0:03

And

0:09

We

0:11

are Ken Jennings and John Roderick.

0:13

We speak to you from our present which we can

0:16

only assume is your distant past, the

0:18

turbulent time that was the early twenty

0:20

first century. Fearing the great cataclysm

0:22

that will surely befall our civilization we

0:25

began this monumental reference of strange

0:27

and obscure human knowledge.

0:28

These recordings represent our attempt to compile

0:31

and preserve wonders and esoterica that

0:33

would otherwise must be lost. So

0:35

whether you're listening from an advanced civilization

0:37

or have just reinvented the technology to

0:39

decrypt our transmissions,

0:41

this is our legacy to you. This

0:43

is our time capsule. This

0:45

is the omnibus.

1:13

You have accessed entry 817

1:16

dot EX2307

1:19

certificate number 34239

1:23

the murder of Herbert Lee.

1:26

It's all about as if I'm reliving

1:28

the funeral and

1:30

yet my heart is full

1:33

of joy that not

1:35

only my son, but all of

1:37

these other people who gave their

1:40

lives for such a great cause or

1:42

getting the recognition

1:43

that is their due. kind

1:45

of a sideways way to get into this. But

1:47

have you ever watched a TV show where

1:49

-- Yes. -- you

1:51

have? Mhmm. Which one? What was it?

1:53

Laverne Insurance at the first launch of the space

1:55

shuttle. I watch that too. I only watch

1:57

TV shows when they wheel in a TV in

1:59

into the classroom. because that's when you're the most

2:02

happy to watch TV. Is that a

2:04

giant VCR, but you're not gonna watch

2:06

that. You're gonna turn it to UHF station.

2:08

Have you ever seen a TV show where

2:10

a celebrity has to play some game for a charity

2:13

and they have to name the the

2:14

nonprofit they're playing for? Are you are

2:16

you like aware of this trope. Who are you playing for

2:18

today? Well, I'm old enough to remember

2:20

Battle of the Network Stars. Did they were

2:23

they doing it for the dystrophy or what? The

2:25

only ones I think did it for charity, but those

2:27

were those shows where there were, you know,

2:29

fifteen truly famous people. Peter

2:31

Fox on a motorcycle and play

2:34

against Cheryl Teens in a like a

2:36

juggle contest. Those

2:38

were great, but I don't know

2:40

if I know what you're talking. too many celebrities

2:42

died. That's why they don't do those anymore. Charro

2:44

died several times. Yeah. That that's that's

2:46

where we lost Charro doing torches. Herb

2:49

Albert. Weird about alright, me

2:51

and Herb Albert, struck by

2:53

a steamroller driven by Peter Faulk. No.

2:56

on game shows, you know, when they have the celebrities,

2:58

you know, they don't want the idea that the celebrity is

3:00

playing for themselves. Is the celebrity

3:02

playing against normals? sometimes the

3:04

celebrity's a partner, but typically this is like a

3:06

special week where, like,

3:08

you know, primetime

3:09

stars are playing family feud

3:11

or -- Oh. -- you know, Wow.

3:14

Beltway types are playing jeopardy, but

3:16

they're not just playing against, like, somebody

3:18

that just drew the like, their

3:20

number came up. You're not jeopardy. No. That would be

3:22

funny. That would be funny. Yeah. I think jeopardy

3:24

would actually be better if it was always just contest winners.

3:26

It's just a sweepstakes. Oh, look.

3:28

Carol from from Knoxville.

3:31

You're on jeopardy. Good luck. And

3:34

this at one point, I became the

3:36

fur this happened to me and I got the behind the

3:39

scenes look of of becoming

3:41

the person who has to say to the game show

3:43

host. Yeah. I'm here for,

3:45

you know, for Unisafe or whatever. What were you

3:47

there for? Well, that was the problem. It's like

3:49

a real existential crisis.

3:51

Sure. decide what your what your charity

3:53

is. Well, because because this is it. Right? You're

3:55

gonna be remembered forever. you get one

3:57

shot. I mean, it's all the nightmare of

3:59

picking charities in your real life,

4:02

which is,

4:03

you know, well, there's so many good causes

4:05

and I'm I mean, lately, it's really

4:07

like what am I angriest about today? Is

4:09

it dobs? Is it the ocean levels

4:12

rising? Is it cop

4:14

shooting black kids. And it used

4:16

to be a question of what

4:18

which charity spends

4:20

the least amount of money on

4:22

overhead. you remember that phase? Yeah. Well,

4:24

there's some level of that where you can still go online

4:26

and find all these charity rankers that are

4:28

like. This place this place doesn't

4:30

overpay its executives. It must be good. Yeah.

4:32

Right. Exactly. There was something I my

4:34

mom used to give to the Red Cross every year, and

4:36

then one time she saw an article where

4:39

They don't need yet. It seemed well, it seemed like

4:41

they were seventy percent of the money was

4:43

going to keeping the offices open or

4:45

something and she she was she felt betrayed. They

4:47

just the Red Cross just takes her blood. They just

4:49

take that money and waste They're

4:51

just drinking that blood probably. No.

4:53

I'm sure the Red Cross is breathing. Yes. I I remember

4:55

that same new cycle. It seemed like it was

4:57

one of those five my five thirty eight era

4:59

of What if data quants tell you

5:01

you're doing everything wrong, including giving

5:03

blood wrong? Right. Yeah. I

5:05

remember that. So there's some level of that, like, oh,

5:07

you want somebody, you know, a really efficient

5:09

charity also if you're gonna announce their name on

5:11

primetime, maybe don't do the red cross

5:13

because they

5:14

don't need the visibility.

5:16

Right. But also don't do a charity

5:18

that two years later, turns out to

5:20

to be, like, if you have a scammer upfront

5:22

or something bad. Right. And

5:25

one thing I had not considered was that the

5:27

television show does not want you to pick

5:29

anything that interesting. Like,

5:32

their nightmare is somebody getting up and saying,

5:34

I'm giving my money to act up. I'm here for

5:36

the National Right To Life Foundation

5:38

or a abortion access fund. Like, you

5:40

know, it doesn't even matter which side it is.

5:42

Right. And so the show sent me over

5:44

a list of approved charities.

5:46

And it was the most like, they sounded

5:49

made up. the ocean project --

5:51

Yeah. -- the nature people. It sounded

5:53

like the fake charity from Seinfeld.

5:55

Wheat bran. I'm playing for the human

5:57

fuck. It really was stuff like that. Like, nobody's

5:59

against it

6:00

was like toys for Tots or -- Yeah.

6:03

-- national big brothers, big sisters.

6:05

Could you do a veterans organization?

6:07

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. wounded

6:09

warriors. That's the kind of thing the network is hoping because,

6:11

you know, then the whole audience is like, I hope he wins

6:13

for those wounded warriors. And so

6:15

what so you looked it up and down and you were

6:17

like, not into veterans, not

6:19

into the ocean, not into the forest. They were all

6:21

equally good, but they just seemed like

6:23

they were problem. You know, they were

6:25

just

6:26

chosen to be non charities and I

6:28

would

6:28

have chosen the earth people. can

6:32

you say about that? I loved when they did the cerebral

6:34

halftime show in nineteen seventy one. I loved

6:36

the earth. No compromise in

6:38

defensive mother earth. Yeah.

6:40

Exactly. I picked What's

6:42

worse than greenpeace? What's some total monkey wrench?

6:45

Yeah. That's what it would be. Eco Charity.

6:47

Oh, I forgot what the that was called.

6:49

Yeah. Earth first. I was a card carrying

6:51

member for a long time. I'm playing for Earth first.

6:53

Let's say Jack. That

6:55

walks off. And

6:58

so after a week of just putting them off and

7:00

not replying to emails, I

7:02

finally I remembered I had been to,

7:05

like, a conference where A

7:07

man named Brian Stephenson had

7:09

spoken. And I had it

7:12

was about the same time that Michael b Jordan

7:14

had played him in the movie. he

7:16

was like a lawyer who returned to

7:18

his southern roots to start

7:20

this new kind of shoestring operation to

7:23

help first guys on death row

7:25

who could not get representation. Right.

7:27

And his organization has since, you know, gone

7:29

from strength to strength. Now there the equal

7:31

justice initiative where they've kind

7:33

of got a broader mandate to address all

7:35

these structural and largely

7:37

racial inequities in the

7:40

you know, mostly in the criminal justice system

7:42

and and, you know, mass incarceration and

7:44

people

7:44

who are locked

7:46

up unjustly because they couldn't get

7:48

because their state lawyer sacked and their

7:50

public defender sacked and the state patrol

7:53

didn't show all the evidence. Yeah.

7:55

Weirdly or or showed evidence that

7:57

they had brought from home. It's fun how the

7:59

state patrol will do that sometimes. Some

8:02

state patrol not all state

8:04

patrols down. A few a few

8:06

bad apples. that's what I

8:08

hear. But anyway, you know,

8:10

he he was just in a remarkably inspirational

8:13

speech that kind of told

8:15

the history of race in America

8:17

with our,

8:18

you

8:19

know, for profit criminal justice, you know,

8:21

incarceration system we have today, the prison system we have today

8:23

just kind of as natural line going

8:26

back to Jim Crow,

8:28

lynching, you know, all you know, all the way back through

8:30

history. Wait a minute. The EJI was not

8:32

on the network's list of approved

8:35

gentle charities.

8:37

Surely. It was not, but

8:39

you didn't have to pick from the list. It was like,

8:41

hey, we you haven't gotten back to us, so this

8:43

will help. Here

8:44

are the here are our top

8:46

fifteen. What about, you

8:48

know, UNICEF

8:49

Easter

8:50

Fund or what? So so

8:52

you'd So you've just seen him speak and you

8:54

were inspired. Yes. And

8:57

one thing I didn't realize, I

9:00

I talked to him briefly after because

9:02

we wound up at the same table with him at this thing.

9:04

And one thing I didn't realize from

9:06

talking to him is that you know his organization

9:08

has now now runs this kind

9:10

of massive museum, civil

9:13

rights memorial complex in Montgomery,

9:15

Alabama or the headquarter. And Montgomery

9:17

is now like, I love that you say

9:19

Montgomery. Sorry. What

9:21

should I say? No. No. No. I think that's probably

9:23

right. Montgomery is probably I don't

9:25

wanna sound like some fading southern bell

9:28

either. Is that problematic? Here

9:30

in Montgomery, as it

9:32

as it was, have no we're gonna get letters,

9:34

of course, because we have lots of Alabama

9:36

listeners, and they'll explain how to pronounce it. It's

9:38

like when maybe, you know I probably don't

9:40

pronounce a Yeah. That's the most part. you know how

9:42

Toronto gets mad if you don't say Toronto?

9:45

Yeah. But that but apparently, that's not

9:47

right either. What? Apparently,

9:49

there's you're not supposed to

9:51

say the the first

9:53

o, either Toronto.

9:55

I don't

9:55

say either of the Ts. I just

9:57

say orano. Orano. Maybe that's it.

9:59

because, you know, I can't remember which t it is you're

10:01

supposed to align, so I just get rid of them all.

10:03

It's t apostrophe RAN0

10:06

Alright. Canadian's supposed to

10:09

be, like, ahead of us, advanced,

10:11

you know, more more connected to

10:13

precise European speech No. No. No. They're

10:15

ahead of us in the sense that they're eliminating

10:18

all unnecessary letters. We still have twenty six

10:20

letters like chumps on this side of

10:22

the border. but they can't get

10:24

rid of Q because Quebec would

10:26

complain. We're trying to get

10:28

rid of Q, though. Quebec would quibble.

10:30

It'd be Quebec. It would

10:32

be a back. Yeah. That's right. So

10:34

Montgomery, however you say it, is now like a

10:36

real, you know, it's maybe the most

10:38

important stop on the civil rights

10:40

tourism trail. you know, there's there's stuff to

10:42

see and and white and black travelers

10:44

alike stopped to see. And as he

10:46

described this museum, his national memorial

10:48

for peace and justice that he started

10:50

it sounded less like a civil rights monument

10:55

and much more like the the

10:57

narrative he had he had given in

10:59

his after dinner speech, which I'm sure is the

11:01

practice thing he often gives to

11:03

to monied white audiences

11:05

to make

11:06

them reach for their checkbooks. and it totally

11:09

worked in my case. And I'm sure many of the

11:11

other many of the other guilty

11:13

liberals in the room are reaching for their Jackbooks

11:15

so fast. They're like, I'm

11:17

one of the good ones. I'm one of the good ones. It's, yeah, it's

11:19

bouncing out of their hands like a cartoon

11:21

guy. Me, Me, Me.

11:23

So the museum is actually, you know, it's

11:26

centered around, you know,

11:28

not just, here's what happened

11:30

during the six years. This was on the nightly

11:32

news. with Walter Cronkite, but it's really

11:34

more like, let's start with the

11:36

northwest. Let's start with the slave trade. Let's

11:38

there's a room that has monuments

11:41

to, you know, massive kind of steel art

11:43

installation representing every county

11:45

in the US that had a lynching. Oh, so

11:47

this is like a sixteen nineteen Exactly.

11:50

Style, like Right. Let's go back to But then but

11:52

then all the way through, like, here's, you know, here's

11:54

the structural reasons for these problems that

11:56

still plague us today. Have you been to

11:58

Alabama? No. We've I think we've discussed this

12:00

on the show and it's me hopping across the border

12:02

at Columbus, Georgia and just to try and get and

12:04

never having seen anything good. Knock it off

12:07

your list of states -- Right. -- that he visited. But

12:09

he really, you know, he was talking and all the people

12:11

at the table are like, oh, we must go, honey. We must

12:13

go. And I was like, we

12:14

we should really so I don't know when I'm gonna make

12:16

it to this Museum,

12:17

but it sounds great. Well, a couple years

12:20

ago, I was sitting up here in my

12:22

ivory tower in in

12:24

Seattle, trying to think of what to do

12:26

next. you know you know how that feels.

12:28

And I said, you know, I'm just gonna go I've

12:30

never I've been across Alabama a

12:33

a bunch of times I've played at

12:35

Montgomery. but

12:36

I didn't know I

12:38

I didn't understand

12:40

the

12:41

Alabama. because I think when you drive across

12:43

it, you know, there's a

12:45

lot of undergrowth. You can't

12:47

really see through the trees. All the cudzoos. Yeah.

12:49

You're just on the road and you look here, you look

12:51

there, you don't get a sense of it. So I flew

12:53

down in Nashville, I rented a car, and

12:56

I spent two weeks just driving

12:58

around Alabama, just

13:00

trying to just

13:02

trying to see what there was to Oh, yeah. You

13:04

went to Mussel Shoals. I did. You told me this. I went to

13:06

Mussel Shoals. I went I

13:08

went down to I

13:10

went to the Edmund Pettus Bridge and walked

13:12

across it. So you've seen the some of the civil rights

13:15

trails. A little bit. Yeah. And and

13:17

And it was

13:20

it, you

13:20

know, coming from the the

13:22

northwest, it was not I

13:24

I felt like it was something everybody

13:26

should do. You know, go go to the state that they

13:28

know the least, run a car,

13:31

and just drive around and see what there was to

13:33

see. I went to to mobile

13:35

and thought it was

13:37

one of the one of the

13:39

great American towns. Well, this is one we

13:41

talked about this. We did the show about whatever that

13:43

inversion is that makes all the -- Yeah. -- all the

13:45

crawdabs come to the surface. Right? Yeah. But

13:47

that's what I was called. The inversion that

13:49

makes the crawdabs come to the surface.

13:51

So mobile, you know, it's like

13:53

the little narrow ones.

13:55

But little or has a mardy

13:57

grower. Right? The first mardy, the

13:59

first mardy grower in America. Anyway,

14:01

so yeah, I Montgomery is a

14:03

is a fascinating place. You know, it's

14:05

like a majority black

14:07

city in the United States, and there

14:09

aren't that many of them. Well, that very much

14:11

plays into this. There were more of them before the

14:13

great migration. Right. You know,

14:15

reading about this particular story

14:17

today really kind of reminded me

14:19

that the, you know, the wave

14:22

of terror and violence

14:25

that was Jim Crow in the

14:27

segregation south was was

14:29

an apartheid state, you know, it was

14:32

a case where in many in many counties

14:34

and municipalities, like

14:36

a majority black population would

14:38

have controlled the political and legal

14:40

system had they been allowed to

14:42

vote, and serve on juries, run for

14:44

office. So, you know,

14:46

the fact that, you know, it wasn't just kind of a vague sense

14:49

of racial animus that led to

14:51

clans organizing. It was specifically

14:53

a top down and

14:55

very successful attempt to keep a

14:57

white minority in power in a lot of these

14:59

places. Birmingham and Jackson and

15:01

places like that would have been

15:03

it would been a a what

15:06

would you call it? Like, yeah, a

15:08

black nation. Yeah. I mean, it kind

15:10

of what would the threat of reconstruction where

15:13

suddenly these states were being represented

15:15

by black senators and

15:17

state representatives and, you

15:20

know,

15:20

the to

15:21

white interest there, sat back and said,

15:23

oh, no. What a different eighteen

15:25

eighties that would have been? Wouldn't that

15:27

have been I mean, that would have been

15:29

an exciting time. If

15:32

what what do you picture here? Lincoln lives?

15:34

Or does No. If every if if

15:36

forty acres on a mule had been -- Right. -- had

15:38

been honored. Right? I mean, think about

15:40

think about that. What what a

15:43

what a different United States this

15:47

this would be. I feel like I'm not

15:49

totally ignorant about the

15:51

civil rights movement, but I think my

15:53

view has just naturally been filtered

15:55

through PBS

15:57

documentaries. You know, whatever the whatever

15:59

the white gen x memory

16:01

of the civil rights areas, you know, be coming

16:03

up in a time when the media had

16:05

already decided, oh, this was always clearly

16:08

morally right and we finally got

16:10

it right. Good news, good news kids.

16:13

Everybody's on the right side now,

16:15

which

16:15

it turned out was completely illusory.

16:18

But

16:19

what what was interesting in the late

16:21

eighties was that was,

16:23

you know, that the black power movement

16:25

that came out of sort of

16:27

the the feeling like Lieira? Yeah. That

16:29

all through the seventies, the civil rights

16:31

movement had been undermined by

16:34

the FBI and the

16:36

introduction of crack cocaine and a

16:38

lot of conspiracies around it,

16:40

but also a real feeling

16:42

that That too

16:44

was a missed opportunity. You know, the

16:46

passage of the Civil Rights Act

16:48

and the rise of the Black Power

16:50

movement again threatened

16:53

powers that be and were

16:56

undermined the same way that the CIA was

16:58

undermining central American governments.

17:00

mean, we're right age to remember the controversy over

17:03

even Martin Luther King Junior Day becoming a

17:05

national holiday. I'm not

17:07

I'm not going to Arizona. Until by the

17:09

time I get there, That's a

17:11

that's a difference. I don't think Glenn

17:13

Campbell is particularly concerned about

17:15

national holidays. But yeah, I mean,

17:17

to date, this idea that we're, you know,

17:19

we're even Republican senators will have to pretend that they admire

17:21

doctor King because now he's the

17:23

secular saint. That was not true.

17:25

And No. I not in

17:27

his lifetime when if you polled Americans,

17:29

I don't twenty percent of white Americans

17:31

said they agreed with

17:33

Dr.

17:34

King, and so

17:35

when you look at the, you know,

17:38

the the Stephenson's monument

17:40

to these four thousand four hundred lynchings, and I'm sure

17:42

thousands more that are still

17:44

under the radar or also in Montgomery, the

17:46

mild and designed civil rights

17:48

memorial that has forty seven martyrs

17:50

on

17:50

it, you know, stretching from nineteen

17:52

fifty five, kind of the first voter registration

17:55

violence down

17:57

to the last

17:58

name is April fourth, nineteen sixty eight.

17:59

It's doctor King Shot in Memphis. You know, these are

18:02

the martyrs on the thing, but you you realize

18:04

that these

18:04

are names you don't know, even

18:06

though there's only

18:07

forty seven, and surely there were,

18:09

you know,

18:10

thousands of victims of violence at the

18:13

time. A lot of

18:13

these were names, I

18:15

didn't know. And

18:17

one of the most

18:20

interesting

18:20

ones to me as I was reading through this list

18:22

was a guy named Herbert Lee.

18:24

you

18:25

the know,

18:26

one of there's

18:27

interesting names on the civil rights memorial. You

18:29

know, most of them just kinda ground roots

18:32

organizers, some of them, you

18:34

know, some white people, not

18:36

just the the students you

18:38

expect, the intellectuals who drove down, but

18:40

but Just southern reason we had

18:43

their own quixotic campaigns for

18:46

equality whose neighbors hated them

18:48

or French, you know, overseas journalists

18:50

who got shot by a spare round

18:52

at James Meredith's protest or

18:54

something.

18:54

The one

18:56

in particular, the and presumably

18:59

Medgar Evers and Emmett Till. The big names.

19:01

But you realize how few are the big names you know?

19:03

Like, oh, yeah. Medgar Evers and Emmett Till, and

19:05

then you're, like, and

19:07

then those two other guy those freedom writer guys

19:09

with Till and -- Right. --

19:11

you know,

19:11

like, our our view of the civil rights movement

19:14

today is not

19:16

And when I say, hour, I

19:18

mean, you know,

19:19

I'm I'm

19:20

specifically speaking for me kind of a

19:22

middle aged white guy who's mainstream

19:25

American media generated

19:28

documentary film version of

19:30

history. And how it may be different that

19:32

would have felt life on the ground really

19:34

were living through this reign of

19:36

violence in

19:37

an apartheid state, and maybe, you know,

19:40

and this is naive of me to kind of have

19:42

an epiphany about this

19:43

because I'm sure many black

19:45

people in America feel like they're still living in that

19:47

kind of

19:48

war zone.

19:49

But

19:52

Herbert

19:52

Lee's case was interesting to me because,

19:54

first of all,

19:56

he was killed in broad daylight

19:58

by a Mississippi state

20:01

representative by, like, a member of a state

20:03

house. What? Right. Like, how

20:05

have we not heard how

20:07

have we not heard of this case? Mhmm. And

20:09

then second, Lee and the state

20:11

representative, won, E. H.

20:13

Hurst, were childhood

20:14

friends. My god. Who had

20:16

who had grown up together and played together

20:18

in the setting of our story,

20:20

Aimant County,

20:22

Mississippi. Now the, you

20:24

know, our our

20:25

kind of top level down, you

20:28

know,

20:29

national correspondent on the street, news

20:32

real view of the civil rights movement.

20:33

You know, privileges

20:36

a certain a certain view. You know, maybe the

20:38

ministers are very prominent and that was, you

20:40

know, the civil rights movement was a confluence of lots

20:42

of different interests. Certainly,

20:44

you had the

20:45

moral voice of the movement,

20:47

these

20:48

religious speech makers who from

20:50

their pulpits would invoke Jesus

20:52

and Gandhi and, you know, preached non violence.

20:54

And this was pre

20:57

Malcolm X and Nation

21:00

of Islam. Right. I mean,

21:02

radical. This is as this as the movement

21:04

begins in the nineteen fifties.

21:06

Right? But you also had, as we've mentioned on

21:08

the show before, the black servicemen, coming

21:10

home, sudden, you know, in Mississippi alone, ninety thousand

21:14

African American men come

21:16

home, expecting the kind

21:18

of autonomy they had in in the war and the

21:20

service and the, you know,

21:23

the stat the status of heroes that

21:25

they would deserve at home will need

21:27

to be sworely disappointed. And then you

21:29

had what you might call the middle class

21:31

interest, the NAACP, these well moneyed

21:33

organizations that were in the courts trying

21:35

to get the decisions to go their way.

21:37

And we're well funded by

21:40

Northern White Liberals as well as, you know,

21:42

middle class blacks all over the

21:44

country. I mean, fourth

21:45

group was the people who were actually there,

21:47

the ground level organizers.

21:49

Somebody had to

21:51

get a bunch of neighbors together and say,

21:53

look, this is scary, and I know the clan

21:55

meets half a mile that way on

21:57

Thursday night, but we're gonna

21:59

try to

21:59

register to vote in the fall or

22:01

who has a car, who can drive people to the

22:04

polls or just

22:06

the

22:06

local scary stuff

22:08

that had to happen. And was there a

22:11

secular organization

22:13

that were or were all

22:15

of these like ad hoc in the

22:18

community there's gonna be six

22:20

of us are gonna invent a way.

22:22

There were organizations. I mean, our story today

22:24

is gonna involve SNIC.

22:27

the Go on. SNCC,

22:29

the student non violent core

22:31

main committee, I believe.

22:34

I've never heard it called Snick before. I think it's,

22:36

you know, usually in the, you know, if they wheel in

22:38

the TV to show you the PBS documentary. I think

22:41

people I think the members at the time

22:43

called it. snick. And so this was

22:45

kind of top level a group that

22:47

would send down a

22:49

field secretary to a to a county and

22:51

say, you know, who are them eventual

22:53

local leaders. How can we help, you know, what do

22:55

you

22:55

need? And that

22:57

included Aemet County in

22:59

southwestern Mississippi. It's on the Louisiana

23:02

border in the kind of

23:03

the the the

23:04

the brim or the lip where Mississippi

23:07

overlaps. It's the Delta,

23:08

Eastern Louisiana. We're beginning to be. So the

23:11

Delta, that's Cotton Country.

23:13

although after

23:14

the depression, the dust bowl, bowl weevils,

23:17

and so forth, I think they're by the time our story

23:19

takes place, there's also a lot of logging

23:21

and

23:21

dairy farming going on

23:23

there. It was a majority black county

23:25

until the great migration of the

23:27

thirties started to hollow it

23:30

out. And even though I

23:32

didn't know the name, journalists who

23:34

covered it during the civil rights era

23:36

referred

23:36

to it as the ninth circle

23:39

of hell. it

23:39

was not an easy place to

23:42

be black if there, you know, was such a

23:44

place in Mississippi at the time. And in

23:46

particular, it was extremely

23:48

dangerous place to try

23:50

to organize

23:51

for your human

23:52

rights as a black person in the in the

23:54

nineteen fifties and sixties there is still

23:57

an extremely heavy

23:59

vibe in that part of the

24:01

country driving through their you

24:03

know, off the main road, you

24:05

just get a real heavy

24:07

duty vibe, sense of history?

24:09

Well, and consuming

24:11

attitudes? Yeah. It just feels like I

24:13

don't know. Like, you know, there are

24:15

places in America where you you

24:17

don't go up a unmarked

24:20

road. and it just feels It

24:22

just I don't know. There there

24:24

are little sections of the country that just feel

24:26

like, well, the vibe here sure changed. I

24:28

have a I have an Asian American friend who, you

24:30

know, just loves southern

24:32

food and was kind of following

24:34

the recommendations of the Internet's last time he

24:36

was in the south, all these kind of little off the

24:38

beaten path

24:39

where the crowd ads come up in the

24:41

time. Barbecue joints and

24:44

he was surprised at the

24:46

vibe how unwelcome he felt

24:48

in any town whose population

24:51

was under you know,

24:51

a certain line. Like,

24:54

does

24:54

the the old South kinda

24:55

came to life for him in a in a way

24:58

it had not before in the

25:00

form of feeling

25:01

of unwelcome in even minutes. Yeah. And I

25:03

and I felt it too. So, yeah, it's one of those

25:05

things where I could see he would say like,

25:07

whoa, Asians aren't welcome around here, but

25:10

I also down there, feel like

25:12

I'm sure it doesn't help

25:14

to not be white, but you're you're saying

25:16

any outsider might might get a a

25:19

little taste. I did feel that way. And we we

25:21

we talk about the great migration, but

25:23

to our overseas listeners, we

25:25

should explain that that, well, you Explain

25:27

what the great migration was. Oh, just it's true. If

25:29

we're talking to people a a thousand years hence,

25:31

there have been many migrations. This was

25:34

in particular

25:35

the you know,

25:36

many rural black

25:39

families from the south headed to

25:41

the what is the word another rest? Rust Belt cities

25:43

are the north. for these

25:45

new industrial jobs. Cleveland,

25:47

Detroit, Buffalo, building

25:49

cars and Chicago in

25:51

a big way. And I don't know what else were

25:53

they building besides cars? Car

25:56

parts parts for cars. Other

25:58

Oh, yeah. That's right. Other cars.

26:00

A lot of

26:00

cars had to be built.

26:02

It

26:02

was a post foreign economic. It was a style of

26:04

the time. And America found an

26:07

underclass. Well,

26:09

Move them around, I guess. On September

26:11

twenty

26:11

six, nineteen sixty one, the short

26:13

item appears in the McComb Enterprise

26:17

Journal. from

26:18

becomes the county scene, I think, of neighboring

26:21

Pike County. So just, you know, not far

26:23

from

26:24

the county County. that

26:25

basically says a negro man has been

26:27

shot in self defense while attacking

26:31

local first

26:31

citizen, E. H.

26:34

Hurst. a tiny

26:35

it was on

26:36

the front page of the paper apparently, but a very

26:38

small item. It's kind of a small paper. I

26:40

think a very small paper.

26:42

Although, you know, Its circulation at times

26:44

is probably the same as the Denver Post

26:47

or something today. I've

26:49

given everything that has happened. Not to say that

26:51

the paper itself was small, but that

26:53

it has The paper was a normal size -- Yeah. -- such that

26:55

you could read Dick Tracy -- Mhmm. --

26:57

in a legible size. But

27:00

but you know, from this little Squibb

27:02

item, you would have no sense. It just seemed

27:04

like some random bum

27:07

had attacked, you know,

27:10

well liked local potent

27:13

date? Not potent date, but then? Legislator.

27:16

Legislator. And had

27:18

been killed in the attempt, which was probably lucky

27:20

because that means our man,

27:22

representative Hirst, had gotten

27:25

off, okay. You

27:26

would get no sense of who Herbert Lee was,

27:28

the story who was not from the point of view

27:30

of the victim. He was

27:32

actually a successful local

27:35

farmer, you know, with a

27:37

prosperous farm married with nine

27:39

kids. He

27:42

was well known in the

27:44

African American community of

27:46

of Aimitt County where he lived

27:49

because cause he

27:52

was organizing for voting

27:54

rights at that time. Not

27:56

mentioned in the story. He was an activist. or

27:58

at least to a local Right.

27:59

I mean, yeah,

28:01

I guess,

28:02

you know, we would call him an activist. You

28:04

you know, the the activist in the story is maybe

28:06

Robert Moses, not Not that Robert Moses. Mhmm.

28:09

Different guy, field secretary for SNIC.

28:11

Very different approach to race in

28:13

America who had actually

28:15

been down in Eamon County the

28:17

week before. sent down from I

28:18

think he was I

28:19

think he was Harlem based, sent down

28:22

to to see what

28:22

the situation was there. And it brought with him

28:25

somebody from the

28:27

Let's

28:27

see. Kennedy Justice Department. Yeah. This is nineteen

28:29

sixty one, the Kennedy Justice Department.

28:31

Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department

28:33

newly interested in

28:35

voting rights in the south and protecting protecting

28:38

black

28:38

citizens from violence, although, you know, there

28:41

were still years to go.

28:42

and they had met with a local man who was

28:45

organizing a voter registration drive,

28:47

one EW step toe. And step toe had said I

28:49

think step toe had called them down here to say, there's gonna

28:52

be trouble. Nobody here likes

28:54

that we're trying to get black people

28:56

out to the polls. Here's a

28:59

list of people who Mike

29:01

might get killed. And Herbert

29:03

Lee was on that list.

29:05

Again, not mentioned in the paper

29:08

about how you know He was

29:09

targeted. Just seemingly some bum

29:12

had had gone after a

29:14

state representative. Paper

29:16

also

29:16

didn't mention that as I've said,

29:19

Herbert Lee had grown up

29:21

on a neighboring farm from

29:23

Eugene Hunter Hersse the future

29:26

representative, Hearst, they had played together as

29:28

boys. That's a close

29:29

relationship that had continued into adulthood

29:31

when Hearst actually had helped

29:33

Lee

29:34

secure

29:35

his farm, you know, the note to his

29:38

farm. But that

29:38

had all changed when

29:41

people started to talk about

29:43

how. Lee

29:44

was one of the local black farmers

29:46

who was starting to get, you

29:49

know, from

29:49

their view, uppity. He had started to

29:51

talk to these northern boys and

29:53

these fancy lawyers and hearst felt

29:56

like, why are you betraying our local

29:58

culture? Right. You

30:00

know, I I thought you were one of the good ones -- Yeah. -- by which

30:02

they would have meant the ones who don't

30:04

make trouble and like

30:06

things the way they

30:06

are. Yeah. Don't complain that all

30:09

their neighbors are the grand cyclops or the grand wizard

30:11

of the local chapter of the KKK.

30:15

What

30:15

and what had happened the day

30:17

before? and there's a

30:18

dozen witnesses to this killing that took place in broad

30:21

daylight, so there's some general

30:23

agreement on the facts.

30:25

Herbert Lee pulled up in

30:27

his truck. Now, Herbert Lee owned a car,

30:29

which made him extremely valuable

30:31

to the organizing movement

30:33

in

30:33

Aimitt County. He was a stubborn man who

30:35

wasn't gonna let you know,

30:37

the snears or the

30:38

the skeptical

30:40

looks of his white neighbors stop him from

30:42

doing what he thought was right. And he owned a car.

30:44

So he could drive people into town to try

30:46

to sign them up, to

30:47

register, and then later, to

30:50

vote. That's

30:50

a valuable asset, not a lot

30:52

of the

30:53

black farmers in the area owned their

30:55

own cars are truck. with me. I'm a stubborn man.

30:58

And you own a

30:58

truck? And I own a truck, and I and I won't let

31:00

my neighbors tell me what to do. So I can

31:03

relate I I think the resemblances

31:05

might end there because when because

31:07

you do vote. Yeah. But

31:10

nobody's threatening the lives of your family

31:12

when you No. That's true. We have mail in voting here in

31:14

Washington, which is great. They

31:15

did not in Mississippi -- Right. --

31:18

nineteen sixty four now.

31:20

Right? So he

31:22

pulls up to the West Brook Cotton

31:25

gin with

31:26

a truckload full

31:28

of bales of cotton to

31:30

yeah gin. Yeah.

31:31

whatever that means. He's got the rock cotton that has

31:34

been picked on his farm and the cotton

31:36

gin processes it and what picks out the seeds

31:38

and makes it something you can

31:40

sell. Just gins it up. My

31:42

vague memories of Eli Whitney from

31:44

APUS history. as

31:46

he gets there, a truck

31:49

pulls up behind him without,

31:51

I think, any the accounts vary

31:53

on this that I've read, but Most

31:55

of the accounts seem clear that this truck does not have any con and

31:57

yet here's representative,

31:59

rep

31:59

E. H. Hurst, a prosperous local farmer

32:02

pulling up right behind Lee.

32:04

The

32:04

suggestion may be that he knew where he was going

32:07

and has been following him

32:09

there,

32:09

boxed him in, walks up to the cab

32:11

of Lee's truck, and what

32:15

witnesses described as a

32:17

discussion soon turned

32:20

into an

32:20

argument. The

32:21

account that later comes out at the

32:24

inquest is that

32:26

Hearst wanted a

32:28

debt repay. But he said there were five hundred

32:30

dollars that Lee owed him

32:32

probably

32:32

related to the purchase

32:33

of the farm that had never

32:36

been repaid. and

32:36

Lee

32:38

truckulently refuses and says he's

32:40

never going to pay. And when Hearst

32:42

presses the issue, It

32:43

is Lee who becomes violent

32:46

and unpredictable. He

32:47

has a tire

32:50

iron

32:50

out

32:51

of his car. At some

32:53

point, he walks he gets out of the the cab of

32:55

his truck, walks around the front of his car to

32:57

hers on the other side,

33:00

and Hearst has walked over to this truck, a man

33:02

of peace, but he has a revolver in his waistband as

33:04

you do. State representative. He

33:06

says it's because of a recent conflict

33:08

with a neighbor. he's led

33:10

he has led him to carry a

33:12

revolver anywhere.

33:14

And the fact that

33:16

Lee Herbert Lee is subilligent

33:18

and now has a tire iron,

33:21

causes Hurst

33:23

to to put up his left hand to ward

33:25

off a blow from the tire iron at

33:27

the same time taking the revolver out of his pants

33:29

with his right hand, hitting Lee

33:31

on the head twice with it, The

33:33

second time he hits him with the revolver, it goes off

33:36

in his account,

33:37

killing Lee. He so he doesn't

33:39

even mean to pulled the

33:41

trigger on this guy, his childhood friend. He

33:43

was just using the gun as a He was offensive. Well,

33:45

clubbing clubbing him with it and somehow the gun

33:47

went off and and

33:49

a bullet entered herbertly through

33:51

the, I believe, left temple,

33:53

killing

33:55

him. He

33:57

falls out

33:58

on the streets

33:59

dead where he will lie for

34:02

hours for the most of the day

34:04

-- Mhmm. -- as his often

34:06

kind of a telling detail in stories of this

34:08

kind from the Jim Crow era,

34:10

the the body of

34:10

a black man just lying in the

34:13

street. Oh,

34:13

and some stories today actually know that I think

34:15

about it. There are, as I've

34:17

said, a dozen witnesses to this. There's

34:19

people from inside that Inside

34:21

the gym, there's people on the street. Three

34:23

guys were building a Shack across the way. It's

34:25

about a dozen people there.

34:27

Most are white. but a few are black.

34:30

A doctor,

34:30

somebody from the local coroner's office

34:33

shows up and declares

34:35

Lee dead on the scene,

34:37

and then the most powerful man in the

34:39

county, you know, who represents the county and

34:41

the state representative in the state legislature

34:43

is standing there with

34:45

the revolver that fired

34:47

the bullet that

34:48

killed the man in the street. So

34:51

a coroner's inquest is

34:53

held very hastily within a day.

34:55

I think it's maybe the next day.

34:57

An inquest

34:58

is held six six people, six

35:00

jurors are gathered. and local

35:01

witnesses witnesses towel

35:04

tell

35:04

what happens. And they

35:06

all tell the story involving a

35:09

dispute well, many of them tell the story that

35:11

we've just heard, the dispute over the

35:13

money, the

35:15

tire iron,

35:17

It

35:17

turns out that

35:19

I think in the twenty

35:20

first century around two thousand six, the the

35:22

Bush and then Obama era White House's

35:24

or the Department of Justice under the Bush

35:27

and Obama administrations started

35:29

a

35:29

an FBI kind of civil rights

35:32

cold case project,

35:34

where they would look at a lot of these

35:35

killings. And you'd think this would have been

35:38

national news, like a a

35:40

Mississippi

35:40

state senator, just

35:43

shoots a guy and broad daylight on the

35:45

street? Nope.

35:45

Tiny little paragraph in the paper because

35:47

the victim's black. So when the FBI finally

35:50

started looking into this, for the

35:51

second time in in around two

35:54

thousand two thousand ten, I

35:56

think. A

35:57

lot of the witnesses

35:59

who were

35:59

still around you know, and looking at the

36:02

transcript of the of

36:03

the corners in Quest,

36:04

it turns out that many

36:05

people did not

36:08

many people who testified that they did not

36:10

remember the tire iron

36:11

and when it finally came up, they had

36:13

to go back to the scene. This must have been later

36:15

the same day because they had to go

36:17

to the scene where the body's still on the street. And at that

36:19

point, a tire iron is indeed

36:22

discovered with the body.

36:24

After it's been mentioned, in the

36:27

inquest. The entire iron appears luckily. And is this all written down

36:29

in in the the the notes of

36:31

the inquest? Yes. There are records. And I went

36:33

through the two thousand ten

36:36

letter from the FBI's cold case project. The names

36:38

are all redacted with

36:39

the exception of one witness who will meet in a

36:41

moment. So it's a little hard to

36:43

follow who's who but you can

36:45

see all twelve people. What they said when they on the day, what

36:47

they said the

36:47

next day in the inquest, what they

36:50

said later,

36:52

because the stories

36:54

did change.

36:56

One of the black witnesses who

36:58

testified that this was the official story

37:00

had, in fact, happened that it was self defense.

37:03

was a man named Lewis Allen.

37:06

And

37:06

even though he told the whole story,

37:08

the argument over the money, the self defense

37:10

because of the tire iron, He

37:12

later told the he went

37:14

to Jackson and told an FBI office that

37:16

he had been pressured he had

37:18

been pressured on that

37:20

day to

37:21

tell the story that the other three

37:23

white witnesses had agreed to tell

37:25

because

37:26

it was gonna be trouble for

37:28

him if

37:28

he didn't. He told the FBI in

37:30

Jackson that he was willing to

37:32

offer new testimony against Hearst

37:36

who had gotten

37:37

away, Scott free, you know, the within, you

37:38

know, the jury the all white coronary

37:40

jury had immediately agreed that

37:44

this was self defense and therefore the story ends here and should

37:46

not block the name of a great man

37:48

like

37:49

Eugene Hunterhurst.

37:51

the

37:53

Alan

37:53

said, you know, if you

37:55

can

37:55

guarantee my safety, I'd

37:57

be

37:57

happy to testify to what actually

37:59

happened. You know,

38:00

they were not arguing over

38:03

money, there was no debt. Everybody in

38:05

the county knew that

38:07

Hurst had been friends with Lee

38:09

and had really turned on him

38:11

once, you know, the

38:13

African American population of Emma

38:15

Emma

38:16

County had started voting or started trying to register

38:18

to vote, organizing voter registration drives,

38:21

everybody knew

38:23

that Lee was

38:24

in trouble. And Lewis Allen had been one of the

38:26

had been in these meetings as well. You know, he'd been

38:28

sitting at all the same farm

38:30

houses talking about how to get more black names on the

38:32

voter registry.

38:34

And the FBI

38:36

said, yeah, we can't.

38:40

guarantee

38:40

your safety, you know, your

38:42

you should testify as

38:43

to the truth, but, you know, what

38:45

are we gonna do? and

38:47

Alan in fact

38:50

decided not

38:51

to testify because

38:53

make sense his life would not have

38:55

been worth a plug nickel. And

38:57

in fact, the but the ending of his story is actually particularly

38:59

sad because after a hearst was found not

39:01

guilty and he decided or, you know, there was there was

39:03

not even a trial. he

39:06

Alan decided not

39:07

to say anything. The word did get around

39:09

that he

39:09

had gone to Jackson that

39:12

he had.

39:13

you know, apparently

39:14

everybody knew what

39:16

had very likely happened and nobody cared.

39:18

Right. And everybody just wanted

39:21

the story to stay the

39:22

little the little single paragraph in the paper

39:24

that it had been. Well, they cared enough to

39:27

not want it

39:28

not wanted to be to be investigated?

39:30

Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. They knew as long as,

39:32

you know, what happens at Aimia County stays at Aimia

39:34

County, we're fine. You know, if if

39:37

Bobby Kennedy's goon started looking into

39:40

this, you know, well, that could be trouble.

39:42

Now, what's happening in the civil rights movement

39:44

at this time?

39:46

Other places. Well, nineteen sixty one is

39:48

I mean, this is

39:51

all a pretty new movement.

39:54

The

39:54

the the very first Woolworths sit

39:56

in in North Carolina was in early

39:58

nineteen sixty, so just a year

39:59

and a half ago.

40:01

if you think about

40:02

the things that happened to us a year

40:04

and a half ago, it just seems like a blink.

40:06

So this

40:06

was all happening very quickly.

40:08

this was like freedom riders. Yeah. The the first freedom riders came

40:10

down in nineteen sixty one, so

40:12

just a few months before

40:16

the

40:16

fur you

40:17

know, doctor King

40:20

is

40:20

is

40:22

joining sit ins and start,

40:24

you know, starting to

40:25

there's starting to be protests at

40:27

white's only businesses.

40:30

you know,

40:32

to tie this into things we already know Medgar Evers is,

40:34

I believe, one of the is

40:37

present at Herbert

40:38

Lee's

40:40

funeral I believe is one of his pallbearers. Oh, wow. Okay.

40:43

And is, you know, he

40:44

has a year and a half

40:47

left

40:47

to live. He was at the

40:48

time, again, one of these local Mississippi

40:51

black citizens who was, you

40:52

know, very involved in

40:55

registering registering

40:56

locals to vote. You know,

40:58

sixty two is the protests over James

41:01

Meredith the

41:02

supreme you know, the the first supreme court decisions are starting to come

41:04

down that, you know, the federal because

41:07

of interstate commerce, the

41:09

federal government has broad powers

41:11

to strike down segregation

41:16

laws. Mhmm. but

41:16

it's crazy how much of this happens

41:18

within a period of just a few years. I mean, from

41:20

that woolworths counter

41:23

to

41:26

to, you know,

41:26

letter from a Birmingham jail is

41:30

like two

41:30

years, less than the length of

41:33

the COVID pandemic

41:34

to us,

41:36

almost no time

41:38

at all. It was it was a

41:40

real it was

41:41

a real sudden

41:43

sea change.

41:45

And

41:47

in the

41:49

middle of it,

41:51

in Aimitt County, Mississippi,

41:54

A state

41:54

legislator got away with killing a

41:56

man in cold blood in

41:58

front of a

41:59

town full of witnesses in

42:02

broad daylight. pretty much high noon. And worked.

42:04

They pretty much

42:05

ended the voter registration

42:06

drive in

42:09

Eamonte

42:10

County. Whoa. Like, this is a tactic

42:12

that that local clan

42:14

groups

42:14

and and other wide interests

42:17

perpetrated because it worked.

42:19

they

42:20

could keep

42:21

the voting

42:22

registers all white

42:25

even

42:28

with Kennedy

42:28

in the White House and a Kennedy in the Justice Department. Right. As

42:30

long as they,

42:32

you know, showed at

42:33

the local grassroots level,

42:36

still had the power

42:38

through a reign of

42:39

violence and terror. And

42:41

Lewis

42:41

Allen, the man

42:44

who had who

42:44

knew what really

42:46

happened and

42:46

had thought about

42:49

telling the feds

42:51

the he

42:52

continued to be harassed.

42:54

He got so much trouble at

42:56

home that he was planning on

42:59

heading

42:59

north, and the day

43:01

that he had his truck packed

43:03

to go, he

43:04

was killed outside his house.

43:07

Oh, he is one of the he and Herbert Leer both

43:09

found on the on

43:11

the civil

43:13

rights memorial in

43:15

Montgomery

43:15

today,

43:18

Alan's

43:18

murder was never mentioned or was never

43:20

investigated until the nineteen

43:22

nineties. And in fact, so much

43:24

of what we're

43:25

discussing today, just like all these other grassroots act of violence in the

43:27

nineteen sixties South. A lot of this is just

43:29

stuff that was exhumed by

43:33

academics or or cold

43:35

case researchers during the

43:37

Mississippi Burning

43:38

era of Right.

43:41

Looking back. You're right. Right. And when, you

43:43

know, when Byron de la Beckwith was

43:45

actually found guilty

43:47

of of Evers'

43:49

murder and somebody involved in the

43:51

Tillkillings actually faced a trial, can't

43:54

remember.

43:54

But

43:55

at the

43:58

time, No

43:58

coverage at all, like a conspiracy of

43:59

silence kept any word of

44:02

this from spreading, you

44:03

know,

44:05

any more than ten

44:07

miles away from the cotton gin it happened.

44:09

The New

44:11

York Times

44:14

said God is dead, but they didn't say, let's look

44:16

into this at the time. Well, it's just

44:18

a really interesting contrast between what everybody else

44:20

in America was seeing all the on

44:23

the news. kind of seeing it in kind

44:25

of an abstract high level way. What

44:27

will the court decision

44:30

be you know, just regular American dads holding a

44:32

beer and stroking their chin and saying, well,

44:34

I don't know about this. Doctor

44:37

a king, you know, where the conversation would be, how much of an agitator

44:39

or a communist is is he? Or or

44:41

will you say, well, he means well or well,

44:44

of course, I'm first Civil Rights.

44:46

But, yeah, this was the go slow era.

44:48

Right? Like, let's not rock the

44:49

boat. Right? You

44:50

know, we're not ready for this. Like,

44:52

you know, we're gonna have cities burning.

44:54

if we actually go with what these people want, a

44:57

common critique

44:57

today. Right? Yeah. I mean, we're kind

45:00

of in the go slow era

45:02

today on on

45:03

many issues or even the go backwards

45:06

era. But like just the contrast between

45:08

that and what was happening on the ground were

45:10

literally dozens of people that even today, you

45:12

and I have never heard of.

45:14

We're

45:14

just getting killed in

45:15

cold blood and

45:17

therefore successfully killing

45:19

regional civil rights for

45:21

a generation. Right? You

45:23

know, that just must have been a very

45:25

different experience than how the

45:28

country was

45:28

seeing the Solar Rights movement.

45:31

all the the the there there must

45:33

have all of it must

45:35

have contributed to a kind

45:37

of tipping point. Right?

45:39

There within the within

45:41

the black movement and

45:44

and its white allies, there

45:46

had to there had to

45:48

have been

45:49

unawareness, a general awareness

45:51

that gradually turned into the

45:53

much more vocal and militant,

45:55

mid sixties, civil

45:57

rights movement. that started to step away from the

45:59

gondy gandhi like

46:02

like non

46:02

violence and move into

46:04

a more sort of active

46:06

fight. I assume

46:08

it was cases like the Herbert I mean, the thing

46:10

about the Herbert Lee case is it's insane

46:12

and we've never heard of

46:14

it.

46:14

Nobody's ever heard of it. I

46:16

mean, not nobody, but it's a footnote.

46:18

Whereas, you know, the brave thing

46:21

that Emmett Till's family did was make

46:23

sure that he was you know, late

46:25

to rest in an open, you know, he he was, what, an open casket at the

46:27

funeral of the services. Look what they did

46:29

to my boy. Right. I think a glass

46:31

I think a

46:34

glass popped coffin actually specifically made for that purpose

46:36

just so America could not look

46:38

away. And so finally, one of

46:42

these stories

46:42

of brutality bubbled up high enough that

46:44

it started to

46:45

change minds. Right? So

46:48

the only reason that you couldn't

46:49

look away. Right?

46:52

I

46:52

mean, it all seems so clear in hindsight that the that

46:54

not just the moral the factual truth,

46:56

but the moral truth was so

47:00

obvious. And then you look

47:00

at polling from the time and it to

47:02

those people,

47:03

it didn't seem obvious at

47:05

all. Yeah,

47:06

there was that There was

47:07

that the normalization

47:11

of of of

47:12

the the idea that

47:14

idea that if a

47:15

black person attacked a white

47:18

person,

47:19

there

47:20

it was not two

47:22

equal human beings in a dispute.

47:25

But -- Right. -- you know, even if

47:27

the dispute was

47:28

we're

47:30

was not clearly

47:33

even even

47:33

if if if there wasn't one person who

47:35

was clearly the

47:38

aggressor, that still the

47:38

black person was at a disadvantage and

47:41

that that's and we see it today too. But but

47:43

it's interesting

47:43

that he he made a

47:45

kind of Trump like defense.

47:47

I if I did shoot him, it

47:49

was in self defense. but

47:51

I didn't even shoot him. It was an

47:54

accident. Right. All

47:55

the all

47:56

the little hedges. Yeah. As part

47:58

of that cold case project that the

47:59

FBI had going in the

48:02

early 2000s,

48:05

somebody was assigned

48:07

the

48:07

murder of Herbert Lee and looked into the case.

48:09

And the, you

48:09

know, the the after after kind of going through

48:12

all the testimony and pointing out all the

48:14

contradictions and problems and kind of implying

48:16

what likely happened, the memo ends

48:18

by saying, this is not a

48:20

violation violation

48:22

specifically because the perpetrator

48:24

is dead.

48:25

EH Hertz had died in nineteen

48:28

ninety. So somebody was

48:29

just crossing all the Ts and dotting all

48:31

the i's here, but the result of

48:33

the memo is to say that

48:35

Well, we can't prosecute this

48:38

because the

48:39

man we would

48:40

prosecute has been dead for

48:42

almost

48:42

twenty years. Right.

48:44

but it's good that it's it's good that it's in the record, I guess, you know,

48:46

just as a pro form a, even if

48:48

it was

48:48

just a pro form a thing,

48:52

because

48:52

there's no statute of limitations

48:54

on murder except

48:56

if you die. Yes. That always

48:58

ends the statute of

49:00

limitations. West Book,

49:03

cotton gin is still there. It's

49:05

the last surviving

49:06

cotton gin cotton gin

49:08

in Amit County and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

49:10

Is there a memorial? I don't believe

49:12

so. I don't believe that its status on the National

49:14

Register of Historic Places has anything to

49:17

do with the Herbert Lee murder, which is it's just

49:20

the tragedy of the whole thing that this kind of

49:22

thing was so

49:24

commonplace that a state

49:26

representative shooting his childhood friend

49:28

over, you know, what

49:29

he saw as black

49:31

agitation

49:32

was such

49:33

a common thing that

49:35

Nobody battered an eyelash and

49:37

everybody stayed quiet for

49:39

fifty years. It's what

49:40

makes the sixteen nineteen projects

49:43

so so

49:44

so

49:45

crucial. Right?

49:47

The the

49:47

just the

49:49

introduction of the other side of

49:51

the story into the narrative, and it's so funny

49:54

that it's controversial.

49:56

You see

49:57

people get so

49:59

agitated when it's

50:00

just it's

50:02

just a

50:02

history project and it's

50:04

just a

50:04

history project that is filling

50:08

in a

50:08

lot of the gaps in the record and the missing

50:10

the missing

50:11

parts of the story

50:14

that we that we

50:16

now have archaeological

50:18

evidence for that that people

50:20

have done all this tremendous archival

50:24

research, piecing together

50:26

stories that are that

50:28

are necessarily hard to piece

50:30

together, but not

50:30

any harder to piece together than

50:32

the than

50:33

the Norman conquest.

50:35

Yeah. One of the many things we've lost in our time is

50:37

the sense that there would be some

50:39

proportionality between outrage

50:42

and

50:42

the subject of the outrage.

50:44

And

50:45

that's just not true anymore.

50:46

You know, the noncontroversial things

50:50

will register All

50:53

outrage

50:53

will be at eleven. And noncontroversial things will

50:54

receive that eleven level outrage

50:57

if the right

50:58

the right

50:59

talking heads tell

51:01

everyone to be outraged. It has no connection to the actual merits

51:03

of the argument or

51:06

or, you

51:06

know, as you

51:07

say, the

51:10

you know,

51:10

the morality of the the sensibility of the

51:12

issue at all. Yeah. Right. It's not it's

51:15

not necessarily political

51:16

in the sense of it having

51:19

a an ideology.

51:22

Yeah, it's not ideological. It's

51:24

it's just like here's here's

51:27

the here's this story. It turns out all

51:29

the things we thought were non political. Actually, are political. Yeah.

51:31

If your politics is

51:35

I

51:35

I want to troll the other guy.

51:37

Right. Or to to deny

51:40

history, right, which is

51:42

a weird stance. I thought this was, you know, omnibus

51:44

has not really dipped into the civil

51:46

rights movement for the obvious reason that

51:48

we're, I mean, maybe not

51:50

obvious,

51:50

maybe not obvious to where

51:52

but we're I don't know, maybe not

51:53

the right storytellers for the

51:56

era. But, like, this

51:57

seems so

51:58

perfect. Like

51:59

a like An amazing

52:02

story lost not by

52:04

coincidence, but by conspiracy.

52:06

Memory

52:06

hold for no

52:09

reason. It's a famous a

52:10

famous adage about the civil war

52:12

that it was brother against brother.

52:14

I I had a AP history

52:16

teacher in high school who

52:18

had long past

52:21

the point that he was

52:23

a effective educator and was

52:25

just an old an

52:26

old nut that had tenure.

52:28

And he used to say, it was

52:30

brother against brother. He would he I

52:32

don't know. We didn't study the Civil War

52:34

all year.

52:36

but he said it, like, fifty times in the course of a year. Did you always write

52:38

it down in your notes? Yeah. Until until until until

52:40

it became -- brother. -- his catchphrase,

52:44

but it's it's absolutely true. I mean,

52:46

even now, QAnon

52:48

is brother against brother.

52:51

And this incident

52:52

you're you're describing. In a way, brothers Yeah. It's running

52:55

about the small scale of it. You know, you think

52:57

about these cases of, you know,

53:00

faceless guys dragging people out of cars, on highways at

53:02

night, but they all lived, like, you

53:04

know, a mile and a half that way. Yeah. They

53:06

all knew each other knew each other their whole lives.

53:09

It was neighbor against neighbor, and

53:11

it was it was a reign

53:13

of terrorism.

53:17

And that concludes. the

53:19

murder of Herbert Lee. Entry 817

53:21

dot EX2307

53:24

Certificate number 34239

53:25

in

53:29

the

53:29

omnibus. Future

53:32

links in the unlikely

53:33

event that social media still exists

53:35

in your era. It

53:38

is garbage and get as far away from it as you

53:41

can. Unless you're

53:42

following Ken Jennings on

53:45

Twitter, although you've really putting

53:48

your best material there. Save

53:50

it for the show. There was a time when you

53:52

were, whoa,

53:54

firing both six shooters

53:57

every day. think that was just

53:58

more like a lower barrier to

53:59

entry. Yeah. Like, hey, I had a thought. I'll

54:02

just I'll just tell four

54:03

hundred thousand people

54:06

on I've only recently started to make

54:08

comments again, and

54:09

I and I shouldn't do it, but it's

54:12

all my Put your toe in the water.

54:14

Why not walking around. All my comments are on

54:16

are on sites that are talking about the war in

54:18

Ukraine where I'm like, well, that seemed

54:20

like a bad tech,

54:22

you know. bad strategy

54:24

for that tank commander. Oh. If only

54:26

they'd listen to you And then I then

54:28

I quickly moonwalk out of there.

54:30

But you can see my pathetic attempts to be friends

54:33

with everybody again at John Roderick

54:35

at kenginings at omnibus

54:38

project. You can email us

54:40

at the omnibus project at gmail dot

54:42

com. You can hang out

54:44

with other future links on Facebook Reddit

54:48

and Discord, and TikTok, and

54:51

twirk, and

54:52

squeak,

54:55

and Squam.

54:57

Where the futurelings are? Yeah.

55:00

Only fans probably. Only fans. Oh,

55:02

I should start on only futurelings

55:04

fans page.

55:06

Yep. How naked

55:06

do you think I could get before my

55:09

donations dropped off? Like there'd be

55:11

a certain amount of titillation people

55:14

putting money into my only fans as I was like, I took off my

55:16

scar, taken off your bucket hat, took off

55:18

my hat, took off my shoes,

55:21

but there'd come a moment where people were like,

55:23

that's enough. And I'm just wondering what

55:25

that means. Let's find out for science. What is

55:27

the Roderick Point? The

55:30

Roderick Point. everybody and

55:32

everyone has one. Sure. Sure.

55:34

I mean, there are some people who don't have one

55:36

that they get all the way naked and their

55:38

money just keeps going up. But for me, I

55:40

think there would be there'd be a

55:42

plateau. So the point, you know, that point starts it

55:44

off the chart and then kind of it moves

55:46

down as you

55:48

age. Yeah. Well, but I mean, you know, I've got a dad, but that's a popular

55:50

thing. I'm Silver Fox. Yeah. Keep

55:52

telling yourself. But still there'd be a

55:54

moment where it was like, nope. That's

55:56

too far.

55:58

Everyone

55:58

should know what that number is. Yeah. Yeah.

55:59

Yeah. You can mail us

56:01

things at PO Box 55744

56:04

Fairline, Washington 98155

56:08

and most

56:08

importantly, you can support

56:10

the show at patreon dot com slash

56:13

omnibus project, your generous support via

56:16

the Patreon

56:17

portal helps us keep

56:19

the show moving

56:19

right along.

56:22

Speaking of moving around along, if there are people out there who have

56:24

not donated to the Patreon hoping

56:26

that the show would come in shorter.

56:29

this

56:29

is your opportunity. This is under an

56:32

hour. Ken said today that

56:34

he was going to keep a timer going on

56:36

himself and he was gonna end this

56:38

show before It was an hour long and I said, doubt

56:40

it. I challenge you, sir,

56:42

and look at us. I'm gonna do it next

56:45

week too. It's new I don't believe this. I don't believe you can

56:47

keep me going. So if you have not

56:49

donated, sixteen is your normal

56:52

normal limit. If

56:54

you were if you have planned to join the Patreon, but have only been

56:56

held off by the

56:58

extensive ramblings.

57:01

about

57:01

the show that annoy you today is

57:03

your day. If you're here for the Ramblings, please

57:05

do not unsubscribe, however. Listeners

57:08

from our vantage point in your distant past, we

57:10

have no idea long this civilization

57:12

survived. We hope and pray that

57:14

the catastrophe with family never come. But

57:16

if the wars come soon, this recording like

57:18

all our recordings may be on a phone.

57:20

But if Providence allows hope to soon for

57:23

another entry, beyond this.