nowhere else to go and for other queer people who have been cast aside by all the people that are supposed to love them the Stonewall becomes a home for a lot of these people a true home not a second home their only home and other than that they live on the streets. It's a refuge, it's a beautiful line, Jay wrote this, it serves as a refuge from the world that refuses to acknowledge their humanity. So, one such, Jay, good job, one such patron of the Stonewall and is a drag queen, a transgender woman named Marsha P. Johnson, okay.

So Marsha P. Johnson was born in 1945 in Elizabeth, New Jersey and she starts wearing dresses when she's five years old, which made me laugh so hard. It makes me think of my beautiful friend Dave Messmer who he has pictures of himself wearing his sister's slip. This picture of him in a slip is what, and he used to talk, he used to tell me about it and go, my slip, my slip, because he would wear it constantly and like his mom would be like, hey, don't you want to take the slip off or go into the store? And he's like, I have to wear my slip, and it's like, it's the best, it's that thing

of like, if you have any question about nature versus nature, you need to see this picture and Dave in his slip. It's the realness, it's the true realness, okay, so anyway, so when Marsha finally does graduate from high school, she gets out of Elizabeth, New Jersey, runs off to New York City with just a bag of clothes and $15. Oh my God. Yeah. She gets by doing sex work, barely managing to survive on the streets, but she gets to

be herself finally for the first time, wearing dresses, loud colors, flowers, and fruit, and Christmas lights in her hair. Yes. And Christmas lights and, yeah. Legend. Early legend, Marsha P. Johnson, so when, and when people ask her what the P in her name stands for, she always says, pay it no mind. So, genius.

So she's met, of course, with tons of violence, outrage from just the general public, but when she's in places like Stonewall, she finds her chosen family, other queens and queers and gays who accept her for who she is. And she's an incredibly open, optimistic, friendly person, if you're friendly to her. And she maintains her Christian religion. She's often seen praying for her friends at local churches. And she, this killed me. This quote, she says, Jesus quote is the only man I could really trust.

He listened to me and he never laughed at me. Yeah. And some people even call her St. Marsha for cause she's so generous and so lovely. Now, so someone who benefits from Marsha's generosity is a, is a young Latinx queen named Sylvia Rivera. So Sylvia's father left her family when she was a baby and then her mother committed suicide when she was three. As a kid, she lived with her grandmother, but then when she would dress up in her grandmother's

clothes and makeup, her grandmother would beat her. So when she turns 11, she runs away and lives on the streets of New York City. Yeah. Horrifying, but it's such a sadly common story. She meets Marsha in 1963 while she's also working as a sex worker. She said quote, Marsha was like a mother to me. And she says that Marsha always looked out for her, gave her a semblance of stability and loved her like no one else ever had.

So okay. So those are just, we need to meet those two key players. And now we go to the night of Saturday, June 28th, 1969. That night, there's about 200 people at the Stonewall Inn partying, dancing, doing their thing. It's one of the only places that they can go to drink and dance and just be their fabulous selves freely. This bar does not have a liquor license.

As I said, they're controlled by the Genevies crime family. So hey, those guys love it. Just love it because, you know, you can pretend that that means that they are doing it because they support and love gay people, which is not true, but so basically they pay off the local cops and to stay in business. So purely for appearances, the cops have to raid the bar every once in a while to make it look like it's all above board. And normally what happens is one of the mobsters gives the bar owners a heads up.

Right. I feel like a Saturday night wouldn't be normal time to do it either. I don't know. Well, no, I mean, not according to the story because yeah, normally they get the heads up, that the cops are coming and then they hide the booze and they tell all the customers. So anybody that has to leave because they're not out or they're at risk in some way can run. Well, this time there's no warning.

So around 1.20 in the morning for undercover police and for cops in uniform, raid the Stonewall Inn. And even though everyone's surprised, raids are so common back then that the employees and the customers kind of know the drill. So basically they have to line up while the cop checks everybody's ID and then anyone that's quote dressed like a woman is taken to the bathroom and checked to quote verify their sex. No.

Yeah. So demeaning, so such, so gross. So and then basically anyone who is wearing women's clothing but doesn't have female genitalia is arrested. Jesus. There's a video of them being like herded into the paddy wagon too, right outside of like. I don't know if there's video.

I've definitely seen pictures. There's amazing pictures because well, yeah, so and there, there's a lot of pictures in this that Atlantic article that I mentioned that are great because there's some people who are enraged and screaming than there's, there's people kind of in the back row that are kind of like laughing and cheering because the thing becomes this event. Yeah. So, okay. So this is what happened.

So basically this time there, everyone's fucking sick of it where it's like these raids happen all the time and they're coming into like their clubhouse basically, you know, the one spot they have. So a lot of the queer patrons just refuse to hand over their IDs or go willingly with these arresting officers to go get quote unquote checked. So in the response to the refusals, the police start of course abusing the Stonewall patrons. So they're dragging, they're getting really physical, dragging people away to arrest them. They're frisking customers that they know are lesbians, so they're groping them and molesting

them. Right. So, so tension escalates very quickly. Meanwhile, the police are also confiscating all the booze they can find, which is like 28 cases of beer, 19 bottles of hard liquor, but it's so much that they have to call for a second patty wagon to come and haul it away along with these people they're planning to arrest. They release anyone that's not under arrest and then they force all the arrested patrons

to wait. But the people who are released just stand around outside waiting to see what's going to happen because they're not just going to like run, which I really love. So then there's people passing by the bar who notice what's going on and they stop to join the group outside and they see what's happening that it's this raid and that they're, you know, these cops are getting violent and it's that it's not the normal, like what they expect with the Stonewall Lynn is like, they do the quote unquote raid and then they go through the motions and it's fine because they're paying, you know, they're being paid

off to do that. But now all of a sudden it's all different. So the group starts is like, like not cool with that obviously, and they start mocking the police. They're doing fake salutes. They're yelling shit at them. They're leaning into the femme behavior. They're doing limp wrists and primping their hair.

They're also making fun of the police. They're, you know, they're, they're directly mocking the police and their faces and doing all this really overt shit that normally it's like they've normally, if it was a raid, they're shamed into, right, you know, running away, not showing their faces or whatever. Well, the officers start shoving the patrons out of their way and the patrons start pushing back and this tension starts building. And at one point they very forcefully throw a butch lesbian named Stormy Delarvery and they throw her into the paddy wagon.

And as they do, she yells to the crowd, why don't you guys do something? And so they do. And suddenly rocks, bottles and bricks are being thrown at the police. The police are using excessive force to try to restrain the crowd, but they're completely outnumbered because now the crowd is very quickly grown and is a very quickly involved. Some of the patrons who have been handcuffed that were supposed to be arrested get away. One of the patrons suggests that maybe the cops showed up because the owners hadn't paid them off yet.

So another one yells, let's pay them off. And they start throwing pennies at the cops and part of the group tries to flip the paddy wagon over while other people run around and slash the tires of the cop cars. So there's officers, the officers driving those cop cars, jump into them and drive away with flat tires because they know they're, they know they're outnumbered. The cops that stay grab a bunch of the patrons that are handcuffed and they go back inside the stone wall and basically barricade themselves in. Now that move itself is, is, is one of the reasons things escalated even further because,

and I'll read this quote from that Atlantic article about how basically the cops were humiliated because normally they have such a hold over and, and have such a power over the quote unquote fairies, which is what they were called back in the day. So the idea that all these people who they are, were used to being shamed and hiding their face and you know, oh my God, I'm being arrested for this and it's so terrible. Now they're just like, no fuck you and they're, the police are so scared, they have to run back into the bar. They're being humiliated for the, probably the first, like this doesn't happen, especially

back then. They're fucking with the power structure and that's when, that's when the people with the power get scared and mad. So, so essentially the, they're not sure how either the crowd or the police inside set the building on fire. Fuck. We don't know who. So they're, they're not sure because it could have been the crowd outside to make the police

come back out. Right. But there's also a theory that the cops inside did it because they were destroying the inside of the stone wall in any way because they had, they smashed the jukebox, they were doing all kinds of shit inside. So they're like, well, then they probably lit it on fire also, but then the logic of that is like, but they're in there. So they don't know for sure.

There's also a lot of debate surrounding who threw the first object because a lot of people attribute it to Sylvia Rivera. But she's later quoted saying, quote, I threw the second one. I did not throw the first and I'm sticking to that. That's everyone's, you guys, that's our story from now on. I threw the second one. I threw the second one. Others say Marsha P. Johnson threw the first brick, but she later goes on record to say

she wasn't there until 2am when the building was already on fire. Fuck. I love that she shows up fashionably late to a riot. She's like, what girls, what's going on? So the most important thing is that the uprising at the Stonewall Inn can't be credited to just one person because it really is about the collective effort of this oppressed community that primarily black and brown transgender or non-gender conforming people who have been pushed to their limits and have one of the only things they even have in the world taken

away from them. And that's what sparks this uprising. So basically everyone there is prepared to defend their home. And especially this is the era of the civil rights movement, the anti-Vietnam War movement, a general counterculture influence. The queer people of New York City are fired up and they've had enough of this shitty treatment. So as the fight rages on, the tactical patrol force, the TPF, which is basically the NYPD's riot control unit, they arrive to fight back against the crowd and free the police that

are inside Stonewall. So they basically, they form this formation to try to drive the crowd back to get away from the Stonewall Inn. But of course, now this crowd is on fire. And so they're cheering, they're mocking the police, instead of retreating, they form like a showgirl style kick line and they start doing a kick line and singing, singing at the cops. A legit kick line.

Yo, yeah. Bob Kohler, who is a local gay rights activist, was there that night and describes what he witnessed. Oh my God. Oh my God. Quote, I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over. The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened.

They were angrier than I guess they had ever been because everybody else had rioted, but the fairies were not supposed to riot. No group had ever forced cops to retreat before. So the anger was just enormous. End quote. Masculine fragility. So furious and embarrassed, the police rushed the crowd, pummeling them again with excessive force by 4am, the streets are mostly cleared.

And the Stonewall Inn is destroyed from the inside out. And basically the cops inside that had been basically, they just ripped everything down. They basically were just basically trying to shut the place down for good. Like there'll be nothing left. Is anyone dead in the fire? Mm-mm. Okay. No, not that I know.

So 13 people are arrested, some are hospitalized for their injuries, four officers are hurt, but it's minor. The next day, they continue protesting. So people, supporters go and they spray paint things like drag power and legalize gay bars and we are open on the outside of the burnt out Stonewall Inn. And so now it's Saturday, June 28th. And the Stonewall actually does open, but this time there's no bouncer, there's no people. It's people just standing out in the open.

And it's thousands of people gathering in the streets around this bar. The crowd stretches out to the surrounding blocks in this neighborhood. So the police arrive on the scene and they're met with more opposition. At one point, Marsha P. Johnson climbs a lamppost and drops a bag with a brick in it onto the hood of a cop car. That's probably why she got the credit for throwing the first brick because that second night she got up there and went for it. And I think there is a picture of her on that lamppost if I'm not mistaken.

But the battle between queer people and the police continues till 4 a.m. with several more arrests. And in total, the Stonewall uprising lasts six days. And it's a mix of peaceful protests, looting, destruction of property, and total freedom of expression. Six days in that neighborhood. Six days. Holy shit.

And obviously like if day two there's thousands of people, it's like an event. So by the time the uprising settles down, major news outlets have picked up on this story and they've made it clear to anyone who's watching. The queers will have their liberation come heller high water. And the effects start taking hold immediately. So there's people who once felt hopeless and now they're emboldened. There's gay demonstrations. You see gay couple holding hands out and about, which did not happen before this.

People dressing totally out of control, like any way they wanted, I shouldn't say out of control. People actually dressing the way they wanted and without the fear of, oh, if somebody sees me, I can somehow be arrested for disorderly conduct just because I'm dressed like this. So clearly this community, they're done with being in the closet and toning themselves down to make straight people feel comfortable. In a matter of months, gay and queer newspapers are cropping up around the city. They're called, one's called gay, one's called come out with an exclamation point and one's

called gay power. And their popularity and readership steadily climbs. Okay. So this is kind of amazing. This is a quote from that article from the Atlantic, an amazing 1969 account of the Stonewall Uprising written by Garance Frank Ruda. But what's incredible is Dick Leish, who is one of the three guys who did the sip in. He was, he was planning a trip to London, but he saw what was happening and went down

there so he could report on it. Oh, wow. Yes. Because he was also a journalist. And so, yeah, so he went down. So this is just a portion, there's a big long part of what he wrote in this article, but I just pulled this portion of it because it's really cool. So this is what Dick Leish wrote about the Stonewall Uprising quote, since 1964.

The homosexual community of New York has been treated quite well by the city administration and the police have either reformed or been kept in line by Lindsay and Leary. Now we've walked in the open and know how pleasant it is to have self-respect and to be treated as citizens and human beings. We want to stay in the sunlight from now on. Efforts to force us back in the closet could be disastrous for all concerned. The above, while a true evaluation of the situation does not explain, while the rate on Stonewall caused such a strong reaction.

Why the Stonewall and not the sewer or the snake pit, which were other gay bars in the area? Yeah, they were. Okay. The answer lies, we believe, in the unique nature of the Stonewall. This club was more than a dance bar, more than just a gay gathering place. It catered largely to a group of people who are not welcome in or cannot afford other places of homosexual social gathering.

The quote drags and the quote queens, two groups which would find a chilly reception or a barred door at most of the other gay bars and clubs, formed the regulars at the Stonewall. To a large extent, the club was for them, apart from the gold bug and the one, two, three. Yeah. The bars. Love it. Drags and queens had no place but the Stonewall.

Another group was even more dependent on the Stonewall, the very young homosexuals and those with no other homes. You've got to be 18 to buy a drink in a bar and gay life revolved around bars. Where do you go if you are 17 or 16 and gay? The legitimate bars wouldn't let you in the place and gay restaurants and the streets aren't very sociable. Then too, there are hundreds of young homosexuals in New York who literally have no home. Most of them are between 16 and 25 and came here from other places without jobs, money

or contacts. Many of them are running away from unhappy homes. One boy told us, quote, my father called me cocksucker so many times I thought it was my name. Oh, Jesus. Another said his parents fought so much over which of them made him a homosexual that he left so they could learn to live together. Some got thrown out of school or the service for being gay and couldn't face going home.

Some were even thrown out of their homes with only the clothes on their backs by ignorant and tolerant parents who'd rather see their kid dead than homosexual. They came to New York with the clothes on their backs. Some of them hustled or had skills enough to get a job. Others weren't attractive enough to hustle and didn't manage to fall in with people who could help them. Some of them giddy at the openness of gay life in New York, got caught up in it and some are on pills and drugs.

Some are still wearing the clothes in which they came here a year or more ago. Nobless and without skills, without decent clothes to wear or to a job interview, they live in the streets, panhandling or shoplifting for the price of admission to the Stonewall. That was one advantage to the place. For $3 admission, one could stay inside, out of the winter's cold, or the summer heat all night long. Not only was the Stonewall better climactically, but it also saved the kids from spending the night in a doorway or from getting arrested as vagrants.

$3 isn't too hard to get panhandling and nobody hustled drinks in the Stonewall. Once the admission price was paid, one could drink or not as he chose, the Stonewall became home to these kids. When it was raided, they fought for it. That and the fact that they had nothing to lose other than the most tolerant, broad-minded gay place in town explains why the Stonewall riots were begun, led and spearheaded by Queens. That is amazing. That was long, but it's so worth it.

No, it's necessary. Because it's dick light shoes, they're basically saying there's a caste system within this community and you actually went to the one place, you can't take the one thing people have away from them, then they have nothing to lose. Never underestimate that if underdogs and the fucking discounted and the people who have already struggled their whole fucking lives, this is nothing new. This is nothing new. They're so brave.

They're so, yeah, exactly. They know how to fight. Yeah. Okay, so there are some members of the gay community, including Marsha P. Johnson, founded the Gay Liberation Front, which was an activist group dedicated to liberating the gay people of America. This group gives way to more groups like it across America and into Canada. And in the immediate aftermath, there are some gays who say they don't agree with what

happened at Stonewall. And this is where groups like the Mattachine Society fall apart because their efforts have always been to show straight people that gay people are, quote, just like them. And so they want gays to fit in with the straights and assimilate to their culture. But queer people involved in Stonewall uprising were saying assimilation plays into the oppressor's hand. And the beautiful thing about this is being able to be your genuine self full stop with not trying to meet the expectations of anybody else.

And that's what transgender activists like Marsha and Sylvia start fighting for, which is the freedom to be yourself, whatever that is. So they make it a point to continue the work in the years following Stonewall. In 1970, Sylvia and Marsha start an organization called Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries which supports queer youth in New York City. By 1972, they pulled together enough money to purchase a house, which they call the Star House, which is the acronym for Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries. And they use this house to house homeless queer youth.

And Sylvia and Marsha fund the house through sex work so that the kids who live there don't have to do it themselves. It's beautiful. And the Star organization also jumps into other equal rights and anti-police brutality causes around the city, marching in protests and supporting other marginalized people in any way they can. But as they head into the early 70s, more and more people start to peel themselves away from transgender gender queer causes.

The gay liberation movement starts to think about trans rights as being too difficult to attain so they separate from activists like Marsha and Sylvia and to give, the thinking was to give gay causes a better chance. Then at the Gay Pride March in 1973, Sylvia tries to make a speech but is repeatedly blocked by other gay activists. And she eventually grabs the mic and yells, if it wasn't for the drag queens, there would be no gay liberation movement, we're the frontliners. So shortly after that, she attempts suicide but Marsha finds her and saves her life.

So the Stonewall Uprising very quickly gives way to the gay rights movement and pride celebrations that are now start taking place all around the world. On June 28th, 1970, the queer community in New York City gathers outside of Stonewall for the first annual Christopher Street Liberation Day. They commemorate the Stonewall Uprising with a march and Los Angeles and Chicago follow suit with their own marches. And also San Francisco, that same year, San Francisco has what they call a sit-in. They march down Polk Street and then they have a sit-in themselves.

In the next year, Boston, Dallas, Milwaukee and even Paris, London, West Berlin and Stockholm all host pride marches of their own. Every year the number of participating cities grows until we reach the Pride Month celebrations as we know them today. But as we celebrate Pride, it's important to remember that we're able to celebrate this in the first place because black and brown transgender queer and queens like Marsha and Sylvia and more fought for everyone's liberation. And that is a very rudimentary report on the legendary protest that was the Stonewall

Uprising. Wow. I did not know those details at all. That is amazing. Isn't that great? I mean, there's so much more to know and learn and so many details, but it's a start. But I kind of do love it all folds together. There's a lot of brave people out there and what we're seeing happening right now in

front of us has happened before. It doesn't have to be as scary as it can sometimes feel because if you look back in the past, there've been people who have been so brave in such insanely oppressive times. And if we can know these stories and talk about those stories, we can steal a little bit of their bravery and take it to now so we can do our work. And it's really inspiring to see that those brave people have made changes. So what we're going through right now and the fear and anxiety and stress of it all and it's so scary, but it's for a cause and it works.

And in the past, it's worked and that's why it's happening, not just it's not for nothing. That's right. And it is about, this is about actually having respect for human life. This is not, it's not about teaching people a lesson. It's not about being anti this group or anti that group. It's like you cannot keep on killing black people with nothing and having nothing happen because of it. Yeah.

That's what's happening today. But that's also, it has been happening for so long. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Just Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter everybody. Great job.

We really want to hear your fucking hurrays from the past week and what's been going on for you and your wins. Please email us at my favorite murder at gmail or tweet at us or comment on our Instagram and let us know, you know, how, how this has affected you and what, and what you're doing to help people that it's, that it affects in the, in the real day to day because that's, that's what's exciting is they watching people really come together. Right. Thanks you guys for listening.

Stay safe, stay strong, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Yeah.