Uncover - S20 "The Africas VS. America" E3: The Toughest Cop in America

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

By the 1970s, both local and federal law enforcement have perfected a system to subvert and neutralize Black liberation movements across the United States. The civil rights movement has been uprooted, and Black Power is now here. In Philadelphia, the most famous police officer in America is elected mayor. Frank Rizzo’s objective is to turn the city into centre stage in the nationwide fight against Black liberation activists. His power and influence will have deep implications for MOVE.The Africas VS. America is nominated for a Webby! Vote for the series here.

Canadians care about what's happening in the world and in just 10 minutes, World Report can help you stay on top of it all. Join me, Marcia Young. And me, John Northcott, to get caught up on what was breaking when you went to bed and the stories that still matter in the morning. Our CBC News reporters will tell you about the people trying to make change. The political movements catching fire. And the cultural moments going viral.

Find World Report wherever you get your podcasts. Start your day with us. This is a CBC Podcast. Just a heads up, this episode includes explicit language. This episode includes explicit language. Like now standing in the former grounds where it stood. I'm in a plaza in Philadelphia's Center City. And it was a monument of a man in suit and tie,

hair perfectly groomed, gesturing towards something just off in the distance. Or as Mike Africa Jr. refers to it, It was a full-size bronze, like 13 or 15-foot statue during the Hitler wave. But if you'd visited Philadelphia prior to June 2020, you'd have likely seen it. At 10 feet tall, weighing some 2,000 pounds, it registered as a composite of great power and authority, befitting the man himself, Frank Rizzo. Rizzo was as powerful a man as the city had ever seen. Police commissioner, two-term mayor, and he had a direct line to the highest echelons of American power. At the height of his reign, Frank Rizzo was known by a number of names.

The General, Supercop, Chairman Frank. It's why the city would erect that statue in the first place. Powerful men like Frank Rizzo aren't born. They're made. A myth crafted over the years and then canonized once they die. Particularly in the local press. He seemed like he would go on living forever, Frank L. Rizzo, but tonight he's dead at the age of 70 from a massive heart attack. From his early days as police officer to police commissioner and two terms as mayor, Frank L. Rizzo left an indelible mark on the city of Philadelphia.

His funeral was said to be the largest in Philadelphia's history. With the motorcade and onlookers lining the street in the tens of thousands, it was like a king had died. I have recognized the legacy he bequeathed, a legacy of love of his God, of his church, A legacy of love of his God, of his church, of his family, of Philadelphia, and of every individual in the community. But this legacy of love, it isn't exactly how many Philadelphians would remember Rizzo. His monument became a touchstone of disagreement between folks for whom Frank Rizzo inspired very different memories. I can't believe it stayed as long as it did.

It was always the, like, location for demonstrations. Hey, yo, where we meeting at? The Rizzo statue. Where's the next event? The Rizzo statue. And they would mark it, they would paint it, they would bronze it, they'd set it on fire a couple times. would bronze it. They'd set it on fire a couple times. Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said it was, quote, a deplorable monument to racism, bigotry and police brutality.

Following mass protests in 2020, the statue built in his honor would finally come down. I saw it when they took it. And Mike Africa Jr. was there to see it go. They were keeping us away but they airlifted it. And Mike Africa Jr. was there to see it go. They were keeping us away, but they airlifted it. They lifted it up. Like they put straps on his arm and the wrap around him. I remember it.

Like it was like, dang. It's like he was waving as he was leaving. It was weird. Today, there's not much more than a banner of images here. Today, there's not much more than a banner of images here. Of like a motley array of black people, all pretty young, most of them in masks, with the black power fist raised to the sky. And this banner would have been put up just after Rizzo came tumbling down. just after Rizzo came tumbling down. How Rizzo came to power, and exactly what he did once he had it, is intricately tied to John Africa and to MOVE. I got mixed feelings.

On the one hand, you don't celebrate people like that. As a black person in a city of Philadelphia that is predominantly black, I just don't think that that's the kind of thing that you should be celebrating. But then on the other hand, dogs need something to piss on. You know what I mean? People need a good reminder that these things, these types of people existed. It's a good reminder that we are not free. But it's gone now.

And I did celebrate. If there was ever a man who personified the system that John Africa and MOVE had dedicated their lives to tearing down, it was Frank Rizzo. If they fire at any of our police, we will retaliate in kind, and I can assure you they're going to lose. And if there was one thing Rizzo liked more than power, it was a good fight. They named the game, and I assure you, they lose. and I assure you, they lose. I'm Matthew Amha, and this is the Africa's vs. America.

Chapter 3, The Toughest Cop in America. My dad set tough rules, and you played the game by his rules or you didn't play. There was no free foot open for him, you know. Boom, you got knocked down, you know, and good system. Francis Lazaro Rizzo is born in October of 1920 to a working-class family in South Philly. That's him speaking as part of a documentary that aired on WHYY TV12, tracing his rise from childhood. Frank's father, Ralph, is the first Italian-American cop in the city's history. Growing up, Frank earns a reputation as a kid who can handle himself on the street. By seven, Frank's got his first job, and through his school years, he brings his

earnings from a local hardware store and a butcher shop back to his mother at the end of each work week. In 1938, Rizzo drops out of high school and joins the Navy. But not for long. Within the year, he's discharged after being diagnosed with a rare kidney condition. At 22, he marries a candy maker named Carmella. By now, he's sporting the tailored suits and slick hair he'll become famous for. But despite these affectations, Rizzo doesn't mind getting his hands dirty. I come from an arena where I learned to take my lumps and give some. I come from an arena where I learned to take my lumps and give some. So it isn't long before he follows in his father's historic footsteps and joins the Philadelphia Police Department.

Even as a kid, Rizzo's strongest asset was his size. And by the time he joins the force, he's well on his way to filling out his 6'2", 240-pound frame with a 19-and-a-half-inch neck, which for reference is only half an inch smaller than Mike Tyson's. So Brass sends him to parts of the city that others aren't so keen on going. Rizzo being located in the bottom. Damn.

They send him to the bottom, the same neighborhood John Africa calls home. I know that had to be hard for him. I mean, if you don't like black people and you're in the bottom, there might have been a couple of stragglers, white people that didn't leave yet. But for the most part, it was black, grimy, grimy black, poor black. The black people who came up from down south and they didn't have money, so they just landed in the most affordable place they could go,

which was the bottom. Throughout Rizzo's early years on the force, Philadelphia's changing, and codified segregation is a central part of the city's organizing logic. As black folks move in in larger numbers, white people are leaving en masse. The Leaphearts, John Africa's family, they experience this firsthand. They're part of the wave that almost tripled the city's Black population from the 1930s through the 1970s.

And the demographic changes, they create this hyper-regionalism that divides the city along certain lines, race being primary. And no one knows this better than Walt Palmer. Walt is an institution in Philadelphia. How are you, Walt? Nice to meet you. I'm Matthew. Pleasure to meet you. Pretty good.

Did you get in okay? I'm short. I'm Matthew. Pleasure to meet you. Pretty good. Did you get in okay? I'm short. Okay. I meet Walt in Philly's city center. He's in his late 80s, but he's still formidable. He has the bearing of a retired NFL fullback, and he looks sharp. White sweater under a gray windowpane suit, gold pocket square, flat cap and sneakers, and just the faintest hint of a silver

mustache. Walt was born in the 1930s and recalls how just about every facet of life was defined by one's race. Philadelphia, second, third largest city in America during that time, was greatly segregated. Blacks were not in banks. Blacks were not driving buses, trains. I mean, blacks were left out of almost all political, social, and economic life. Black folks were not able to go into University of Pennsylvania Hospital when they got sick. It was segregated. The blood was segregated. It was marked C and W, colored in white.

Same thing with Presbyterian. Walt's earliest recollection of Penn was that the university was a hostile force for black people in the city. I remember as a child growing up in the Black Bottom, we were always told, never go towards the University of Pennsylvania after dark. They're body snatchers. But the morning we meet, he's actually just come from the university, where he's taught on and off since the 1960s. So now, in all my life, I've been in this love-hate relationship with the University

of Pennsylvania. Love it for the things it could do, hate it for the things it's done. Walt's a retired cardiologist. He was also the former director of what was then called the Department of Cardiopulmonary Therapy at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Back in 1957, when he took on that role, Walt was the youngest hospital director in the United States, and the only black one. Walt Palmer was born just a couple of years after Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but about a decade before the younger crop of leaders,

like Stokely Carmichael and Black Panther Party leader Huey P. Newton. He represents a middle ground between two fraternal, but ideologically opposed wings of the movement. One more oriented toward reparation, unity, and healing. The other focused on revolution. Just two weeks before Dr. King's assassination, Walt meets privately with him, urging the minister to consider a different tact. A number of the young Black activists were very upset with him because he was pushing

for integration. They were pushing for desegregation. This was the fight, the struggle in the civil rights movement, right? This was only three years after Malcolm X was murdered at a rally in New York City. Walt had planned to be in the ballroom where Malcolm was gunned down that night, but he stuck babysitting his niece instead. I fall asleep. I wake up and the news says, the man called Malcolm X is dead. The man called Malcolm

X has been assassinated. I just dropped like a rock. I just could not believe it. It was a great loss. And then what happened is much of black America really just froze. So while Walt has been a petty criminal, a world-class athlete, a local organizer, an educator, and a radical, it's his role in the Black American freedom struggle that would put him on a collision course

with Frank Rizzo. You'll hear Philly described as a city of neighborhoods or a city of Balkan states. But it's not as simple as just black and white. As an Italian-American, Rizzo believes he is disenfranchised in his own way. In America, Italians are like the low man on the totem pole for whiteness. They got white skin, but they're not really accepted by whites. They got white skin, but they're not really accepted by whites.

A lot of Rizzo's eventual political identity is bound up in a very specific concept of race and power. His identity, in many ways, is one of convenience. There's a real emphasis on his white ethnic identity as being distinct from American whiteness, but also distinctly above blackness. Frank Rizzo is a chameleon, similar enough to most white Americans that he's non-threatening, but different enough that he's able to sell more recent European immigrants a blue-collar story of a man who beat the odds despite the deck being stacked against him. I think that's why Rizzo was saying fight blacks for better jobs.

Like, we trying to come up in the world. The country is owned by white people and we got to compete with these niggers? Man, fight these motherfuckers for this better job. We can't be letting them, you know, run the country or get in our spaces. It wasn't Italian against other races.

It was everybody against blacks. And so it's against this backdrop that Rizzo earns his reputation as a brutal and efficient street fighter. All in the name of the law. Through the 1940s and 50s, Philadelphia lies under a brooding cloud of police violence. There was one practice in particular. I recognize it from living in Toronto.

But in Philly, it's called a turf drop, where instead of arresting you, the police essentially kidnap you and drive you into another neighborhood, often along racialized lines. They would drive you around the neighborhood and then drop you off deep, deep in that area where you didn't go across that street. You got to like scurry your way through to get out of there. And by the time you got out of there, they done alerted several others. He's on his way to your way.

This is the environment in which Rizzo was cultivated, and it's where he thrived. A world where it was perfectly appropriate to beat the shit out of the suspect or drop them off into hostile territory where the job would be done for you. It's a war, and Rizzo had the war mentality. And the warriors that he was fighting against were not exclusively by any means, but were African American.

Ed Rendell was elected Pennsylvania's district attorney in 1977, the youngest DA in the state's history. And he hated criminals. He hated white criminals. He hated white punks. He hated white thugs. He hated white hitmen. But he also hated African Americans who he thought committed crime. Because of that war mentality, he had trouble distinguishing things. Did he do stuff that was racist? Absolutely. Did some stuff that was unconscionable.

So much of Rizzo's biography reads like a description of a superhero. He not only looks like a man who's just stepped out of central casting, but his reputation as a beat cop in the bottom earns him a perfect Hollywood moniker. perfect Hollywood moniker. Here's O. Henry's famous Robin Hood of the Old West, the Cisco Kid. The Cisco Kid, named after a shoot-em-up cowboy hero in a popular TV western. And commensurate with his brutality against black people

is his popularity with white Philadelphians. And the brass is starting to take notice. By the early 1950s, Rizzo is promoted to sergeant, and by 52, he's a captain. He leads high-profile raids on brothels and racketeering businesses. Through the next decade, Rizzo finds himself on the radar of the city's power brokers, from Republican kingmakers to local businesses, union bosses to the mob. Then, in the mid-60s, a twist of fortune lands Rizzo his first real shot at power. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Edward J. Bell goes on holiday, and Rizzo is appointed to act in his stead.

Yeah, Commissioner Rizzo, he had a command presence about him. No doubt about that. It's the summer of 1966, and Frank Rizzo has just been named interim police commissioner. He's now in charge of a standing force of more than 7,000 officers. And from the outset,

cops like Bob Hurst loved him. I mean, he just had that air about him. Always spit-shined shoes, looked like a brand-new penny all the time. When he walked in the room, everybody knew it. If it was a hostile setting, a social setting,

no matter what kind of a setting, he was a very good man, and he loved police. Almost right away, we see this crystallizing of Rizzo's ambitions for leadership, but also a clear-eyed understanding of who and what he feels his city needs him to be. A small, vocal minority among us seeks to destroy the heritage of 1776. We must be ever vigilant that this minority does not impose its philosophy

on the unwilling majority of Americans. Rizzo's first order of business is to establish a campaign against the local chapter of civil rights organization SNCC, which stands for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Here he is speaking about that campaign with CBS News. I've been a policeman a long time, and I've learned one thing as a policeman. You never underestimate your opponent. You always get in there faster with more than is necessary, and you overpower them.

SNCC represented the heart of the civil rights movement. These were the students at the center of the freedom riots that helped to desegregate the South through the 1960s. SNCC's national leader is a young activist named Stokely Carmichael. Carmichael has just mainstreamed the phrase Black Power, and he's growing in prominence. Our problem has been, as Black people, we've always been concerned about white America, never about us.

And what we've always thought is that white America equal the same interest as us. That is not true. We must now be concerned with us. Snick believes in civil disobedience and direct action as a way of fostering social change. But Rizzo, he sees the activists as guerrilla militants. He accuses them of stockpiling weapons and planning assaults on the police. And he sends cops to carry out raids on the homes of people associated with the group. Police claim to uncover sticks of dynamite and a conspiracy to bomb the city's historic Independence Hall. The charges against SNCC members are eventually dropped. The dynamite

police claim to have found there was never any evidence of it. But Rizzo had set himself a clear mandate. And he's quickly becoming a galvanizing force for all of those who would prefer to see America return to a more comforting past. Positioning black activism as a force of chaos and disorder, and positioning himself as a bulwark against that chaos. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons,

but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with season three of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. In the vacuum left in the wake of the murders

of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, Walt does what he can to continue organizing toward a more promising future. He takes the politics of the day, a blend of ideologies from across the Black

Atlantic and the African continent, and opens what he calls a freedom school, a place that would be unabashedly ideological. So what I did in this freedom school was attract young Blacks, two years old to five years old, and started talking to them about issues of pride and dignity, use of national demographics to show them the world beyond this four or five block radius in which we lived in. Right. The school's main objective was to push back institutionally. Black children were essentially being taught anti-Black propaganda, that they came from an anti-civilization and represented the nadir of history and society.

Walt was going to fill them up with the true nature of their history instead. And I then became fascinated about African history, so I started drawing pictures of Africans in history and showing how they contributed to trying to change the narrative. And we'd take our pictures and I'd go and stand on the street corners. I was bold. I'd go downtown Philadelphia where blacks weren't welcome. Largely all white.

And I'd stand on a milk crate holding up these pictures and tell them the history, right? It was fascinating because... This was a generation of kids hungry for an alternate history. Hungry for the truth. And they wanted black history and black culture and black civilization, black resistance. And they wanted to wear African clothing, you know, ZZs and Kufis and Dakshikis and Arakbalas. But not everyone takes well to a man like Walt inculcating these stories in children. The simple act of teaching history as it actually happened

represents an existential threat to white America. The city was not on board. They were just totally scared to death. Stay away from Palmer, right? Oh my God, he's just too wild. And I went into places where they had meetings and I'd walk up on the stage and take over the microphone and start preaching, start teaching, right? I mean, I do one man sit-ins and demonstrations and shutting down banks and shit,

right? So by the time Frank Rizzo is officially declared police commissioner in the spring of 1967, Walt Palmer is leading a movement to have black history, real black history, brought into the mainstream. The story of Haiti's victory over Britain, France, and Spain, of civil rights heroes like Frederick Douglass and Denmark Vesey, and of Africa's many independence wars with Europe. For weeks, Walt and others debate the city on the merits of incorporating the Freedom School Schools curriculum into Philadelphia's public school system.

But when that goes nowhere, he figures he might have success with a more direct approach. So we set the date of November 17, 1967, to have a demonstration, shut down all the schools. And we had leadership in every school. Demonstration shut down all the schools and we had leadership in every school Somebody in every school would pull the fire alarm to make sure people went out Other folks will be standing outside to galvanize them, right? These are all students doing all this stuff, right? The plan is that the middle and high school students will march through Center City all the way to the city's Board of Education Headquarters to mount a dissent so clear in its demands the city would have no choice but to comply.

So they march with raised fists, chanting Black Power and Black Studies. At that point, it was one of the largest student protests in American history. Over 5,000 of them eventually wound up with me at the headquarters of Board Education. Walta told the Board of Education to expect protesters at its doors, and the board, in turn, had advised the police to stand down. But Rizzo, he wasn't one to stand down. The success between 10 o'clock and 12 noon,

24 of the 25 demands were conceded to. The Board of Education agreed to do them. But at 12 noon, Commissioner Frank Rizzo, I understand, I didn't see him, I heard about it, he said, get them. It turned into a police riot. Hundreds of police roll in on buses. They surge through the street as a unified force.

Some in riot gear, while others are wearing long coats. Many are carrying clubs. While student leaders meet with officials from the school district inside, outside, hell is opening up on the crowd, under Frank Rizzo's direct orders. For hours, they've been taking this part of the city over. Nobody could do anything about it. Then they began to run over the roofs of parked automobiles, and several policemen did their job, arrested them.

They were taking them into custody, and a screaming mob to assault the police and remove take their prisoners off them that's when the police made the move on my order he said get their black asses and that turned into a confrontation and they started attacking and beating the students I started home and screaming I students. I started hollering and screaming. I started fighting them back, fighting them back. And I was heard saying, I had told them not to bring guns. I wish I had told them to bring guns right now. The police beat students with their nightsticks and dragged them through the streets,

their knees bleeding on the asphalt. Then they sick police dogs on them. It was bad. It was very bad. These children, these were middle school and high school kids who were defenseless in many ways. They were fighting. They fought back. They put tear gas. I was told later by a police officer

that the tear gas was purposely done so they could target me and isolate me. And one of them said, Walt, I think they want to kill you. No one man should have that much power to shut down an entire school system in Philadelphia. In the end, 57 people, 39 of whom are teenagers, are arrested. 22 are seriously injured.

Commissioner Rizzo, without consulting us and without our requests, saw fit to suddenly turn loose a couple of hundred policemen swinging clubs. This is Richard Dilworth, the president of Philly's Board of Education, speaking with the media a short time later. Beating these children, and I just don't think that's the way to handle it. In the aftermath of an incident like this, police departments usually respond by sending in the police union to play pit bull in the press. They launch media offensives to win over public opinion. But Frank Rizzo? He was different. Rather than hide from it, he takes

full credit. Rather than hide from it, he takes full credit. They've been in the areas of schools inciting kids, Black power this, Black power beautiful. What does the school board do about it? They should do something about it, and I'm hoping they do. But I'll say this for the record, the Philadelphia police are going to do their job.

That I promise. As Frank Rizzo was cultivating his image as a smash-mouth street cop, American law enforcement at both the federal and local level are perfecting a system that relies on clandestine deterrence as much as it does brute force. Secret FBI memos made public today show that the late J. Edgar Hoover ordered a nationwide campaign to disrupt the activities of the new left without telling any of his superiors about it. He ordered his agents not only to expose new left groups, but to take action against them to neutralize them.

This audio is from an NBC News report about an FBI program called COINTELPRO, short for Counterintelligence Program. COINTELPRO was a pillar of the Bureau, developed by Director Hoover in the mid-1950s, and in many ways, it's the key to understanding MOVE's relationship to the police, and the relationship between the police and Black America writ large. The program was the primary weapon deployed against domestic groups considered disloyal to the interests of the United States government. This included communist groups, anti-war organizations, religious groups, and by the late 1960s, it was mainly focused on Black liberation organizations, like the Panthers and MOVE.

The program was designed to create a race panic, to drive dissension and infighting within groups, to delegitimize them to the public, and to fuel paranoia. Cointelpro was also linked to a number of high-profile assassinations, as well as more covert operations, like the anonymous letter it sent to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. attempting to blackmail him into suicide. And it made its way into pop culture via the likes of Aretha Franklin, Nat King Cole, Muhammad Ali, and James Baldwin, all of whom were spied on for years. The government was fixated on the notion that if black liberation groups formed an effective coalition, America might truly be in for a black revolution.

And so the only way for a program like COENCILPRO to succeed was through deep collaboration with local police departments. Though the program would be terminated in 1971, its legacy was felt across the country long after. In Philadelphia, that legacy was found in the Civil Disobedience Unit, or the CDU. And it was overseen by a man named George Fensel. Fensel was in many ways a policeman's policeman, but he also was very integral with the police intelligence units that had been in part of it. Reporter Lynn Washington remembers Fensel well.

I mean, some people, you know, they're fascists. But here in America, we just miss that. You know, fascists are people in Eastern Europe, maybe in Italy every now and then, you know, but never here. Well, we've been disabused of that notion in the 21st century, but it took us to get to the 21st century to acknowledge the fascistic streaks that have been a part of America since its very inception. How comprehensive was the surveillance network created by FENCIL and by Rizzo in many ways? It was very comprehensive. It was very sophisticated.

This understand that it wasn't just directed, say, at MOVE. It was directed at other black revolutionary organizations. They did very similar sorts of things with the anti-war movement in the city. They were very hostile to the gay community. So it was very pervasive. FENCIL becomes a fixture at protests across the city. His men dressed in trademark black overcoats, cameras in hand. We used to condemn them for taking pictures of people. That's intimidating.

Walt Palmer experienced it firsthand. They had people in key places looking like they were part of the march. They infiltrated some of the groups. I used to tell folks, you have to always watch your flank. You have to always make sure that you're not collaborating unwittingly or that you're not allowing people to use your platform to advance their own. And every tool employed by COINTELPRO at a national level is also employed by FENCEL and the CDU in Philadelphia. Well, they would surveil people. They would try to get people fired.

They would disrupt domestic relations. Lynn Washington recalls covering protests and noticing a pattern when he was done reporting for the day. I would see a detective get out of the car and go to a pay phone. And so I said, OK, the police are now watching me, so no rolling through stop signs or doing any kind of traffic thing that could get you stopped. What was happening was, let's just say coincidentally to me seeing a detective on the telephone all the time, somebody was calling my house, telling my wife that I was out messing around

with some other woman. He was great tonight. I'm sending him home to you now. I didn't find this out until years later. And when I found it out, it was, what the, you know, WTF? Now this makes sense. Now, do I have empirical evidence that this led to that? No, but it's my story and I'm sticking to it.

George Fensel is a former Marine, a tall and angular shadow of a man who operates on the margins. George Fensel is a former Marine, a tall and angular shadow of a man who operates on the margins. He avoids the limelight. In many ways, he's the anti-Rizzo. If Frank Rizzo is an atom bomb, George Fensel is an odorless gas. So to the uninitiated, Rizzo and Fensel might appear strange bedfellows, but it's a partnership that worked.

At a local level, Fensel works to cast a net across every corner of public and private life for Black Philadelphians, sending informants into churches, universities, bookstores, and storefronts. George Fensel is a man of few words, but here he is on the record about the CDU's surveillance work through the era. We've been acquainted with quite a number of people throughout the years that we've been handling demonstrations. We have made a record of every demonstration that we've handled in the city of Philadelphia, and we have some 18,000 names. And all of their work together at the local level is intimately connected with the work of the FBI at the national level. So much so that Frank Rizzo was touted as a natural successor to Hoover.

Even Richard Nixon took time out of his presidential campaign to praise the man he called the toughest cop in America. When great principles that transcend any partisan differences are involved, he's a very great American. On Saturday, August 29, 1970, Sergeant Frank Von Kohn is shot and killed inside the Cobbs Creek Guardhouse, just down the road from Osage Avenue, the site of MOVE's future headquarters. He's 43 years old and a 17-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Force. veteran of the Philadelphia Police Force. Von Kohn was alone at his post,

having just dispatched two police officers to investigate the reported shooting of a patrolman. Within 24 hours, another two officers are shot. Tell me what we got. Okay, Commissioner, 5-9 and Cedar. We have a police officer shot. He's in Missicordia Hospital. Condition is unknown. Police Commissioner Frank Rizzo likely knew that these cops were killed by members of a local group known as the Black Unity Council.

And yet, he publicly declares the Black Panthers as the group behind the violence. And the Panthers were more than just a convenient patsy. This is classic Colintel Pro strategy at work. The Panthers have just chosen Philadelphia to host a national convention for radicals from across the country. By the late 60s, they've successfully consolidated the disarray of the post-civil rights collapse into a coherent social movement. And by 1970, they've stormed the California State Capitol building, been declared a terrorist group in the state of New York, and rank as, quote, the greatest threat to the internal security of the country by no less than FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. They are young, militant, organized, gun-toting, and completely unwilling to compromise.

As Rizzo says to CBS News, he's ready for them. As Rizzo says to CBS News, he's ready for them. If they have their convention, fine, no problem. All I can say, and they consider this a challenge, they break our law, we'll be there. Meaning? The police. We'll be there, and we'll see who wins.

And if you're a betting man, you bet on us. Frank Rizzo was adamant about not having the Black Panthers and Huey Newton come into town. And again, this is a lot of turmoil in the city. In the weeks before this scheduled convention, Rizzo staged raids on Black Panther headquarters, one in North Philly and one not too far from here. It's the middle of the night when police reach Black Panther Party headquarters. Inside are 15 young Panthers. Most of them are just teenagers. They brought the Black Panthers out. They had already pre-positioned news media photographers.

Here's one former Panther describing for WHYY what happened next. 150 police converged on building the 2935 Cecil B. Moore Avenue, Columbia Avenue at that time. Tear gas filled the place. They drug us out, ripped the clothes off of us, and we were arrested, put under ransom, $100,000 bail. That morning's newspapers feature photographs of the young boys lined up, barefoot on the concrete, in nothing but their underwear, handcuffed and facing the red brick of the home as they're arrested. And they were ordered to strip.

So he has some of them naked and others in shorts. There were a number of young Panther women in the headquarters that morning as well. And they were spared the cameras as police strip- police strip searched them inside before hauling them off. 14 of the Panthers will be arraigned on charges including assault with intent to kill, charges that are later dropped due to lack of evidence. This is all from the COENTELPRO playbook, saddling blame without evidence, disseminating accusations in the press, portraying Panthers as agents of chaos, and using the media to identify villains in the public. Later the day of the raid, Rizzo will tell the press that 13 guns and a thousand rounds of ammunition were confiscated, and Mayor James Tate will authorize Rizzo to hire nearly 600 new cops. So not only was this a moral victory for Rizzo, it was a tactical one as well.

Overnight, he grew his force by almost 10%. And as it turns out, Frank Rizzo wasn't even there the day of the raid. The entire thing had been orchestrated by George Fensel. But that doesn't stop Rizzo from claiming glory on CBS. But that doesn't stop Rizzo from claiming glory on CBS. They're a little angry. They were humiliated. We took their pants off them to search them, you know. So only brave when they outnumber people. They said I hurled a challenge that I suggested instead of laying an ambush,

why don't you tell us where you're going to be? We'll give you the odds. We'll come and we'll, you know, okay, corral, you know. The convention went on as planned. He tried to disrupt it, but it didn't work. The convention continued on. Huey Newton came into town. And though most media was barred from attendance, its host, Temple University, recorded the event.

All power to the people. All power to the people. Right on. Thousands of members of the Black Panther Party turned up to Temple, whose campus became a mecca of radical organizing. National Panther leader Huey Newton had just recently been released from prison following the reversal of high-profile charges related to the death of a police officer. And here he is, about to deliver his first public address. I applaud you because you're all such beautiful people, and the power is with you. And as soon as

we realize that, we will make many changes. Matter of fact, we will transform the world. The power is not with the Black Panther Party. The power is not with any individual. But you have the power collectively. And all those beautiful people, they weren't just Panthers. There's this classic picture there of Huey at a podium. On one side, providing security, was the Philadelphia founder of the Young Lords, the Puerto Rican equivalent of the Black Panthers. And then there's one guy on the other side from the Young Lords leader,

And then there's one guy on the other side from the Young Lords leader, was a guy who looked hauntingly like, who became known as Robert Africa, Bob Africa, one of John Africa's initial right-hand man. He was right there. Delbert Africa, who was a former Black Panther. So there was many… Delbert Africa, who was a former Black Panther. Delbert Orr had been the Minister of Information for the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party, led by the group's Crown Jewel, Chairman Fred Hampton. But when Hampton was assassinated, Delbert fled.

First to Toronto, and then to Philly, where he was introduced to the teachings of John Africa. Here's Delbert speaking with journalist Ademola Ikulona for a 1976 WPVI documentary. Ademola Ikulona, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist,

Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist, Journalist consisted of revolutionizing myself to get away from the things that caused me to want to revolt.

In the end, despite the efforts of the police, the Panthers' convention was a success. And yet the raid on their headquarters was still a coup for Rizzo. And it would secure him the top job in the city when a few weeks later, Philadelphia Mayor James Tate announced his retirement and named Rizzo de facto mayor. Philadelphia is a tortured city. Trash piles up at the curb line. Kids are afraid to walk to school. Trash piles up at the curb line. Kids are afraid to walk to school. Abandoned homes pockmark the ghetto. The drug scene is frightening."

On February 2, 1971, Frank Rizzo resigns as police commissioner and announces a bid for mayor. What you're hearing is from a Rizzo campaign ad. Philadelphia needs a strong man for a tough job. Philadelphia needs Frank Rizzo as mayor. Help Rizzo help Philadelphia. There's this photograph of Rizzo that perfectly encapsulates the man. He's attending a disturbance in a housing project, but he's come from an official function. So he's wearing a tuxedo. And tucked in the cummerbund, he's got his nightstick.

Rizzo has this real sense of theater about him. Frank Goldstein was a cameraman for Channel 6 who covered Rizzo through the years. I was on a live shot, and there was a crowd behind him, and they were interrupting the live shot. Rizzo, who had large hands, reached back behind him and grabbed the crotch of one of the demonstrators behind him and just really squeezed.

And that sort of ended the negative behaviors. But that was Frank. That's classic Rizzo. negative behaviors. But that was Frank, that's classic Rizzo. He's a caricature, but he's the kind of caricature that people can get behind. Frank Rizzo had a charisma and is repugnant

as he was as a policy person. You just cannot, in all intellectual honesty, you cannot dismiss the charisma that he had. He had an aura about him. He projected this law and order perspective. And at the end of the day, people just want to be safe. He appealed in that respect. But this may seem contradictory in saying this, given the just abhorrent racism that was just integral to his policies and practices. As a person, he would literally give the shirt off his back to anyone, to anyone. So he was a complex and very interesting

character. Through his campaign, Rizzo issues no policy papers, but instead lets his reputation and, quote, firm but fair slogan do the work for him. Here he is speaking with CBS News in the lead-up to Election Day. I consider myself in the middle. I come from a background that wouldn't permit to tag liberal, ultra-liberal. If you're talking to me about human rights, if we're going to use the tag liberal, I'm a liberal. If you talk about crime and permissiveness and all the other things that cause disorder and confusion in our society, then I'm a conservative.

But I would rather use the expression, I'm against the people on the extreme left. I don't want them. I don't want the people on the extreme right. I want the people that are in the middle. Over the course of his career in politics, Rizzo's campaigns are this mix of working class values, law and order underpinnings, and appeals to white identity. He knows exactly who his constituents are.

Here he is speaking with a reporter from WCAU-TV. Blacks are going to vote black. So you say in response? That I say and respond the whites will vote for Rizzo along with many other blacks that think like I do. And it works. He wins and becomes mayor. I pledge you this, this administration will do everything humanly possible to see to it

that anyone will be able to operate a business without fear. In May of 1972, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover dies of a heart attack, and President Nixon delivers his eulogy. This is just six weeks before the Watergate break-in. He made the FBI the finest law enforcement agency on the earth, the invincible and incorruptible defender of every American's precious right to be free from fear. And when Nixon eventually takes his seat, sitting just across the aisle from him is Frank Rizzo.

He's only a few months into his mayorship, but he's already well transcended local politics. Rizzo had made it into the upper echelons of power in America. And in the Powhatan Village neighborhood of West Philadelphia, MOVE is settling into their new home, a home from which they'll fight against everything Frank Rizzo represents. If they come in here with their hands, we'll use our hands. If they come in here with clubs, we'll use clubs. But if they come in here shooting their hands, we'll use our hands. If they come in here with clubs, we'll use clubs. But if they come in here shooting and killing our women and children and our men, we will shoot back in defense of our lives.

That's next time on the Africa's vs. America. You've been listening to the Africa's Versus America from CBC Podcasts and Confluential Films. The show is written and produced by me, Matthew Amah, and Jessica Lindsay. Our story editor is Damon Fairless, and our producer is Alina Ghosh. Sound design by Evan Kelly. Emily Connell is our coordinating producer. Emily Mathieu is our fact checker.

Our senior producer is Willow Smith. Consulting producers for Confluential are Tommy Oliver and Keith Giannette. Audio courtesy of WCAU TV Channel 10 in Philadelphia. WHYY TV 12. Hazakia News. University of California, Berkeley. CBS News, NBC, Temple University,

WPVI Channel 6, Philadelphia, Amateur Night at City Hall, The Story of Frank L. Rizzo. Special thanks to Gerald Early. Executive producers for CBC Podcasts are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. Arif Noorani is the director

of CBC Podcasts. If you're enjoying the show, I'd like to recommend another CBC series. Nothing is Foreign is a world news podcast that looks at stories through a non-Western lens. Host Tamara Kandaker talks to locals and takes you deep inside an evolving news story. It's a weekly trip to where the news is unfolding. New episodes drop each Thursday.

Check it out. You can find it along with all other CBC podcasts on CBC Listen or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. Tune in next week for an all-new episode of The Africas vs. America, where you can binge the whole series by subscribing to our channel on Apple Podcasts.

Just click on the link in the show description. Thank you.