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178: Uncovering Black Figures from History
51 Plays2 months ago
Join us as we discover and uncover some lesser featured notable African Americans for Black History Month! So many people have fought so hard for their rights in history, we love learning about the ones we never learned much of in school.
Kelsey tells us the life and legacy of Marsha P. Johnson, an activist, drag queen, and American sweetheart that took New York by storm. She is remembered for her work in gay rights, as well as advocating for trans rights and AIDS activism. Truly a treasure that did so much for her community, and was taken from us too soon.
Following that, we dive into some African American inventors (one called himself the Black Thomas Edison), and one very impactful agricultural engineer. That's right, maybe you know about George Washington Carver and his many, many peanut products that helped revamp the soil of the South, or Garret Morgan inventor of two life-saving devices and improvements. Finally, we cannot forget Marie Von Britton Brown, co-inventor of the first security system, which became the basis for many of the systems we use today. Think two-way communication, and peephole cameras, but in the sixties! Plus mentions of "milk leg", the importance of crop rotation, and so much weird food! Have a snack handy and tuck into Black History Month with C&C!
Darkcast Promo of the Week: Autumn's Oddities
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Transcript
Introduction and Humor from the Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
Darkcast Network. Indie pods with a dark side.
00:00:26
Speaker
You are listening to Castles and Cryptids, where the castles are haunted and the cryptids are cryptic as far. And I'm your host, Alanna. And I'm Kelsey. And I was like, did something happen? That awkward pause. You looked at your door and I was like, ah did her door actually open when the creepy, creaky door played in our intro?
00:00:48
Speaker
No, but it it was still ajar. And then... I think Pat changed the TV to different, like the hockey game or something. Cause it just got like loud enough that I thought, can she hear that?
00:01:02
Speaker
Or did the mic pick that up? No, we didn't hear anything. Okay, good. I just saw you look over and go like, is she being, is there an intruder?
00:01:13
Speaker
What's she looking at right now? Oh my god, yeah, sometimes the door's like moving, I'm like, oh, that's my dog sitting his big rump up against his butt.
00:01:25
Speaker
Oh my god. it's No, I can't even blame him. It's just me for leaving the door like just open the tiniest bit um anyway i'll leave it all in awkward pause like everything yeah if we have the video if only we had the video i'd post that too oh my god i can't uh record the video because it already takes up everything takes up so much space on my freaking computer but yeah um
00:01:57
Speaker
Yeah, we're I'm always
Personal Anecdotes and Seasonal Discussions
00:01:58
Speaker
awkward. If you're new here just be aware of that.
00:02:04
Speaker
so I'm not much better, so
00:02:08
Speaker
ah i'd like I don't mind. It's like, and that's why we drink. They've been doing it for years, and then they're still like, Wait, there's a leg.
00:02:19
Speaker
Please stand by. Shit happens. Yeah. and And like animals and animal interruptus always occurs also.
00:02:31
Speaker
but just I've been trying to get Gordo to settle off screen.
00:02:39
Speaker
If you're new here, that's her cat. Yeah. theyre Like, oh, baby Gordo.
00:02:46
Speaker
He is our baby and he's very sweet, but he's also annoying. Uh, is
00:02:55
Speaker
was As I was trying to get, but you know, bring everything in here to start recording, he was trying to attack my feet ah and trip me while I walked with my laptop and oh ah hot a hot mug of tea that I could have thrown at him.
00:03:10
Speaker
oh no. you know definitely would have flown everywhere. ah I was like, why are you trying to play with my feet right now as I'm walking with all these things and I can't see you, but I can feel you like wrapping your little arms around my leg.
00:03:26
Speaker
Yes. Sometimes I will call Finn, Finn Underfoot. Like Aria Underfoot. Because as soon as you come home, that's when I get to see what you're doing. and get up to you but you reminded me of when I took him for a walk today i forgot how my shoes were trying to trip me with their laces because oh damn it's they're like these winter shoes think my mom sent them to me which thanks mom they're like they're really good come like comfy cozy winter shoes with like a nice fuzzy lining but they also have um
00:04:01
Speaker
Kind of those hooks like you get when you yeah like lace up like an ice skate or whatever, and you start to put it through those hooky thingies. And it has a couple like hooks going up the top of the shoe or whatever. But my one shoelace came loose, and then so it was like...
00:04:18
Speaker
really loose and it was like in this big loose loop and it was it kept it hooked like twice onto my other shoe like it was my left shoelace that was loose and it like hooked onto my right shoe hook yeah and I like almost face planted I was like fuck I gotta fix my shoe dog hang on it's already freezing out and now I'm like dripping it's great trying not to face plant and knock yourself unconscious on the sidewalk Yeah, like let go of the dog, which, oh my god, I think Pat slipped on the ice once and I don't know how he kept hold of the dog because he's a bit of a runner that one. Oh, yeah, he would drag you by a car. but
00:05:02
Speaker
And off we go. Oh, man. Yeah, like when we first start going and he wants to like go at a fast pace and I have to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, don't slide me along this icy patch or this slippery snow here, please and thank you.
00:05:15
Speaker
Damn. Yeah, it's bloody, bloody cold here still, so nothing's changed, but I don't know.
00:05:27
Speaker
It was Valentine's Day and it's a long weekend, and by the time you're hearing this, maybe it'll be warmer in Edmonton, i hope, ah by Friday. Yeah, i hope so too. I'm tired of this ah minus 20 feeling like minus almost 30.
00:05:43
Speaker
Polar vortex bullshit. It's been a couple weeks. We thought it was over a couple times already. I know. I was listening to Wine and Crime from like late January and they were like, it's freakishly warm here. And I was like, just you wait. It was warm here too in January. like It was mild.
00:06:01
Speaker
yeah Yeah. My birthday, it was like, I don't know. Like minus 10. We were just like, woo! Oh, yeah. That's, yeah. Oh, when we went out for it that Yeah. Oh, because I thought your actual birthday was pretty cold. I can't remember now.
00:06:18
Speaker
I think so. But it's been up and down. oh Yeah, no, that day wasn't bad.
00:06:25
Speaker
Anywho, so spring is coming. The days are getting brighter. We're holding on. Yep. Yeah, when I leave for work, it's much light lighter out, which is always good.
Quebec Traditions and Pop Culture Interests
00:06:39
Speaker
Right. I'm not driving home in the pitch dark when I get off work at like 530. Yeah.
00:06:46
Speaker
What's up with that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I definitely was talking about your tail. Yeah. This book I read where they're in Quebec and they're like in the dead of winter, what they say to each other, i guess sometimes instead of like the sun is coming back is it is turning saying like that the world.
00:07:07
Speaker
What is it? We turn to face the sun. Whatever it is, like the days are getting longer. It's like reassuring each other like that the seasonal depression is going to end soon. and like, man, Quebec has some interesting um like traditions.
00:07:22
Speaker
The winter is not coming, but leaving. The winter is leaving. Yes, it's the opposite. of It's like spring is coming. Yeah, it is turning. I found that quite quaint.
00:07:37
Speaker
Anywho, so did you watch anything good this week or haven't had time because you've been workwork work, work, working?
00:07:47
Speaker
watched a couple movies.
00:07:53
Speaker
That's Gordon's Tale. Did ask you what you were watching last time we went to record? You had to finish something. I guess that was all a whole week ago. God. What have been...
00:08:04
Speaker
god but even I was watching something. was it? don't even remember. I didn't even ask you. Yeah. I was just like, okay, cool.
00:08:17
Speaker
We'll record like in the afternoon or whatever. And I was like, moving on.
00:08:23
Speaker
Yeah, I know it was a movie. um Because I watched like ah The Wrath of Becky. That like so sequel to Becky. you guys ever watch that one?
00:08:36
Speaker
I think so. I think the first one, she's like 14 or something. And these home intruders break into her house and they think and stuff. And she like fights them off because she's kind of crazy.
00:08:49
Speaker
yeah. oh sounds like a podcast i listened to today yeah it was uh made its way onto netflix so in the last few weeks i think so i watched that okay it's pretty fun and then nice i've been watching severance i like severance tv show okay i could get into that i worry you have to watch it on good It's on Apple TV, but I've been downloading it. Okay. Yeah, it's so, so good.
00:09:27
Speaker
ah It's part of that one. Once you get into it, like take the first couple episodes and start getting into like the mystery of like what's happening and just ah following all the little details. It's really well done.
00:09:44
Speaker
see that. Stiller's one of the directors and... I think he's an executive producer and stuff on it. I know he's one of the directors because his name shows up at the end of quite a few of the episodes. you're like Oh, who is it? Sorry.
00:09:58
Speaker
Ben Stiller. Okay. Nice. Yeah. And Adam Scott's a main character. Yeah. was going to say he's the one in that, isn't he? Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:09
Speaker
He comes on the How Did This Get Made podcast for all the Fast and the Furious movies, which is funny. Yeah. yeah Yeah, that one seems like it would be fun to play with those storylines because it's like almost like each person is their own unreliable narrator if they are not the same person at work and home.
00:10:30
Speaker
It's that one, right? but they don't Yeah, they don't know each other outside of work and then inside work. They don't know who they are outside of work. ah so they hard to write but like neither neither version of themselves actually knows what they do for their job which is interesting ah cuts out that question on date night what do you do for work no idea yeah it's a stupid question anyway right it's like oh who cares
00:11:02
Speaker
um yeah it's I don't know it's really really good a nice can't wait to see the the guy that created it Dan Dan Dan Erickson think his name is uh I'll be excited to see because I think this might be one of his first shows he's done I'd be excited to see like what kind of other ideas he has once this kind of plays out and yeah finishes off I'll be like, okay, what else do you have? Because like this is so well thought out and he's been playing around with it for like decades.
00:11:38
Speaker
ah yeah It's pretty cool. yeah Yeah, they can really film some of that stuff really well nowadays. I don't think need a lot of CGI, but just like how far we've come with storytelling and mini-serieses and Different things. Yeah, you get all these great actors on TV shows and stuff. It's pretty cool.
00:12:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, what about you guys? Tonight, we we can watch that Dark Match movie, which I tagged you in on Instagram. and then yeah I found out it was like filmed here and with Chris Jericho, the wrestler and stuff. so Well, there's a few good people in it. Yeah.
00:12:23
Speaker
of the other guys, he's at, what, Stephen Ogg, I think is his name. He was on The Walking Dead. Big mustachioed man. um I thought he was Pornstache from Orange is the New Black, but I just don't know. My mustache man, I guess.
00:12:37
Speaker
ah No, it's a different guy, but... Okay, I remember Pornstache. Yeah.
00:12:46
Speaker
So, no, it looks pretty good, and, like, I don't know what else. We started... it was like a mini series with the guy who plays Jamie from Outlander. It's called the couple next door.
00:12:58
Speaker
um Pat's kind of lost interest, but I'm like, I want to know what happens. I mean, it was kind of like, there was a lot kind of like stuff about like sort of adulterous couples and stuff, as you can imagine with a title like that. yeah So it's a bit like some of those parts are a bit boring, but I'm like, I still need to find out what happened with the perv that's been watching everybody through the telescope. And like, there's all these little subplots and like,
00:13:22
Speaker
you know, clues that they give you what's going to happen going forward that you're like, well, how do we get to that point? And so I still have to finish that. And yeah, don't know.
Marsha P. Johnson: Activism and Legacy
00:13:33
Speaker
I'm watching Grace and Frankie. I'm like almost done that.
00:13:38
Speaker
It has such a nice ending. And when it ended, i was like, oh, I was just, I was sad. It seems like such a good show. And then she'll be like plugging it on old episodes of how did this get made? Like the,
00:13:52
Speaker
yeah The girl who plays Brianna is in that. Yeah. I think they're doing a spinoff with her. I heard Brianna's character. That'd cool. Her character was so funny.
00:14:03
Speaker
She had like no filter. She just said whatever she wanted all the time. Right. Yeah. Very different from like June's actual persona where she's like, she has two kids, not like the younger sister. Anyway, I'm sorry. I'm getting off into the weeds.
00:14:20
Speaker
Yeah. um we like tv and also ah read a fuck ton of books and i need to bring my library books back and finish reading i just got to the last one i have but it's this giant book by that lady who wrote the shadow hunter books cassandra clare it's like a fantasy oh damn yeah it's a different fantasy world book that i just found at the library so i'm gonna read that and Yeah, don't know, man.
00:14:51
Speaker
That's about all i got. Nice. I guess we should crack into it. Yeah. For the people who are waiting with their bated breath or have maybe skipped forward and turned off the episode. they ah They either read the episode title or the description.
00:15:10
Speaker
oh no And I just mean they're waiting now for the stories. Like, they're just, like, yeah on the edge of their seat. Like, what's Kelsey to talk about? hope so.
00:15:19
Speaker
I have no idea. You just told me the name of the person you're to talk about, and I don't think they came up in my, like, Googlings at Yeah. I definitely knew of this person before, knew some of the stuff they had been involved in.
00:15:35
Speaker
ah Yeah, so i was like, oh, maybe Alana will know oh well'll know this person. I'm excited if you didn't.
00:15:46
Speaker
I thought you were going to be like, oh, okay, cool. No, I really don't think so. We talked about how like I might talk about a few inventors, but like I don't know. i was like na So many prominent like Black people in history, like notable yes figures that have changed the world. and like Probably they don't get talked about in schools as much as they should. Like, certainly they don't don't seem to in our school system. Yeah.
00:16:17
Speaker
don't know. Yeah. ah The person I picked, they've definitely said, like, um was kind of left out of, like, history for quite a while and is now more recently in the last couple decades.
00:16:32
Speaker
Kind of been like, no, like, we need to talk about history. the impact that this person had on like programs and rights and all that kind of stuff so think that is definitely a symptom picked up up not being a white man yeah there's like your stories don't get told as much it's like the women throughout history or any other minority like it's It's like, oh, you died? oh we're we'll finally acknowledge you did something like 50 years after your death. Right.
00:17:02
Speaker
Totally common theme, unfortunately. Anyway, so it's nice to know if your podcasters talk about things that we haven't heard about. it's It's really our own taking back of the oral history of what we think is cool and important in history. So I like that, being able to these stories.
00:17:21
Speaker
Yeah. And yeah, I really enjoyed like just looking stuff up, not even necessarily about the person I ended up choosing, but just reading like all the inventions and like scientists and ah politicians and people that made history in different ways.
00:17:40
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I thought that was really cool. was like, oh, this is like nice because sometimes you can get really stuck in the like the feels like the world is in a bit of like a backslide like two steps back oh yeah so i think it's always nice to kind of focus on stuff that's still happening and did happen and you know what even in the tough times people people persevered and uh positive things still happened because people cared yeah like to look at the history just a bit like
00:18:15
Speaker
through the lens of, of course, hindsight's 20-20 and history, those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, but also to look at yes the positive side of it and the things that we don't focus on as much as we frickin' should.
00:18:30
Speaker
Yeah. Definitely the people who didn't get their due, that's for sure. Okay, I'm excited because I have a ah couple of people like that too. Okay, cool. Well, ah I picked Marsha P. Johnson.
00:18:43
Speaker
who was really fun. I would have loved... I didn't really run across any video interviews. ah I'm sure they probably are out there because she got interviewed a few times.
00:18:58
Speaker
I guess I could have tried to find one. Maybe I will when i when we go to do the post for the website. I'll try and find an interview. Okay, cool. So she was alive when videos were around.
00:19:11
Speaker
Yeah, not too long ago. So Marsha P. Johnson was a black trans woman, later a a drag queen, and an important LGBTQ rights activist in New York City, ah primarily between the 1960s and 1970s. You might recognize her. She ah very famously was most of the time wearing a flower crown.
00:19:41
Speaker
Oh, really? lot of the pictures, ah she's wearing beautiful like flowers or fruit. She had like fruit hats that she would wear as well. um my god, like the Chiquita Banana Lady.
00:19:52
Speaker
so sorry. Yeah, I feel like if people saw pictures of her, they they might like have been passing seeing picture on something if they didn't know necessarily who it was. Okay, cool.
00:20:04
Speaker
Oh, that's really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of those types of activists don't get their proper day in the sun. Right? Yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker
Gordo, you need to settle your shit down. He's excited. like, I want hear about this. He is. He keeps rolling on his back and spreading his legs. He's flashing me.
00:20:30
Speaker
What are you doing? He's all over the place. I was going to say he's honoring the topic. I don't know.
00:20:41
Speaker
He's a wiggle worm. What are you doing? He's just like, ah!
00:20:47
Speaker
drag queen you say i can do sexy oh my god i can put my i can put my head leg behind my head oh my gosh i still want to go see there's that drag queen that performs locally here that was on the canadian traders that if we get a chance to go i'll have to look oh really like go see him perform somewhere yeah hey he followed me back on instagram we're like besties
00:21:16
Speaker
Also, bunch of people randomly followed me on GoodPods this week, it seems like. So then I was like, oh, had to get back on GoodPods and listening to things. I know. I haven't even been really been on there a lot, so i was kind of surprised. So thank you if you are here, i guess, and also followed me on GoodPods.
00:21:35
Speaker
ah Okay, so... We're trying. I know. good he I'm trying to get him to leave. Marsha was born originally under the name Malcolm Michaels Jr. on in Elizabeth, Jersey.
00:21:52
Speaker
august twenty fourth nineteen forty s five in elizabeth new jersey and oh jersey girl yeah the fifth of seven children so quite a big family wow didn't really see anything talking about siblings um yeah anything like that which was kind of unfortunate i'd like to know like how they feel like her legacy has kind of evolved Oh, yeah. And stuff.
00:22:24
Speaker
um Didn't really run across that. ah Their father was Malcolm Michael Sr., a General Motors factory worker. And he went their mother... Sorry.
00:22:36
Speaker
so Their mother was Alberta Clileborn. And she was a housekeeper. so Alberta.
00:22:49
Speaker
Like the lady on ghosts. Yeah. it's not a very common name. So when it comes up, we're like, that's where we live. Right. It probably comes from some royal name, Alberta, or from Prince Albert, because holy fuck, Queen Victoria was so in love with her husband, Prince Albert. She like mourned him for like 40 years.
00:23:09
Speaker
I will wear black until I die. It's a very cool color. We're with you. Right. I mean, we have a city called Regina, which I think is also in reference to the queen.
00:23:23
Speaker
So who knows?
00:23:26
Speaker
ah The Michaels family was described as very religious and attended church quite regularly. And Marsha herself continued to be a practicing Christian for the rest of her life.
00:23:40
Speaker
um like from upbringing and everything yeah um marcia from a young age about the age of five had begun dressing in clothing it was like more typical for girls like dresses and that kind of things okay um keeping in mind this is like what at this time it would be 1950 so yeah yeah so yeah
00:24:04
Speaker
Right smack dab in the middle where they don't dress the kids in any Victorian nightgowns anymore. And they're like, boys should dress like this. Yeah. Yeah.
00:24:15
Speaker
Her parents didn't support her decision to dress like a girl and kids often would bully her. um And Marsha stopped dressing as a girl after i don't know exactly when this happened but she was sexually assaulted by a 13 year old boy at some point. Oh no.
00:24:37
Speaker
Like either either as a teenager or a preteen I'm not exactly sure. and be Yeah, that caused her to stop. Oh, okay.
00:24:48
Speaker
Because it maybe happened while, like, he was dressed as a girl, or... I think so. There wasn't ever any details. I don't think she really talked about it much, like publicly.
00:25:01
Speaker
Yeah. But she ended up graduating high school and Marsha moved to New York City in 1963. She was just 17 years old and all she had with her was one bag of clothes and $15. Oh, one of those. Just like got out of town.
00:25:21
Speaker
i Yeah, starting from the ground up stories, yeah. ah Once living in New York, Marsha really was able to i embrace her identity.
00:25:32
Speaker
She started dressing more in women's clothing again, um which she hadn't been comfortable with for a while, and ended up settling in Greenwich Village.
00:25:46
Speaker
Oh, Greenwich Village, yes. Yeah. Yeah, is that what it is? Greenwich? think so, yeah. it's like a green witch it's like are we in Agatha all alone meet a green witch I know it's all the like so many places ah along the east coast too like we were just talking about Canada uses a bunch of names that are like so from the British like Queen Street King Street like Granite I'm sure is a place in the UK I hate that I want everything to be numbers make it easier make everything numbers
00:26:23
Speaker
I know that is kind of nice about our city where you can kind of like every street. half numbers, but then half not. We live where the streets have no name.
00:26:35
Speaker
You two was right. yeah
00:26:39
Speaker
That's funny. ah During this time, she was earning some money working as a waiter, her primary source of income ended up coming from sex work.
00:26:51
Speaker
okay and yeah get it girl yeah um unfortunately as i think is pretty typical she often faced abusive clients uh and then because of the time in like the 1960s uh was arrested dozens of times uh And then on multiple occasions ah had like guns pulled on her and stuff by clients.
00:27:20
Speaker
And apparently once she was even shot. I don't have any more details about that. It was only mentioned a couple times. Just a casual in passing.
00:27:31
Speaker
She got shot. Yeah, after the first one, I was like, because I only saw one somewhere, and then i ended up researching another batch of articles and stuff I could find.
00:27:43
Speaker
And then I saw it mentioned like two more times. And I was like, okay, well, I was like, that's three sources that have said she was shot. Yeah. yeah Annoying when they don't give more information.
00:27:56
Speaker
Yeah, because like most of what I found, what do I have, was biography.com. Oh, yes. women They came in handy for me. Yeah, I had women's history, newyorkhistory.org, and then like Legacy Project Chicago.
00:28:15
Speaker
um So they were all like, I was like, okay, like pretty good sources. Yeah, those all sound like websites I could really dig into. Yeah.
00:28:27
Speaker
um Yeah, so because of this, like Marsha wasn't able to afford a permanent place to live during this time and would have been described as homeless.
00:28:38
Speaker
ah She often was able to bounce around between friends' houses and sleep there ah she would also sleep in hotels uh restaurants and movie theaters as well oh i never thought about grabbing a nap in a movie theater once slept in atm vestibule
00:29:03
Speaker
It's a lie. Anyway, we've come a long way, baby. Yeah. Sorry, mean I I've heard about the movie theater again thing before, but I had never thought of sleeping in a restaurant.
00:29:16
Speaker
ah Yeah, how does that work? I'm not sure. like laid down on one of those bench seats some in the the booths and just made yourself invisible? Yeah. Or they hide. Maybe if you have...
00:29:30
Speaker
oh the toilet. Probably. or if you have a friend that works there. I don't know. But it said that she was really happy in New York.
00:29:43
Speaker
um She tried like a few different names and everything before she legally settled and ended up changing her name to Marsha P. Johnson. And that was in 1966. So three years after she moved to New York.
00:29:59
Speaker
Is that your phone? Yeah. I was like, why is this but but
00:30:06
Speaker
That's funny. I know. Mine is constantly going off being like, snow is expected to stop soon. her Temperatures will be lower tomorrow. I'm like, shut up. and don't care. Thanks for the minuteto minute to minute weather reports.
00:30:20
Speaker
totally i'll think i have a text message because it'll do the same notification noise and i'm like this is not as important gotta turn off those notifications that's annoying yeah there's gotta be a way yeah um so it said that the our last name johnson came from the restaurant chain howard johnson I feel like I recognize that name, but I don't know anything about it. What kind of restaurant was it? Were they fancy?
00:30:53
Speaker
Not really. i remember my mom worked at one that was like part of a hotel, like in a hotel, I think. Kind of like when I moved here, I worked at a restaurant hotel. And all I remember, honestly, i don't remember the restaurant. I remember the hotel had a swimming pool that...
00:31:10
Speaker
I think she snuck us into once or twice. ah that' Speaking of sleeping at restaurants. Yes. It had like, you know, the rooms were all kind of around in like a courtyard sort of around like, what do you call An atrium where it's like what the first floor is open going up to the rest of the floors. And there's like balconies all around. It was like that. And I had a little cool swimming pool ah near the restaurant. And I have fond memories of the Hojo's there.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah. Cool. Well, that's where she got her last name. ah That's funny. and Wait, she just picked it? Yeah. um I mean, she got to pick her whole name. I kind of like that. I like I'm all for people going by their middle names or changing your name. I think there's something special about getting to pick your name.
00:32:00
Speaker
And it's interesting because you know, i when I get to see stuff like that is when I do help out with um the healthcare, care the Alberta healthcare applications um at my work, because I know how to do that. But most of the time, it's not my main job.
00:32:13
Speaker
But then I'll like see what everyone's naming their like new baby, or I'll see that someone's doing like a gender change, and then they'll be doing a name change update at the same time. So I get to see you like what their old name was and what they pick for their new name. It's really interesting. i really like it.
00:32:27
Speaker
Yeah. anyway yeah uh and as I mentioned so she was like became known for her head turning fashion ah particularly outlandish hats flower crown crowns flower crowns that were like fresh flowers that she would pick and like weave into like these cute crowns uh and um like a mayday crown yeah Yeah, exactly.
00:32:57
Speaker
and glamorous costume jewelry. Gordo, ah godo you can't be meowing and trying to find out where I am. You literally left the room that I'm in.
00:33:09
Speaker
I'm like, where are you? I lost you. I can't find you. Where are you? I'm definitely picturing like Bob the drag queen from this season of the traitors.
00:33:20
Speaker
It's, it's giving so many elaborate outfit vibes and I love it. yeah Yeah. But make it fifties or I guess sixties. Yeah. Damn.
00:33:32
Speaker
Damn. They had one like episode last week, the challenge, they got everyone dressed up in like these red and black, mostly like outfits, but they're all like real fancy and they're like, they all to team up in a couple and they're going to get married. But then the challenge was that they have to hold hands in this box where they like drop scorpions and stuff on their hands. ah And have to like hold hands for like eight minutes.
00:33:56
Speaker
But everyone looks so good. Oh my God. The veils and everything were just like, oh, And Alan Cumming was like the host there. He's like so gay and so awesome. And he's like wearing this white suit with this big like red flowery applique thing up the front. And like he was wearing a veil and he was just so extra.
00:34:19
Speaker
I love him so much. Yeah, he would own he would literally be the only reason I would ever watch that show. Yeah, it's worth it. Just fast forward to the stuff you don't like. it would be everything other than when he's on screen like i hate reality tv show like burning passion i hate it is yeah don't know i you know i'm particular about mine they have to be like for me they have to be certain kinds where they're just not all drama so it's it's really good it's kind of a mix of yeah anyway yeah
00:34:55
Speaker
ah Moving on. So, yeah, Marsha was described as fearless and bold. And when people pride her about like her gender or questions about her lifestyle, ah she started kind of like repeating this thing so she would tell them that her middle initial the p and marsha p johnson stood for pay it no mind and it became like her motto anytime somebody asked her like who are you like a man or a woman or would ask her or whatever she'd be like pay it no mind like none of your business like yeah what do you care which i like
00:35:34
Speaker
Yeah, right? Especially if people are doing it to be rude, not because they actually on are interested to learn. Right, which to be fair is almost always, unless it's a little kid, like literally being like, are you a boy or a girl? Because like, yeah, I was listening to a podcast, The Handsome Pod, and they're like, most of them are gay girls, comedians, but then they, like their little kid was like,
00:36:01
Speaker
looked up at their mom in bed and was like, are you a boy or a girl? to The comedian, her name is Tig Notaro. And she goes, well, what do you think? To her son, who's like seven or something. and He was like, I think you're a boy. She's like, no, I'm a girl.
00:36:15
Speaker
Okay, but you look like a boy. And she's like, yeah, you're probably right. yeah right you can't argue with that log ah logic no it's just nice how it just like doesn't matter as much nowadays like people people are so much more accepting even though we do still see a lot of stuff about how people aren't but i think you know that's there's a lot more to be said for like how far we've come than the few people who still you know think archaically or whatever right trying to drag us back to the stone age
00:36:49
Speaker
yeah but even in the stone age like trans and gay people existed so like what it what's your fucking argument that what you didn't have to acknowledge that they existed that's what you somehow miss about society that you got to pretend no there's really no argument they still existed like yeah people but certain types of people don't exist yeah like it's insane yeah Yeah, I would like to pretend that assholes don't exist, but I can't because they're everywhere.
00:37:19
Speaker
And the shit that comes out of them? No. Exactly. It comes out of their mind. Oh, anyway. I can't remember what it was. It was like, there are dicks and there are pussies in the world and there are assholes. And it was like this whole joke thing about some of us shit all over the place and other ones... don't know.
00:37:42
Speaker
Gordo! Gordo! Knock it off.
00:37:46
Speaker
Gordo is Bordo. He's trying to scratch the blinds and like break them. Oh. Yeah. Just like can't stand when he's not the center of attention.
00:37:59
Speaker
That's my dog. Yeah. um yeah so apparently this like motto of saying pay it no mind she even reportedly once said it to a judge who like must have asked for something she didn't like none of your business I was like damn I like that they're like gavel gavel contempt of court yeah yeah she found strength in being forthright with people ah and kind of used this like
00:38:32
Speaker
i don't know like strength that she had to speak up for others that uh were having problems or anything like that yeah sounds like she kind of like lay lived by example too just someone to look also icon um and obviously like today historians and former friends of marcia describe her as a trans woman but during marcia's lifetime the term transgender wasn't commonly used uh so marcia herself uh is quoted as she described herself as a gay person transvestite and a drag queen and that she used she her pronouns so okay yeah i yeah and might have used the wrong one i apologize for that
00:39:18
Speaker
yeah that makes sense there was like even like 20 years ago think transvestite was still more because yeah i remember reading a book where it was just kind of when we were starting to yeah get more used to just the word trans in general and not yeah like there's still yeah like tv shows and all that kind of stuff that um
00:39:45
Speaker
You're like, this was the 90s. Yeah, I mean, as times evolve and everything, too.
00:40:06
Speaker
ah Evicted. it was just the the immediate way you had to jump up. It's like when the dog starts barking. and write the blind Yeah.
00:40:20
Speaker
Just have to be dealt with sometimes. You get yeah Yeah.
00:40:32
Speaker
So... In Greenwich Village, ah there's ah Christopher Street that was like the hub of the city's LGBTQ community in the 60s.
00:40:47
Speaker
Okay. And yeah there was like clubs and all that kind of stuff. So this is where Marsha found Joy performing as a drag queen and ah got into that part of her life.
00:40:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. as She designed all of her own costumes using items that she would find in thrift shops and ah pieces of which sometimes were given to her by friends and she would like make into an outfit.
00:41:13
Speaker
cute. Right. ah These drag performances allowed her another means of income because sometimes she was getting paid for it. And it also like, Oh, nice.
00:41:25
Speaker
led to her becoming more prominent in the community. um And she became what's known as a drag mother, like kind of mentor to others.
00:41:37
Speaker
And she also started really helping, ah Helping other homeless and struggling LGBTQ youth around her. um Cool. And stuff.
00:41:50
Speaker
Yeah, like really started like uplifting people with her, um even though she didn't have much herself. and Well, isn't that always the way? It's the people that have the most that are like, we could give all, but we don't.
00:42:05
Speaker
Because for whatever reason. But it's too hard. Yeah. Or like the person that has had nothing knows exactly what that feels like. So they are more committed to like giving something, even if it's just a little bit.
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah. um So according to her nephew, Marsha always maintained a close but like fraught relationship with her family that was still back in New Jersey.
00:42:30
Speaker
i didn't really run across much more about the family other than that. don't know. i I hope to think like her parents had a ah change of heart because it said that they didn't approve of it or anything. So I like to hope as like I don't know, like, transgender and that kind of stuff became more, like, talked about in society and everything that they, like, learned more about it. And hopefully, hopefully they had, like, a change of heart um and everything.
00:43:07
Speaker
Right. Hard to know what their relationship was, was like, but. You would hope that at least with the parents or some of the siblings who would be much closer in age.
00:43:17
Speaker
Yeah. Anything about the siblings. Mm-hmm. um that's fair there probably it wasn't a lot reported on yeah there was also something I don't think I kept it in here that said that sometimes Marsha would like um revert back to her original identity um which was Malcolm she would start going by Malcolm Michaels all right um periodically and that it was almost like a different persona that she would put on
00:43:52
Speaker
um and her friend said that like she was more aggressive and like violent uh and that kind of stuff when she was being malcolm um it was kind of confusing i didn't really get into a lot because i didn't run across a lot that like talked about it so no but that's okay that's kind of interesting i mean obviously it is but i was just like thinking yeah maybe sometimes they were tired of people always judging them and was like fine maybe i'll get more in touch with my masculine side again how do you like it yeah like just a way nothing wrong with that you can know something yeah back and forth is like i think a lot of people do now it's like how you kind of feel in the day and that kind of stuff right because like isn't it with most of the
00:44:47
Speaker
the drag queens it's like maybe you have like you obviously have a preference as to what your have what your pronouns are in and out of drag and stuff and yeah or or like it just because you're a drag queen doesn't mean you're necessarily a gay guy or whatever like you could identify as something different or yeah exactly so much more nuance now Yeah.
00:45:11
Speaker
um Getting into, because I ran across this, I didn't know much, I guess, about um Stonewall, like the Stonewall riots and stuff. Oh, yeah. Heard of it, but neither do I. Yeah.
00:45:24
Speaker
ah So Marsha, I guess, was one of the many protesters at the 1969 Stonewall riots. 69, nice. Just kidding. nice
00:45:34
Speaker
if The riot started when a regular raid on the ah Stonewall Inn, which was a gay bar, or I guess, sorry, is a gay bar on Christopher Street, led to authorities arresting the patrons, most of whom were gay men on really questionable charges.
00:45:54
Speaker
uh yeah they were handcuffed and publicly forced into police cars that were outside of the bar and what i didn't run across uh was something that said although new york state downgraded sodomy from a felony to a misdemeanor in 1950 prosecution of gay people and the criminalization of their activities were still common and same-sex dancing in public was prohibited.
00:46:23
Speaker
that's why the bar was, like, often targeted. grown Wow. And the state liquor authority banned bars from serving gay people alcoholic beverages.
00:46:40
Speaker
That sounds like you're trying to get rid of like two thirds of your demographic. like yeah I'm sorry. and How many of those are your customers? Doubly discriminated against because they're like literal like race segregation ah still very much. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. A thing that they're just getting out of at that time, I guess.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah. um It also said that people could be charged with sexual deviancy for cross-dressing. So just like, yeah, whatever they wanted to arrest her on or like people that were at the Stonewall Inn, they could do whatever they wanted, basically. If you were in there, they could say, oh, we saw you dancing so-and-so and they could be lying or they could not be, but like, who's going to argue,
00:47:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
00:47:35
Speaker
That's rough. I didn't know anything about that. i probably would have said, does it have something do with someone named Stonewall Jackson? Isn't he an American guy?
00:47:45
Speaker
I don't know. can't remember. I did not know it was the Stonewall Inn. Yeah, I knew it had to do Like it was from and named from like its location, but I didn't really know exactly what it was.
00:48:02
Speaker
um no So the at the time, like the arrests are happening. The LGBTQ community is obviously fed up with their treatment at the hands of the police. And they decided that this is their moment. They're going to start fighting back.
00:48:15
Speaker
um during these very public arrests um so like this has been called like riot or rebellion protests even an uprising um but this like moment between lgbtq protesters and police took place over um over like several city blocks like it didn't just occur in that one area it was like kind of a larger area and it lasted multiple days uh it kind of like popped in and out wow and yeah uh keep in mind at this time marcia who's only 23 is i guess often incorrectly credited as throwing the first brick um of the riot but this has since been disproven um she didn't throw the first one i think i had heard that before too and like something else
00:49:11
Speaker
okay well if you get kind of a famous figure and kind of a famous event they're like well maybe those two really correlated yeah okay um i don't know how true this is either this is said to be like more true than her throwing the first brick that marcia and her friend sylvia rivera uh arrived around 2 a.m on june 28th um During the riots and later described the scene and said that the plate quote the place was already on fire and there was a raid already and that the riots had already started.
00:49:46
Speaker
So saying like they weren't there for the initial like kickoff of it. Okay. Yeah. continued saying we were just saying like no more police brutality and we'd had enough of police harassment in the village and in other places um that was told to historian eric marcus in a 1989 interview I think that's Marcia.
00:50:13
Speaker
And though, according to the National Park Service, which oversees the Stonewall National Monument, ah witnesses, like, I think multiple witnesses saw Marcia dropping a heavy object on top of a police car during the riots.
00:50:30
Speaker
But I also ran across other stuff saying that that wasn't true either. so I'm not really sure. But she was there. Oh, wait. And they're at the Stonewall Monument?
00:50:42
Speaker
that? No, this is like um the National Park Service, which oversees the Stonewall National Monument. There's a monument to the riot. um They say that Marsha was witnessed dropping and a heavy object on top of a police car during the riots.
00:51:00
Speaker
Okay. Weird. Yeah. ah But no matter her, like, level of involvement, she's still considered to be, obviously, a key member of the uprising LGBTQ liberation movement that was really, like, kicking off in the U.S. Yeah.
00:51:25
Speaker
I can hear Gorda, like, at the door. Mom, mother. It's not like his food or water is in here. He doesn't need in here.
00:51:42
Speaker
Oh, they're so silly.
00:51:46
Speaker
So the um the next year, I guess the first gay pride parade took place. Okay. okay Yeah.
00:51:57
Speaker
right so like 1970 ish yeah oh and now they're trying to get rid of it all
00:52:10
Speaker
we're fighting back you had this yeah let's have another uprising come on let's do this somebody apparently we have was just gonna say somebody dropped something on a police car but i'm sure we've done that plenty of times ah Yeah, Vancouver had a riot when their hockey team lost, so we're just as crazy sometimes.
00:52:35
Speaker
um Yeah, so the first Gate Pride parade took place the next year, and activists were able to start channeling like their frustrations with like police and inaction and all that kind of stuff um by helping and supporting one another.
00:52:51
Speaker
And really starting to work together to form these gay rights groups. andd Really like fight back and start fighting for their rights. To party. is good. like no To party dressed like they wanted to. Yeah, exactly. It's totally awesome though. I love it.
00:53:11
Speaker
Right? They're always trying to stop you from unionizing and and making groups and your right to power in numbers. Yeah, like, your right to gather and, yeah, try and make change.
00:53:30
Speaker
um Yeah, during this time, I guess Marcia joined some gay rights organizations that were starting to form. um But she did notice that particularly people of color and then also like trans people...
00:53:43
Speaker
um And their concerns were not being considered or focused on as much as like their cisgender members were. um Though the at the time and even now, like black and trans people were more likely to be homeless or targeted by the police or like have a threat of violence against them.
00:54:05
Speaker
She's very sad for statistics. Yeah. Yeah, even now it's ridiculous. Very hard for so minorities, not to mention like double minorities or whatever, triple minorities or whatever you want to call the people that live with several stigmas.
00:54:25
Speaker
<unk>ber um Yeah, so like after she really like noticed she was like not really being considered in these groups properly, or when she was trying to voice concerns, they weren't really listening, or wasn't a priority to them because it didn't affect enough of them, she really began speaking out about like the transphobia that she was experiencing, even from like um her own LGBT plus community.
00:54:55
Speaker
Like community um was even like not really listening to her, let alone the rest of the country. Totally. Yeah. ah So in 1970, Marcia and that friend Sylvia Rivera decided to establish the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries or STARs.
00:55:19
Speaker
Aww, cute. Yeah, they're like, you know what, we're gonna make our own fucking group. And they were committed to helping homeless transgender youth in New York City, and they also helped to advocate for transgender rights and provide shelter and other resources to LGBTQ youth.
00:55:39
Speaker
I think I saw something. It was like particular people that have been like displaced or disowned by like their family um for being transgender. um Yeah.
00:55:52
Speaker
Just like the most vulnerable. Yeah, totally.
00:55:57
Speaker
So Marsha and Sylvia um had met long not too long after Marsha had moved to New York back in 1963. Marsha was just at the time and Sylvia was So.
00:56:13
Speaker
Okay. yeah ah Sylvia is Puerto Rican, also transgender, and the pair had become really fast friends and like kind of supported each other. ah Rivera later said Marcia was like a mother to her and that she was the one who really encouraged her to love herself and her identity, which I thought was nice.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah. That is nice.
00:56:46
Speaker
ah So I have a bit from nyhistory.org site. ah It said that the first star house was in the back of an abandoned truck in Greenwich Village.
00:57:01
Speaker
ah Nearly 24 young people called the truck home. And Sylvia and Marsha hustled every night to make sure their new family had breakfast each morning. i guess it was on one, right? One morning, they returned to the truck just as it was pulling away with star residents sleeping inside.
00:57:22
Speaker
Apparently, the truck was not abandoned after all. And as they watched their quote unquote kids jump from the moving truck, Marsha and Sylvia realized they needed a real home.
00:57:33
Speaker
Oh my god. ah It's being towed?
00:57:39
Speaker
ah I think... I don't really know. i think they thought it was abandoned, but it wasn't actually abandoned. Maybe somebody just really liked their parking spot. And were like, I'm not moving it.
00:57:51
Speaker
ah Oh my god. Yeah, after this happens, it continues saying they rented a did dilapidated building with no electricity or running water, and they started fixing up the building.
00:58:04
Speaker
They paid rent for nearly eight months, and when they could no longer pay, they were evicted. so they like they were doing the freaking best they could like yeah for sure that sucks it also said as the gay liberation movement became increasingly white middle class and cisgender uh star their charity reminded everyone that transgender and gender non-conforming people deserved equal rights too ah this really
00:58:35
Speaker
right Made me mad. It said when the organizers of the gay pride parade tried to ban Star, they showed up anyway. Just like, fuck you for trying to ban them from showing up to the gay pride parade.
00:58:50
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. That made me mad. Not only straight people can be bullies. Yeah. Yeah, right? Oh, I've heard so much about, like,
00:59:03
Speaker
like Yeah, you get a lot of homophobia from people within the LGBTQ community. It's, like, insane. What? That makes no sense.
00:59:18
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, boys. can be just as bad sometimes as... um what people can experience it's the same thing you're not gay enough you're too straight you're different like you're just different you're not exactly the same as me or whatever yes you' know you yeah fit my little cookie cutter definition of what this word can mean so like fuck you so stupid yeah it's insane to me um Yeah, it's like, what were you guys fighting for in the first place then?
00:59:51
Speaker
my so that So that we could ostracize within our own group ah from the inside. Yeah. Oh my god.
01:00:02
Speaker
um Yeah. ah Through Grenrich Village, she was known as Saint Marsha. ah And locals admired her ability to truly be herself.
01:00:14
Speaker
Marsha had a reputation for being generous and kind. ah She often gave people clothes and food, even though she had little of her own. And despite her popularity, Marsha also lived a life of poverty and danger. And I don't know how many times, but she was arrested over 100 times.
01:00:35
Speaker
I think I ran across a quote that said, like, honey, I stopped counting after the first hundred. Yeah, I guess you would. yeah like, Jesus. Notches on the, not the bedpost, but somewhere.
01:00:52
Speaker
Yeah. ah In an interview that Marcia did for 1972 book, She stated that her ambition was, quote, to see gay people liberated and free and to have equal rights that other people have in America.
01:01:09
Speaker
Hell yeah. She also said she wanted to see her gay brothers and sisters out of jail and on the streets again. And then in another interview, she said as long as gay people don't have their rights all across America, there is no reason for celebration.
01:01:27
Speaker
Yeah. I agree. Right? It's like
01:01:32
Speaker
If everybody doesn't have all their full rights, then we should be a little bit sad. Right? And trying to help people. i So even after Star disbanded, um Marcia continued to fight for LGBTQ rights and helped homeless transgender youth.
01:01:52
Speaker
ah She ended up attracting the attention of Andy Warhol. Ever heard of him? No. um Andy Dick? No.
01:02:03
Speaker
Campbell Soup? What? Marilyn Monroe? No. That's the one they always redo in everything. It was Supernatural when they're like in the meta episode where they're actually playing the actors that play themselves.
01:02:19
Speaker
They pretend that Sam's like Jared Padalecki lives in a house where he's got the Andy Warhol like portraits of him yeah and his wife. Yeah. it works on the show yeah and you're like so pretentious so full of yourself yeah so funny uh andy warhol like obviously was in new york and uh she marcia even modeled for him i guess for a series of prints back in 1975 that was entitled ladies and gentlemen it was like a whole series not just her
01:02:54
Speaker
like a bunch of people right um and she wasn't named it wasn't until like years later that it kind of came out that the picture was her uh but because none ah none of the models were named in the whole series that wasn't really what it was about oh so Yeah.
01:03:17
Speaker
And she continued through this time to keep performing as a drag queen, even joined a drag group that was called the Hot Peaches. That's funny. um's fine It's funny. It would have been like peach flambe, hot, like, peaches peaches and ice cream.
01:03:34
Speaker
That's what I want. Yeah, it doesn't look good. If it wasn't so cold outside, I'd be like, ooh, ice cream. literally why just every like podcaster i listen to or at least 50 feel like sometimes they start talking about food and then they're all like i'm starving i was like yeah at least i just ate stuff we're doing this shit after we were yeah we're doing this shit after uh after work we're just all tired and hungry yeah uh Yeah, next was 1980. Marsha was invited to ride in the lead car of the Gay Pride Parade in New York City. Nice. yeah
01:04:16
Speaker
um Marsha also helped advocate for more resources to combat the AIDS epidemic epidemic during the nineteen eighty s and She joined ACT UP, which was a prominent organization at the time, and um I think it became like more relevant because in the beginning of the 1990s, Marcia tested positive for HIV.
01:04:42
Speaker
Oh, no. Yeah. And in ah in a June 26, 1992 interview, she spoke publicly about her diagnosis and really encouraged people to not be afraid of those who were sick.
01:04:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I can't remember when, uh, Princess- it was Princess Diana, right, that, like, went to the hospital and- Yeah. Um, really removed a lot of this- An iconic moment. Stigmatism, yeah, like- Holding hands with one. Hand-shanging people, yeah. Eight suffer, yeah.
01:05:19
Speaker
People were so awful at that time about it. Yeah. Ugh. um Yeah, I'd really like to, like, read this June 26th interview, and that was 1992, because it's... What, like, even...
01:05:34
Speaker
cause it
01:05:37
Speaker
what like not even
01:05:41
Speaker
A week and a half later that on July 6th, 1992, I read in some sources after the pride parade. um I don't know if it was immediately after or like later that day or maybe just the next day or something. But Marsha's body was found in the Hudson's River off the West Village Piers when she was just 46 years old.
01:06:06
Speaker
Oh, shit. I wasn't expecting that. Right? I wasn't either. I don't think I really heard much about this when I saw her pictures is This isn't our true crime episode, is it?
01:06:19
Speaker
I know. I'm gonna make it one. gotta raise awareness.
01:06:26
Speaker
Oh, damn. and So young. Her death, right? forty 46, like, fuck. um Yeah, her death was ari initially ruled a suicide.
01:06:38
Speaker
um Throughout most of her life, she had struggled with different forms of mental illness and, like, struggled with her mental health. She had experienced a series of mental breakdowns and multiple stays in psychiatric hospitals in the nineteen seventy s
01:06:57
Speaker
And, um but at the time of her death, her friends and family maintained that she was not suicidal. So. Yeah. Uh.
01:07:10
Speaker
But it was said that. Not the only way end up in the Hudson River. True. At the time, 1992, was said to be the worst year on record for anti-LGBTQ violence, according to the New York and Anti-Violence Project.
01:07:27
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. That's unfortunate. I would hate see the statistics now. Because, you know, the population increases tenfold, then what also increases tenfold? The assholes.
01:07:42
Speaker
um I could see the AIDS thing having a lot to do with it though that really put a terrible stigma on being gay especially being male and gay I would say yeah just anything um yeah anything they could like use as an excuse I think they probably did
01:08:14
Speaker
um so the circumstances surrounding her death continued to lead people to ask questions and later that year her cause of death death sorry it was changed to drowning ah from an undetermined cause oh no I don't like that at all she just what again decided to pull a Kramer one day and start c simmon swimming in the Hudson River i don't buy it um Yeah, the, i kept trying to, like, I even tried Googling what the the day of the Pride Parade was in 1992, because it seems like now it's mostly in August, at least here in Canada that I could see. It's like the end of August. So this said July 6th. Oh, even though Pride Month is June?
01:09:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's like... Oh! stupid We had a weird random barbecue ah my work last year that I thought was like, isn't this too late in the summer for Pride? And maybe it was in August!
01:09:15
Speaker
Okay! I didn't know that we that was a thing we were doing. Yeah, they do it! We do a weird here in Canada. Who knows? um But yeah, i think it ah seems like...
01:09:32
Speaker
um yeah she was like targeted or most likely stuff um but her funeral like she was adored by the community it was attended by hundreds of people inside the church and then there was like crowds of people that were waiting outside like all along the street yeah that's really nice Yeah. And sad. ah Right?
01:10:01
Speaker
Thanks to the dedication of those around her, an investigation into her death was finally... finally started by the new york police department in 2002 oh however 10 years after yeah right finally wow um because of this like waiting 10 years like they had no evidence or clues to investigate because of whoever ruled it was an accident knew that they were buying tons of time yeah probably yeah i don't
01:10:34
Speaker
Or they just didn't care. Ugh. Yeah. that's That sucks. But because of this, um her death remains unsolved. So fuck that. Oh god. i hate it. Right?
01:10:45
Speaker
That's a bummer. hate that. Yeah. Um...
01:10:52
Speaker
Yeah, I don't have too much more. This is more like legacy stuff that's happened since her death. um There is Victoria Cruz, a crime victim advocate from New York City antiva Anti-Violence Project.
01:11:09
Speaker
um She ended up doing her own examination um where she spoke to coroners, police precincts, and Marsha's friends and family. Um, and her research formed the basis of the 2017 Netflix documentary, The Death and Life of Marsha P. Johnson.
01:11:27
Speaker
Um, I didn't have a chance to watch it, but I do want to watch that. A documentary. Yes. Yeah. Always interesting to hear stuff from people's point of view.
01:11:37
Speaker
When they're friends and family, like people that actually knew them, uh, not just supposed experts or whatever. oh yeah. Uh, Yeah, that's what I like.
01:11:48
Speaker
um For decades, Marsha's contributions to, or sorry, as an LGBTQ activist were overlooked. ah Her story, um like, finally coming to light more recently in the last, like, I'd 15 years or so. 15, maybe 20 years.
01:12:07
Speaker
um Her story was also covered in a 2012 documentary called Pay It No Mind, Marsha P. Johnson. Oh, yay. Yeah.
01:12:18
Speaker
And the 2017 short film... titled Happy Birthday, Marsha, which ah dramatized her life in the hours leading up to the Stonewall protests.
01:12:30
Speaker
um Okay. Yeah. Pay it no mind. ah love that as a mantra. I do too. i really like it. ah Yeah, it's so much better than what does your middle name sound? D for danger.
01:12:44
Speaker
No, it's P for pay it no mind. Mind your own business. I like that. Pay it no mind is my middle name. yeah Yeah, can you imagine?
01:12:55
Speaker
Just fill in all the person. Pay it no mind. In 2015, a Marsha Or sorry, in the Marsha P. johnson institute was published was established yeah um ah
01:13:12
Speaker
Its mission is to defend and protect the human rights of transgender and gender non-conforming communities, which is nice. Yeah, that's important. In 2019, New York City announced that Marcia and Sylvia Rivera would be the subject of a monument commissioned by the public arts campaign She Built NYC.
01:13:37
Speaker
which oh who was sylvia sylvia is one that was at the stonewall riots with her and was like her friend and they did the star um like uh organization together okay yeah nice uh the monument would be the first in new york city to honor transgender woman And ah in, yeah, I didn't see like that one. I don't think it's built yet. Maybe COVID really delayed that guy, but.
01:14:12
Speaker
Oh, boo. Yeah. In 2020, the state of New York renamed its East River State Park to Marsha P. Johnson State Park.
01:14:24
Speaker
Oh. Yeah. Yeah. yeah And this is like the one that I got a picture of on the drive. It's in 2021, writer and activist Eli Ehrlich partnered with a sculptor and other organizers and created a bronze bust of Marsha that sits at the New York City's Christopher Park.
01:14:51
Speaker
ah near the Stonewall Inn. um And it looks... I'd have to see other pictures of it um Maybe that like just the public have posted.
01:15:02
Speaker
But it looks like ah she has... I don't know if she has a hat on or what, but it looks like people weave flower crowns and like change them out constantly on her bronze bust.
01:15:14
Speaker
So has all these different flower crowns. Oh, I like fresh flowers it looks like but i'd have to see other pictures to like confirm if it does look like they're different all the time i'm trying to have a look oh okay yeah i think i see the flower crowns now just like it's like changing out like the flowers on a grave that's really sweet yeah oh but it's a beautiful crown i love it a crown of flowers flowers
01:15:47
Speaker
Yeah. um I do have a couple quotes. um One of them is, i may be crazy I may be crazy, but that don't make me wrong.
01:16:00
Speaker
ah like that. Nice. Like, yeah. um This one's also very popular. i was no one nobody from nowheresville until I became a drag queen.
01:16:12
Speaker
Aww. Yeah. oh she looks really good though yeah uh how many years has it taken people to realize that we were we are all brothers and sisters and human beings in the human race like that one too yeah well said um
01:16:37
Speaker
This last one I really like too History isn't something you look back at and say it was inevitable. It happens because people make decisions that are sometimes very impulsive and of the moment, but those moments are cumulative realities.
01:16:53
Speaker
Which I think is cool. It takes a few brave people, yeah, sometimes to get the ball rolling. yeah I feel like people do say that. Oh yeah, of course, somebody would finally come along and change whatever or of course that was bound to happen it had to like why do you gotta look at that way Yeah, when injustice happens, we hope that somewhere along the way, it's like, well, you know, we're eventually going to figure it out, right? That slavery is wrong and all those other things. And then you're like, well, but it it comes in fits and starts. Like, it's very slow. Progress is very slow in general. Yeah.
01:17:33
Speaker
ah Yeah. But anyway, that was amazing. Really good job. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed it. I'm going to go... ah watch like any of the documentaries I can because I would love to yeah see interviews with Marsha and like family and friends I don't know what happened to Sylvia um i think I saw something that used like said she was whatever so I don't even know if Sylvia's alive anymore or not I'm not exactly sure but
01:18:14
Speaker
Yeah. i mean But yeah, hearing from her friends and family, I think, is the most important thing when you're like people that were actually around somebody, if you can't talk to that person directly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
01:18:29
Speaker
Yeah, and she could have still been alive today if she hadn't been... yeah probably murdered or whatever yeah most likely after what i'm assuming is the fucking pride parade which really sucks they talk about like that would make a lot of sense though if it was a hate crime yeah you you they talk about always like being careful um taking like public transportation or anything to and from like pride parades and all that kind of stuff sure safety and numbers can always help yeah that's really sad right
01:19:13
Speaker
well happy black history month we'll have a quick break all right and we'll be back I gotta go pee and cry a little no right oh yeah that's rough but really good job really good job I did not know so now I know and I want to know more which is I think the point yeah yeah i heard about her the first time a couple years ago and then when I started kind of looking stuff up I was like You know, and i I already know about her. I would like to take this opportunity to learn more. Yeah. Which always a good thing.
01:19:51
Speaker
I love when I learn about someone new from a podcast. I'm honestly like, okay, sweet. like yeah I would not have learned about this person otherwise, probably.
George Washington Carver: Agricultural Innovations
01:19:59
Speaker
Right? Yeah. yeah All right. Well, we'll be right back.
01:20:05
Speaker
Yeah.
01:20:31
Speaker
Autumn's Oddities is a strange and unusual podcast made by the strange and unusual me, Autumn Groobie. Each week, I'll be taking you through some of the creepiest cases true crime has to offer.
01:20:45
Speaker
It won't only be true crime. I'll also be covering cryptids, haunted places, haunted things, and the true stories that inspired horror movies. Listen every Monday and Friday for new episodes. And remember, if it's creepy and weird, you'll find it here.
01:21:33
Speaker
I don't know what he was doing. It's nothing out of place, but it sounded like he played with a door stopper. It went... don It was rather loud, yeah.
01:21:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what it was, because I don't see but anything. oh my god. It's a mystery.
01:21:56
Speaker
Well, we're recording now, so if he gets into any other monkey business, we'll least have a... and Have proof.
01:22:08
Speaker
Alright, welcome back to everyone but Gordo, who needs to stay out of the room and stop making loud noises that we can't explain. Yeah.
01:22:22
Speaker
Yeah, it did sound like you jumped on something, but we're we're still not sure, so... you guys have cats? I don't know, it's weird. but Yeah. Yeah. thought, yeah, he likes to knock stuff over too, doesn't he? I thought, oh, maybe.
01:22:37
Speaker
Like, didn't you have to lock up the compost bin so he wouldn't knock it over? Oh, yeah. The little countertop one. When I use it in the summertime, I have to put a rubber band that goes all the way around it because he would open it and, like, crawl through it. He was obsessed with it, even if it was empty.
01:22:58
Speaker
Like, just in love with, I don't know, the smell of rotting compost. She loves it. a Like the way dogs love to roll in dead things. Yeah.
01:23:12
Speaker
Yeah, just... ah
01:23:18
Speaker
Pardon me. Alright, well... He's doing parkour off of walls. Probably. Just your thud, thud, thud, thud.
01:23:30
Speaker
Jesus. Buddy, can you just come in here so I can at least see you Cut the zoomies about at. He's super pumped to hear my segment, is what it is.
01:23:43
Speaker
I think he is, yeah.
01:23:46
Speaker
What's next, guys?
01:23:50
Speaker
um Well, now we're going to talk about a couple of ah famous, or not as famous as they should be, African American inventors. Nice, nice.
01:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, I think only one I might have actually heard of, and that's the first one. I'm going to talk about George Washington Carver. Not that George Washington.
01:24:14
Speaker
Yeah, it was like, I know him! Wait, no, I don't.
01:24:19
Speaker
At the Carver. Now he's black. Alright. and Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know. He was black.
01:24:28
Speaker
A lot of things people think they know about George Washington aren't true either. He did not have wooden teeth. Wood did not make for great fake teeth material, people. He had slaves' teeth and other things. Don't you worry.
01:24:41
Speaker
It's even grosser. yeah i think i heard about that right um no but that's a different fun fact for a different day gross oh i know so bad um but this yeah there is a lot of people with the last name washington as i guess will kind of come to find out um but this guy was a revolutionary american agricultural chemist agronomist and experimenter which we'll get into and what i did forget to get into or look up was what exactly an agronomist is but i guess we'll all have to google it sounds like agriculture economics
01:25:31
Speaker
economist yeah and that's ah that's his wheelhouse so i think it it definitely has to it'd be in that same vein um i would also call him a food a chef food product developer and marketer because that was a lot of oh what he had to do also i found cool Yeah, I'd heard him maybe once or twice on a podcast, but it's it's and one that I've definitely never heard about in school, even though he seemed to have had a pretty big impact. um
01:26:05
Speaker
He was born around the Civil War era, so about 1861, they think. to But since he was born into slavery, the records are not well documented of those births.
01:26:19
Speaker
Go figure. Okay, yeah. Kind of like even the wi the the women in history, they might just get referred to by the men's names, their husbands' names sometimes. it's like Yeah.
01:26:31
Speaker
We're not as important.
01:26:37
Speaker
So, but we know he was born near Diamond Grove, Missouri, and his mother's name was Mary, and she was owned at the time by a man named Moses Carver.
01:26:50
Speaker
So that's where we get the Carver from. Yeah. Like his, I guess George Washington Carver's father was supposedly killed in accident shortly before his birth.
01:27:03
Speaker
So he didn't know his dad, unfortunately. Oh, okay. Just born into a little log shanty on the... The property of the the masters or whatever.
01:27:15
Speaker
Yeah. So during the Civil War, like when George was still just a little boy, because we think he was born around 1860, 1861-ish, the Carver farm was raided and he and his mother were kidnapped.
01:27:29
Speaker
um Damn. I know. It's crazy right out the bat. um He was eventually recovered and brought back to the farm, but his mother was actually never seen again, very sadly. Jeez.
01:27:45
Speaker
mean, getting brought back to the farm probably wasn't great either. Well, they did at least nurse him back to health, so ah can't say I can think that they treated their enslaved people that badly because they did seem to care about the little the poor little boy was now an orphan, you know?
01:28:07
Speaker
He continued even living with the Carvers after the war ended in 1865. So he still would have been really young. and don't know if he was four or five. He spent at least another five to seven years with them, leaving when he was around 10 to 12 years old.
01:28:24
Speaker
um Maybe he didn't even know how old he was. i don't know.
01:28:29
Speaker
That time I heard a weird noise on the other side of this wall. I'm wondering if I had enough stairs. Did you hear something? I keep hearing. Yeah, i heard it. That was weird. That wasn't me. I didn't think.
01:28:45
Speaker
Oh my gosh. We're all paranoid. This is what paranormal podcasting does to you. oh But yeah, that was kind of is sad, sad part of his upbringing, but he was very determined. This little boy, he left to obtain whatever education he could.
01:29:06
Speaker
you know, through whatever means he could, I guess, ends up in a place called Neosho, Mississippi. oh Wait.
01:29:18
Speaker
Did I mean to say Missouri? I definitely hate abbreviating them because then it gets very confusing. There's too many M states. I try not to abbreviate anything. I know. i was like, did I mean Missouri? Because it's only about 8 kilometers or 8 miles or 13 kilometers away.
01:29:35
Speaker
Anyway, so we're still in the South where he's boarding with a black family called the Watkins. They were Mariah and and Andrew Watkins who housed him and ah Mariah taught him some herbology or botany while he attended a small school for African-Americans in the area.
01:29:56
Speaker
So he's learning whatever he can from like who whoever he can. Yeah. He's definitely very. Yeah, he's. independent that way, I guess. Resourceful.
01:30:10
Speaker
Unfortunately, he quite quickly outpaced his own teacher's knowledge because the teacher at the school himself was Black and you know not very educated, of course. um So that's when George Carver decided to move on, to learn what he could on the go.
01:30:29
Speaker
Whether he's like, yeah, he's going to wander through the forest and learn from nature directly and you know, keep going on with his basic botany skills and herb stuff and drawing pictures of plants, but also taking odd jobs and stuff.
01:30:46
Speaker
Oh, and he had learned, like, about the, um, like, the botany stuff, the different trees and plants and whatever from Mariah Watkins and Sarah Carver. So both of the, like, rather mother figures in his life after his mom was gone kind of taught him, which was really nice.
01:31:05
Speaker
Um...
01:31:08
Speaker
And he enjoyed not only drawing plants, but landscapes. So I think he kind of maybe was a good artist. And yeah, I enjoyed that part. Just like, I don't like people. i like plants.
01:31:20
Speaker
Right? It does sound like kind of a do your own thing, go your own way upbringing. Yeah. um And then like, people did me wrong. Fuck people. only trees and grass. Right?
01:31:33
Speaker
Like they would they would call them what naturalists mostly at the time. They were just into studying nature and stuff. Something like that. They were not always very, what is it?
01:31:48
Speaker
Extroverted, maybe. Yeah. But George seems like he was a fast learner, very handy. He's able to do odd jobs working laboring, cooking, doing laundry, which I gather at the time was not an easy task because they're like stirring it in those big pots and stuff. but Yeah, they had to like actually wring it out yourself. You didn't just pop it the dryer.
01:32:16
Speaker
Always makes me laugh when they reference... You squeeze and twist the water out yourself. Oh, yes, because they reference Claire not liking doing it in Outlander. It's like, yeah, because probably by the time you're in the 1900s, we actually had like washing machines and she's like doing laundry by hand no thanks yeah i don't want to um so yeah he seems very handy and everything he got himself uh more education like a high school equivalent um it seems when he was in his yeah i'm not sure how
01:32:52
Speaker
Like, if it was a GED or what. but Yeah, i said I wouldn't have even thought that they had that type of program. Well, yeah, because the only thing he had before this was a small school for, like, for Blacks by Blacks that, like, he already outgrew.
01:33:11
Speaker
so Yeah, I'm not sure how he got the high school education, but then I know he was initially a set accepted by a college in Kansas that he applied to. So he was elated, just like really excited about that. Yeah.
01:33:25
Speaker
um Unfortunately, when he arrived at the place called Highland College... They saw he was black and then refused him entry, like, on the spot.
01:33:36
Speaker
Ugh. So, that was really shitty. That's so stupid, because he literally got in. Right? Like... Yeah. That means he had the grades and had, like, oh whatever.
01:33:49
Speaker
yeah i don't even know if it was about that at the time. i remember a similar story where this girl applies to, like, an all... male academy thing that's like oh we've never allowed girls in but i think she went by like sam smith or something and like got in by her name and then they couldn't she was like what the fuck you let me in you can't just be like i can't come in but like she's faced so much um you know acrimony and flack yeah that is like She was basically ends up having to leave it anyway. oh It so sucks for those first pioneers that paved the way. like It's so hard for them.
01:34:30
Speaker
It's rough. I'd have been like, okay, guess I'm wearing like pants. and Speaking in a deep voice every day. Yeah.
01:34:42
Speaker
Oh, God.
01:34:46
Speaker
Um, over the phone. Sure. I could pass for a man sometimes in the morning. so i get on the phone. I say have to talk to my brother and like, are you okay? I'm like, I just got up.
01:34:58
Speaker
I just sound really, you know, rough.
01:35:04
Speaker
leave me alone
01:35:07
Speaker
um although i did have a lady you tell me the other day that i was sing talking on the phone to her which she thought was very amusing and i thought she was so cute ah i was like oh was i i guess i just was like all right let me have a look or something like that where i just say something while i'm looking up their information so so i can help them Yeah, you just she was you get used to just drawing stuff out a little bit longer so there's not as many awkward pauses.
01:35:40
Speaker
It's your customer service voice. I totally remember someone telling me at the bakery I worked at that I had like a phone voice. But yeah, this was funny because it was the first time and I had someone tell me that I was like, sing, speaking or something. I was like, oh. That is funny.
01:35:57
Speaker
ah Yeah. But she was super nice and was like, wait, what was your name? going to leave a review. And then she was kind of like, a bit of an older lady was like, and what's the best way to leave a review? Who do I talk to and i was like, oh shit, like maybe like a Google review?
01:36:11
Speaker
That's what a lot of people do. And then I was like, I guess I'm not very helpful at telling you how to give me a review. And she was like, well, no, you're not. And like laughing with me, she was just the cutest. Yeah. like I mean, I guess that is hard.
01:36:26
Speaker
Like, who who do i get in contact with? I know we get emails about Google reviews. I don't know if we have a Yelp. I was like, I'm sure there's a contact us page. She was like, I have, you know, ah young adult children that can help me. I'm like, cool.
01:36:43
Speaker
ah just picture them being like, okay, Jim, you help help me get the on the internet. I need to leave this review for Alana. She was very nice. was talking to the AMA. Yeah.
01:36:56
Speaker
Yeah.
01:36:59
Speaker
Oh, hilarious. Sometimes humanity is good.
01:37:05
Speaker
Oh gosh. Okay. ah Okay. High school education.
01:37:12
Speaker
That's about where I got to, I think. Yeah. um He made his way then to Iowa where he met the couple called the Milhollands. a white couple who he befriended, and then they encouraged him to try applying to Simpson College in Indianola.
01:37:32
Speaker
And he did.
01:37:34
Speaker
oh
01:37:37
Speaker
You have no idea how hard had typing out things, and then couldn't type Simpson, and then I couldn't Indianapolis. No. So he applied, was accepted, and got in that's the important part yeah um and this time he was able to study i guess piano and art i i assume among other things but that's what it mainly said he was able to study which i thought was cool oh yeah um um like anything i guess this is really good when you couldn't even get in before um
01:38:13
Speaker
um But then he was able to more specialize in get a bachelor's degree in agricultural science ah upon transferring to the Iowa State Agricultural College in 1894. So so old had an agricultural college.
01:38:31
Speaker
Wow. The amount of times I had to write agricultural, let me tell you, it was annoying. You're like, no. Agro. I just wanted to write agro, yeah.
01:38:43
Speaker
Yeah.
01:38:46
Speaker
um then he got a master's of science in 1896 so like he's just killing it academic wise
01:38:58
Speaker
she's yawning oh no have to keep her in no i know um in the fall of 1896 he started as director of the department of agriculture at the oh gosh I never know how to say this one Tuskegee nor it's called the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute ah Normal?
01:39:22
Speaker
Normal capital n this is the name of the school it's amazing um which at the time was headed by another notable black history figure called Booker T. Washington ever heard of him?
01:39:39
Speaker
yeah
01:39:42
Speaker
I think I had to, but I also was like, wait, Booker T was a ah wrestling guy who probably but took his name from this guy. Probably.
01:39:53
Speaker
Yeah. So this Booker T wanted ah George Washington Carver quite badly because he was the only, at the time, black person in the USA with a graduate degree in agricultural science.
01:40:06
Speaker
pretty cool okay right that's pretty cool it's a flex um he was conducting experiments in soil management crop production and directed an experimental farm and uh the crop that had been produced in the south for a very long long time had just been cotton and i guess we know now that if you don't rotate or vary your crop types it can kind of just make the soil itself very like stagnant and not good yeah you have to you have to rotate the crops because different crops require different nutrients out of the soil so if you're always planting the same thing it depletes the soil out of that nutrient and it never has a chance to like um like go back up in like that nutrient level so if you rotate it then like you're not
01:41:03
Speaker
ever like really fully depleting the soil of any of its nutrients uh well makes as much i guess that's like my understanding of it at least no totally that's what that's what thought too and when you put it like it's pretty cool though right because you're like it's why sometimes like they plant um you're supposed to plant like two specific crops like side by side because the nutrients are That like one of them might give off. Or the nutrients that the other one needs.
01:41:33
Speaker
and then ah Or it like wards off. Certain type of pests. Or insects. um With pheromones or whatever. They work well together. It's kind of cool. yeah It's like a cool science to it.
01:41:48
Speaker
No it is. Agricultural science.
01:41:52
Speaker
and And when we started. Getting our little. Backyard garden here. i remember Pat looking up. And seeing something about how to plant the, what the natives here called like the three sisters, I think. It's like corn and maybe like squash and beans or something that are two different or like three different vegetables that grow quite good together, almost in the same row. Yeah.
01:42:20
Speaker
They almost have a symbiotic relationship. I thought it was very cool. I don't know we always We always grew beans. Beans was always like really easy to grow when I was young. And then we ah we sometimes did carrots and lettuce.
01:42:37
Speaker
um But yeah, beans, potatoes. no. zucchini we're trying that kind of stuff too hard yeah zucchini yeah that we really had some good results with that a few years it's like yeah holy look at our girthy zucchini but yeah it's definitely fun to like experiment and try and see what you can get growing it's interesting um Yes, it would definitely cause problems if you didn't rotate your crops, it would suffer from erosion in the soil.
01:43:14
Speaker
so that's when yeah they had the ideas, or George, i guess, had the idea to plant more varied crops especially peanuts soybeans and um sweet potatoes were the three top ones i guess i know they love their sweet potatoes in the south don't they right i think so
01:43:41
Speaker
they would restore much needed nitrogen to the the poor soil the poor soil but but also every time i say poor i think of what it's his name on letter kenny wayne that's
01:44:00
Speaker
but also provide protein for the diets of the people so it was like a two-fold thing yeah and the crops grew very well this was a great result But still, the public was leery to buy a bunch of peanuts and stuff they were less familiar with. I mean, they'd been growing so much cotton forever.
01:44:18
Speaker
That's all anyone bought, I guess. And what are we supposed to eat? The cotton? Yeah, what... Like, do they not think about growing other things? No. Not long term, I suppose.
01:44:31
Speaker
um Since the sweet potatoes and peanuts seem to be the best sort of growers, he set about to market and make those a household item. um did he invent peanut butter uh not the original one no which was kind of funny because I ended up learning that mentioning this topic to Pat and him being like didn't Canadians invent peanut butter and he was kind of right hate to say it no but this guy made like peanut everything else Reese's peanut butter cups thank you
01:45:11
Speaker
I kept thinking of, ah there was an episode of Live, last live Laugh, Larceny, where it was like fall time, and he was talking about how people like pumpkin spice everything. And he made this song, and he like, pumpkin everything, pumpkin, pumpkin everything.
01:45:28
Speaker
I kept thinking like, peanut everything. It was like, oh yeah. Yeah. Oh, peanut butter everything. Peanut butter ice cream. Yeah. No, seriously. That's can pick up.
01:45:40
Speaker
Okay. This is what I remember hearing about him from other podcasts, that he created 300 different uses for peanuts and their derivatives. Wow. So many.
01:45:52
Speaker
And like, not the things you can pick You can shrimp. You can grill it. You can boil it. Yes. No, it totally made me think of that. Especially because the guy, isn't that the guy from Forrest Gump who's like, Baba Gump, shrimp cocktail, shrimp this. And he's a black guy, too.
01:46:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's very much like peanut. They made milk, ink, flour, dyes, food products, plastics, wood stains, soap, linoleum, medicinal oils, and cosmetics.
01:46:25
Speaker
I mean. Damn. Sucks for anybody with a peanut allergy. Can't touch anything. almost wondered if they, like, because it ends up being such a big crop, I'm like, did they make peanut allergies worse?
01:46:40
Speaker
No. Yeah. oh They're also responsible for making sweet potatoes, a.k.a. yams, very successful. Thank you.
01:46:53
Speaker
Not that I eat a lot of sweet potatoes, but. Sweet potato fries with some like. Yes, I love some sweet potato fries. Ooh, yes. Ooh, bitch. That was so good. i gotta get back on the sweet potato fries. It's been so long since I had them.
01:47:09
Speaker
I used to ah serve at a restaurant that sold them and I was like, oh, I do like these. Not something I always order, but you know.
01:47:21
Speaker
All right. He made up for sweet potatoes 118 different uses. only 118. He's slacking Right?
01:47:32
Speaker
right
01:47:35
Speaker
Was french fries one of them? Oh, God, That's too pedantic. You could get crinkle cut. You could get shoe shaming. You could get pub style. You could get wedges. You could get restaurant style.
01:47:52
Speaker
Don't get me started on the fries. No. The way my office orders Arby's by the bulk, it's unhealthy. Those curly fries. I don't know. They have a hold on people.
01:48:02
Speaker
yes ah
01:48:06
Speaker
Okay, but like, such as they made flour, molasses, ink, a synthetic rubber, and postage stamp glue all out of sweet potato products.
01:48:17
Speaker
It's insane. Postage stamp glue, you lick and you're like, how?
01:48:24
Speaker
Right? Wait, ah the peanut ones, I literally listed some of my favorite ones because it's like, none of this makes any sense to me. You're just like... Well, nowadays, I guess, yeah, because you get Beyond Beef burgers, but I feel like he was just like, take anything, make it peanut.
01:48:46
Speaker
Crush it, now it's sawdust. whoo yeah Terrible. that long ago. A years later. by nineteen seventyour so like not that long ago ah hundred later
01:49:05
Speaker
I guess 80 years or so. I don't know. He's still alive. I know that. I think. ah But he can't be still alive now. no, no,
01:49:17
Speaker
At the 70s. I think he was still alive. In the 70s. Okay. I was like, God damn it. He's so old. He's the oldest. Oh, God. Wait, which the guy? Oh, because this is the one that, yeah, he was born in the 1860s. So yeah, yeah, no he's yeah. We'll go progressively onward, but he's the oldest one. Yeah. um
01:49:49
Speaker
Yeah, okay. Well, now I'm confusing, ah getting a little confused in my timeline, but I know he lived a while and And by 1974, what was called the, it's called the bowl weevil, guess.
01:50:05
Speaker
Oh, I've heard of that. Yep.
01:50:09
Speaker
It's spelled B O L L, but I looked it up. It's pronounced bowl. And that had almost ruined cotton growers. Yeah. and Yeah. Do you think I have that date wrong? It's possible. I do.
01:50:22
Speaker
I literally typed up all my notes from my, my handwritten notes today being like, we're going to record tonight. Yeah. I didn't give you much notice. Did I, I meant to text you yesterday. Well, it's about that time of the week where I'm like, I know where we need to start recording. So like I knew. yeah
01:50:43
Speaker
Um, but we've been a little busy at work too. Um, anyway, the, the bowl weevil had almost ruined cotton, cotton growers. Um, At some point, let me say.
01:50:56
Speaker
So he went public with his experiments as it was seemingly the ideal time. And then I wrote, after all, we wouldn't want another Dust Bowl of the 1930s, would we?
01:51:07
Speaker
um Which was a period of dust storms and drought in the drought? Draught? like no
01:51:18
Speaker
i hate those words um that affected the prairies in the u.s and canada have you ever heard of them i remember hearing about the dust bowl from time to time yeah was like apparently our soil was so bad that we were just getting like dust storms and shit just like not good yeah and there was like no moisture anything i don't know if we hadn't been rotating the soil crops like or what but no they didn't they um
01:51:53
Speaker
yeah i can't remember what it was we learned about it in school there like a couple different things that like contributed to the soil and then it like oh yeah economically they didn't know like that it wasn't sustainable that if like your crops failed like one year that you could just be ruined you know oh yeah it was so dicey back yeah eighteen hundreds nineteen hundreds I remember that's the I would read the um little house books and then when they have little house in the prairie and they're like and then a storm of grasshoppers came along and
01:52:34
Speaker
yeah you know Like biblical times, locusts ate everything. It's terrible. Oh god, excuse me.
01:52:45
Speaker
Sorry.
01:52:49
Speaker
Okay, it's just burps. It's not hiccups. That's good.
01:52:56
Speaker
Yeah, the way everyone else in this house gets hiccups. Um, so Southern farmers started planting the peanuts, yams, and soybeans that, uh, George Washington Carver recommended and the industry had started recovering, which is really cool.
01:53:13
Speaker
At the beginning, the peanut was not even considered as part of a legit crop to plant. It wasn't even on the list, basically. And then 50 years later, it was one of the six leading crops planted throughout the USA. so that was a pretty cool rise. Nice.
01:53:30
Speaker
I know.
01:53:35
Speaker
oh I'm going to go down. Um, I think I read something about in the South alone, it was the second biggest cash crop after cotton or something like that.
01:53:48
Speaker
So it was doing pretty well. Yeah, people realize how good peanut stuff is. and Not just cotton. Yeah.
01:54:01
Speaker
Ugh. something we could eat yeah let's plant actual food especially after war holy shit that always is terrible to farms because they just like soldier you know groups and groups that's not what they call it but squadrons or whatever yeah they'll come in and they'll like well we gotta to keep feeding our army so I guess we're eating all your food and you're like oh great yeah terrible
01:54:36
Speaker
um His goal was to lift up all people starting from the bottom up. He would say he wanted to help the man farthest down. Yeah. Very nice.
01:54:48
Speaker
That's I will never understand trickle-down economics. Never, never fucking convince me it's legitimate. Yeah...
01:55:03
Speaker
I can see the argument when people say a rising tide lifts all boats, but some people are just so much more financially independent and further than the other people that I'm just like, eh, I don't know if the gap gave a rich person, $10,000.
01:55:20
Speaker
Do you think they would spend it if they had $90,000 in their bank account? Probably not. but if No, are they going to spend it back on you or the community? Like, no. yeah If you give 10 people $1,000, how likely is that to immediately go back into the economy through, like...
01:55:40
Speaker
ah buying food, buying clothing, or what? Probably at least half of them immediately, if it's not going towards bills, are going to buy something right away. So, like, which one stimulated the economy, huh? like
01:55:54
Speaker
Yeah, the stories we see. I can't understand it. Yeah, where people just have a little bit, but what from little they have, they give back. And we just see that so many times, again, like in your story and stuff.
01:56:08
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like, oh yeah, most most rich people get rich through like exploitation and loopholes and all that kind of stuff. So like why why do you want to give them more money? Because the off chance maybe one day you too might be rich?
01:56:25
Speaker
like What are the chances? about you try and... Yeah, how about you... If you really voted for somebody that was going to give you money, like they could give you money now.
01:56:36
Speaker
why Why don't you want money now? You would rather bet it on more money in the future? my that you're probably never gonna see? i'd I'd rather get more money now.
01:56:48
Speaker
Or less money. Let's not leave the the wealth with the powerful elite that have always had it. Yeah. I'm cool with that. Clearly it hasn't worked. Like... Oh, yeah.
01:57:00
Speaker
Like, people think they'll be happy with a certain amount of money, and yet they just get greedier. Yeah. Nope. Seems to be a... Yeah.
01:57:12
Speaker
Alright, well, we are trying to talk about those few that inspire us, so... ah Yeah. A little bit more about Dr. Carver here. Because he was a doctor.
01:57:23
Speaker
really fought for that education. Yeah, he did. He brought it to the people. you brought it to the people, right? Yeah, he really did.
01:57:35
Speaker
he It said, took a holistic approach to knowledge, which embraced faith and inquiry in a unified quest for truth. Carver also believed that commitment to a larger reality is necessary if science and technology are to serve human needs rather than the egos of the powerful. Shit.
01:57:59
Speaker
Love him. So true. yeah His belief in service was a direct outgrowth and expression of his wedding of inquiry inquiry and commitment. And that was a quote. If you couldn't tell, that's not how I really talk talk.
01:58:16
Speaker
But very enlightening, I found. So I included it. Yeah.
01:58:22
Speaker
Also, one of his favorite sayings sayings was, it is not the style of clothes one wears, neither the kind of automobile one drives, nor the amount of money one has in the bank that counts.
01:58:35
Speaker
These mean nothing. It is simply service that measures success.
01:58:42
Speaker
Cool. Yeah. like that. Yeah, totally. He's like, that doesn't matter. Yeah. But like, oh, it's so barely like true. It's true today, even though we might not say automobile, but like it still rings very true.
01:58:59
Speaker
Yeah.
01:59:02
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The, the university website there that, uh, he worked for, that was one of my sources said he had a favorite poem called equipment by Edgar, a guest.
01:59:14
Speaker
Um, I did read it. It's on the website. Um, it was beautiful, but I did not include it for length. So, Oh, yeah, I, you know, me, sometimes I go long, but he recited as his commencement address at Selma university.
01:59:33
Speaker
in Alabama in May of 1942. forty two Okay. pretty cool. Which I had made a typo and said it was Salem University.
01:59:47
Speaker
I was really trying to type things and then just like type in completely the opposite things. What is wrong with you fingers? Yeah. Yeah.
02:00:01
Speaker
It's hard. Yeah. I did something when I was typing my notes. I can't remember what it was, but it was, I think I realized it like 30 seconds later and I looked back at the word I had typed and was like, wow, that is not at all what that was supposed to be.
02:00:18
Speaker
ah and that spellcheck didn't get you? And you're like, um, grammar? No, because it was still a word, but it was like a totally different word. Okay. ah Yeah, spellcheck wasn't like, ah this sentence makes no sense.
02:00:32
Speaker
Okay. It was like, oh, that's fine. like You can put that there. Yeah, think you know what you're saying. Yeah. It's a word. You're good. Nothing like, I'd recommend clarifying this sentence. It makes no sense.
02:00:46
Speaker
Yeah. One I had earlier, I tried to write up and then I just wrote the letter U and I don't think it flagged it as not a word. And I was like, wait.
02:00:57
Speaker
the letter you yeah like bad texting words like how are you are you and don't know how are you how are you but late or later oh but i did have a funny like ah a group of ah vehicles i was processing earlier this week their whole they had personalized license plates one was i haunt you i was like oh you're cute i love you
02:01:30
Speaker
what was the other Oh, one was like no pulse. I was like, wow, you're really into this. And I couldn't wait to see what the third one was. and wealthy a It was a theme, yeah.
02:01:43
Speaker
That one I couldn't process because they had something incorrect on it. But the plate, when I sounded it out, was frighten you. But it was like F-R-I, like fry. And then it was like the number 10 and then you it was it was a tough one because i couldn't see it with the spaces and frightened me if it had yeah it was i was like what and then i was like oh okay that's cool people be creative and sometimes they get away with semi-sounding sexy ones where you're like they're supposed to be like who vetted and if it's too gross they're supposed to be like denied so it's weird
02:02:28
Speaker
things i get through somebody's getting paid off on the inside of me like i know i there was one the other day where people were like what is it hard for you it was something that sounded like weirdly dirty we're like okay surprised that one went through anyway oh my god i'm so sorry Let me finish George Washington Carver, ah which was only my first guy. um He had some interesting and some of my favorite of his products that he made with these peanuts to get them selling.
02:03:07
Speaker
Like I said, I'm not going to list all 300, but there were some interesting ones. oh Like salted peanuts. Again, not that, you know, hard to make.
02:03:20
Speaker
But ah he invented something. I think it was peanut butter regular number three. So it was like a type of peanut butter. and Regular number three? yeah I believe so. And that because Pat said something about Canadians inventing it, I did look it up and have a fun fact in just a minute about who might have made number one. Oh, he made the third peanut butter? is it crunchy? I think so.
02:03:48
Speaker
Did he make crunchy butter? ah something like that it's like a third patented one or something because he also made breakfast foods one through five even though they kept interspersing them in the list it was like breakfast food one peanut butter breakfast food two peanut something but it's like okay so you made a bunch of breakfast foods um peanut yeah peanut butter pancakes Yeah, like, i don't know how these patents work, but they're, like, all specifically different. It's, like, butter from peanut milk, pancake flour, peanut flour, peanut surprise.
02:04:30
Speaker
Malted peanut. surprise. i know, that just sounds like casserole. That sounds like it comes from the candy aisle.
02:04:40
Speaker
I think it's some sort of casserole. I don't know. ah ah That one I did not at. Can you imagine being in, like... the 18 whatever and just being hearing about peanut surprise like that's not how you named anything back then peanut surprise that's like some shit they do now where it's like whatever I guess. Although, I've been tempted to follow some YouTubes where they do the like old ass dishes from like war times. I'm like, oh, that's probably where some of our weird dishes come from. Yeah, it's like, here's an onion with peanut butter cooked. And you're like, wait, that wasn't a thing. it basically seemed like it was whatever you had in your cupboard. Yeah.
02:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, because you were broke. I'm going to make tomato soup. Okay, we have boiling water and we have packets of ketchup. Now we have tomato soup. I'm like, oh, great. That's depression food, okay? That's what they ordered in restaurants. They would ask for a bowl of hot water and they would whip out a packet of ketchup. And that's how they made soup. Ooh, I could see that though.
02:05:49
Speaker
Because you could get a bowl of hot water for free at a restaurant. so you would just bring your own ketchup. Now you had soup. no i have one my mom my mom's mom would make the tuna plus mushroom soup mix over potato chips i also have learned it's delicious over rice because i had a roommate that ate it over rice so i knew i wasn't the only one that ever tried it but it does seem like a very depression era like You have two canned things and a carb in your um yeah cover. What do you do with it on chopped to make a dish? No vegetable.
02:06:31
Speaker
We don't need it. We don't pretend in this house. We can't afford that. vegetable. Oh, I'm sorry. This one was so fun, though. um Okay, yeah. So he came up with all that peanut surprise the malted peanut bisque powder chocolate coated peanuts can't say we haven't all tried those M&M's my favorite kind of M&M's I can't stand the real M&M's but the peanut ones oh I'm into it see and I don't like the chocolate covered I don't like peanut M&M's I like the regular ones do you like Smarties which are basically the Canadian
02:07:17
Speaker
M&M's. Okay. I don't like either of them. They're just candy coated chocolate. don't know. Yeah, like that's all it needs to be.
02:07:29
Speaker
It's candy. It's fine. It's fine. Okay, that wasn't the end of it though. Chili sauce, meat substitutes, peanut cakes one and two, dry coffee, instant coffee, choy, wait,
02:07:47
Speaker
That's not a real word. Chop suey sauce. That's what I was writing. Mock oysters. He made instant coffee?
02:07:58
Speaker
i don't understand. But yes. And apparently these are all still the peanut products.
02:08:07
Speaker
Huh. Does it taste... Can I get peanut butter ins instant coffee, please, right now? have idea. I was very confused about some of it. And I also need chocolate instant coffee. And then can mix them together and it's Reese's peanut butter coffee.
02:08:22
Speaker
i mean... Honestly, the cocoa plant. I can see them both being involved. But, like, it starts getting out there to which I'm like, are you making this with only peanuts? Because I don't understand.
02:08:37
Speaker
When they get to the mock oysters, the mayo, the Worcestershire sauce...
02:08:47
Speaker
i'm done this is insanity peanut meatloaf was one of them just so you know no yes it's like the original beyond beef i think yeah that's impressive actually is though i'm like what were you doing shredded peanuts okay Now you're just chopping them different. Shredded? They're so little. They're so little. How do you shred that?
02:09:17
Speaker
That was one of the... Graded peanut patents or whatever. I don't know. Peanut sprouts, peanut bisque powder, cooking oil. He apparently made salad oil and mock meats that included mock duck, goose, chicken, veal, and then curds, vinegar, peanut pickles, or peanut relishes. I'm sorry.
02:09:41
Speaker
I lost my place. Sausage. I think he's just adding peanuts to stuff and then being like, can you taste the peanuts? If you can't taste the peanuts, they're patent hit.
02:09:51
Speaker
Now the peanuts magically hidden and you need to keep putting peanuts in there. There's peanuts there, I swear. Yeah. I can totally see it. I invented something. No. It's probably not what happened, but I like to think of it.
02:10:04
Speaker
They literally make things that I'm like, does this even make sense that you can make this product with only... peanuts or with mainly peanuts? It's not with only. yeah it can't be with only. A significant ingredient, but it's it can't be mainly. Other than maybe the oil, like peanut oil.
02:10:24
Speaker
think Oh, and that's because you haven't even heard the tail end of this product rant. makes a car, an airplane out of peanuts.
02:10:36
Speaker
I mean, some of them were almost equally unbelievable to me. A peanut tank. A peanut house. Well, the oil, laundry soap.
02:10:47
Speaker
Wait, did I say that one? Okay. Caramel, butterscotch, sweet pickle, something called capital G, golden nuts.
02:10:59
Speaker
Sorry. Which I can't get over. Something called cheese cream, which I don't know if that means it's like cream cheese.
02:11:10
Speaker
please somebody research it all of these ones are apparently the peanut derivatives like i just don't understand not even done
02:11:25
Speaker
there's 300 oh yes yeah and they had like quite a few um categories listed on some websites like Jeopardy I tell you well some of them said things that don't make sense to me in the context still ah such as cheese pimento isn't that an olive from what understand like a pimento loaf yeah it's like a yeah meat loaf that has pimento olives in it cheese nutsage
02:12:07
Speaker
And Tootie Fruity. Tootie Fruity.
02:12:13
Speaker
It's so very 70s. um Don't ask any more questions. Cocoa, pickles, laundry soap, peanut orange punch, peanut kumas beverage, normal no so peanut beverage, and more.
02:12:27
Speaker
And those are just some of my favorites of his apparent peanut inventions. I like how it wasn't just like, ah here's the peanut oil, here's peanut milk, here's peanut as a powder. It was like, here's all the things you can put it in.
02:12:46
Speaker
know, I thought that was like a really modern... And then proceeds like, whisk off like, everything you could possibly make in your in your diet. And then be like, but you can make it with peanuts. forget the peanuts. Right? Like, nowadays we're like, oh, yeah, there's lots of vegetarian options.
02:13:04
Speaker
But this guy was like, wait. You guys don't want to grow cotton anymore? Yeah, let me show you what you do with peanuts.
02:13:14
Speaker
Which is crazy. Let me show you the golden... The golden... The golden nuts? no Like... Literally, that was like capital letters had no explanation. i was like, i have no idea what this means.
02:13:31
Speaker
I love it. I cannot not include it. I'm
02:13:38
Speaker
and not being true to myself. That's wild. It is. and honestly, that one
Garrett Morgan: Inventions and Legacy
02:13:46
Speaker
was so funny. I... ah yeah i I had that was he was the one that there's like I would say the most about of his influence on American history and stuff um but he was literally like my first guy i had 8 pages total he took up maybe 4 of them so you know what that's fine yeah
02:14:20
Speaker
But, okay, I think we can fit in some about this other guy who was called Garrett Morgan. um okay He, again, someone probably not most people have heard of, but and was significant.
02:14:38
Speaker
He did some things. He invented some stuff. And he was a Pisces, born March 4th, 1877 in Paris, Kentucky. What up?
02:14:50
Speaker
um Oh, one of seven children. That sounds familiar. Yeah. They just kept popping out kids then, didn't they? but They hadn't invented peanut condoms yet, I guess.
02:15:07
Speaker
Peanut flavored condoms?
02:15:14
Speaker
I honestly had the thought to myself, wow, now we have so many nut allergies. Yeah.
02:15:21
Speaker
not allergies like yours yeah So funny. um So Garrett was the, his mother was the daughter of a Baptist minister and she was of Indian and African descent.
02:15:35
Speaker
So I think he was like, they mentioned it being mixed race, but um like, I don't know if one of the mixed race was white.
02:15:47
Speaker
He did seem to be pretty dark skinned. might've had one. I was like, should I include one picture on these people? Yeah. ah Yeah. And probably I do have one or two pictures, but did I put them on the drive yet? I don't know, Kelsey.
02:16:02
Speaker
I don't know.
02:16:05
Speaker
That was, uh, earlier. Ooh, that was the drive. Here we go. Uh... I did make a sort of folder that just said new folder.
02:16:20
Speaker
That's what we do.
02:16:25
Speaker
Okay, let's put him up there. There, he might be in there. Three files. Oh, that's not very many. Okay.
02:16:36
Speaker
Alright.
02:16:39
Speaker
Either way, I think if I only... might have only one found one photo of him and he was pretty dark-skinned. um But what is debated is whether or not his father, sydneyney was a free man that was free since 1863 and was also the son of a Confederate colonel, ah John Hunt Morgan.
02:17:04
Speaker
So that would have been a white guy, you know, fighting on the side of the South. Um, so it's, it has been debated whether that's true or not. Maybe that just gives people more of a dramatic, like, Oh, he had a white,
02:17:24
Speaker
a confederate colonel for a daddy but like like he can help that yeah so many biracial children from yeah like master slash enslaved person
02:17:43
Speaker
six i don't know what else you want to call it rape maybe i hope it wasn't that for this but like Yeah, we're not sure if his son is if his father was Sidney Morgan.
02:17:57
Speaker
Wikipedia would tell you that he's born too old for that to be the case. um But it also had some fun tidbits about his life, like his hemp farming history and how his second wife came down with a condition that was called milk leg.
02:18:19
Speaker
And she had to have it amputated and that sounded gross.
02:18:25
Speaker
you I know I'd never heard of Milk Lake before honestly i had no I don't even know there was something weird and we probably have a better name for it now honestly and probably it was there maybe i just didn't want to get too in the weeds cause I just get so hung up on the weirdest details um He was married first to a lady named Madge Nelson from 1896, sorry, to 1898.
02:19:00
Speaker
And then to a lady named Mary Hasek from 1908 to 1963. So that was his love of his life. You look horrified. no i was just yawning.
02:19:13
Speaker
Oh no, you're reading about milk leg. was like, oh dear. Okay. Um, He had three children with his second wife, Mary. So he had Cosmo, Henry Morgan, Garrett Augustus Morgan Jr. And John Pierpont Morgan.
02:19:34
Speaker
ah so i was like, isn't Henry Morgan the name of Dexter's father? Maybe. Or Harry. Yeah.
02:19:42
Speaker
Oh, I think Harry.
02:19:46
Speaker
and do think they might be the same because I've heard them refer to prince harry as having his birth name being henry which i was like whoa didn't even know that not like harold or something would have thought right yeah why would harry be um a nickname for henry i don't get nicknames sometimes but yeah same they're very weird
02:20:12
Speaker
So, yeah, they had three beautiful children and then he started inventing things in his later years. He invented the three way traffic light and something that was like an early form of the gas mask.
02:20:27
Speaker
And he was also known to have called himself the Black Edison. but what's kind of fun That's cool. right like i just album him going i'm black superman in that one movie it's probably one of the fast and furious so so oh i guess this should have gone back a bullet or two he had moved to cincinnati for work as a teenager he had elementary school education and then paid for private tutors to try and continue his learning.
02:21:00
Speaker
um Early on, he had learned to sew and then obtained a patent for an improved sewing device and then opened his own repair business. That's when he married his second wife, Mary Hasek, but she was unfortunately excommunicated by her family from the Catholic church because she was white.
02:21:20
Speaker
So they didn't like that, or at least her parents didn't. Um, which forced her siblings to have to visit her in secret because she married a black man or whatever. know.
02:21:36
Speaker
Um, he stumbled upon a solution that was like an early hair straightener of sorts. Kind of fun. oh And that was when he was working with a sewing machine still.
02:21:47
Speaker
i love these accidental inventions. They're the best. Yeah. like I'm trying to do this. I accidentally straightened hair. yeah was trying to fix heart disease and then my penis kept popping up. So I think I invented Viagra. Yeah.
02:22:05
Speaker
I think that's one of my favorites or something. um So he gets this idea from a woolen fabric that had been scorched by a sewing machine needle, which apparently was common at the time due to the high running speeds of the machines.
02:22:20
Speaker
um So then he experiments with the chemical... chemical?
02:22:27
Speaker
i don't know. Chemical solution to help reduce friction from the needle and notices the hairs of the fabric go straighter. He then tests out the solution on his dog and himself.
02:22:40
Speaker
he like... Oh, he's the dog alone. well he's just doing his hair straightening the dog's hair but a relaxer then know yes i think so yeah it did remind me i had listened to a ah podcast recently where one of the segments was on uh people that's like self experimented with their projects on themselves i think it was a night classy one it was really interesting
02:23:15
Speaker
Well, couldn't get anyone else to try it on, so I'm going to try it on myself. Yeah. um But, like, that is kind of his first foray into inventing.
02:23:29
Speaker
He tests this fabric thing out on yeah his dog's hair, his own hair. straightens it out. He makes a bit of money from it. um So he then experiments with a prototype machine.
02:23:42
Speaker
ah safety hood is usually what they call the first part it's to help fire department department you know people mitigate smoke gas other things they have to inhale and is a precursor to like ah the first world war one gas mask kind of thing yeah that's pretty cool And he had to hire, i guess, a white dude to kind of ask as like a ghost writer, inventor person because racism.
02:24:15
Speaker
ah Yeah. To get it to sell. Spokesman. I don't know. It said then he disguised himself as a sidekick called Big Chief Mason. And I was like, so then you were like, I'm a Native American.
02:24:31
Speaker
But apparently it worked.
02:24:36
Speaker
um so this was all a precursor to him working up to inventing some bigger things uh working up to like the traffic light so he was actually the first black man in cleveland to own a car ever so great good for him he must have had money at that point Oh, yeah, right? Like, that's quite the um accomplishment to be like, I'm the first black guy to have a car here.
02:25:03
Speaker
you imagine all the white people have been like driving around and then you see him drive past in his car too and you just go, fuck. The music playing. Yeah, yeah. And he's like, yeah, I got a car too.
02:25:17
Speaker
I know. I hear like Snoop Dogg. Yeah. yeah But like he's so good at everything that he picks up. So he's fixing up cars, car parts, belt fasteners, and anything mechanical at all. He's tweaking and, you know, making better and whatever. yeah It's so impressive.
02:25:41
Speaker
He develops a friction drive clutch, which don't even know. I know what a clutch is, but I can't drive automatic. Yeah. um Then finally in 1923, he adds a new signal on the traffic light that is a third signal to warn of an impending stop or an impending red light.
02:26:03
Speaker
Cause he'd seen a crash at a high collision location nearby his house and it it inspired him. Like, why don't we have a third thing that tells us when it's going to go red to green? Yeah.
02:26:14
Speaker
I think we need, at this point, we need a fourth thing or we need to make the third one longer. Yeah. Because it still feels too sudden. ah Some people just don't know what to do.
02:26:25
Speaker
You're like, no no, that's your chance. to You either speed up if you think you can make it or you slow down because you can't. Yeah. Like, you're supposed to not slam on your brakes and get rear-ended. No. It's mean that you can proceed.
02:26:41
Speaker
while it's still safe to do so into the intersection exactly it's like none of them are even watching to see if it's going to become yellow like it's all about being prepared
02:26:55
Speaker
and then i think a little bit the Gravity Falls episode where Grunkle Stan is like, yellow lights mean speed up. I'm like, sometimes. Just a better way.
02:27:10
Speaker
Better than slamming on your brakes if the person behind you is really in wintertime. Exactly. Especially in wintertime. You could get yourself rear-ended every five minutes slamming on your brakes at every yellow light like that.
02:27:22
Speaker
No. Yeah. so Everybody sucks. So he then got patents for this three-way traffic light in the UK, the US, and Canada, and then sold the rights to General Electric for about $40,000 at the time,
02:27:40
Speaker
probably i'm pretty good yeah but yeah I was like, get you some.
02:27:46
Speaker
And so smart. Despite his later failing health, it said he also invented a self-extinguishing cigarette, which contained a sort of water pellet just before the filter that would like, I guess, put it out. But I've never like seen them employed in day to day. Yeah. Yeah.
02:28:07
Speaker
sounds interesting interesting i mean he's trying to make the world safer oh yeah making like traffic safer and then trying to make like i was gonna say smoking safer but that's still not good health wise but i mean on yeah he's one of those type of people like the person that volkswagen that came up with the seatbelt and then was like well I can't just keep this for myself this is a good safety measure for everyone and that's like the way I wish people would be about every invention that we need like oh sorry you came up with a cure for cancer but you won't make money off it too bad patent it anyway everybody needs it like you will get the like recognition you deserve or whatever ah speaking of recognition you hope they deserved
02:29:00
Speaker
Let me finish up the story. Uh, his heroic indeeded next came in the form of the what was called the Cleveland, Cleveland, Cleveland tunnel explosion, um, or disaster in 1916. new tunnel was being, uh, built under Lake Erie, guess, or a portion of it, which I know it sounds really dangerous to me, but I don't know.
02:29:27
Speaker
Um, Like, it said they were being excavated for ah fresh water supply when they hit a pocket of natural gas. So, this trapped workers underground, and Garrett and his brother put on their masks and went in. So he had had that safety mask that was a prototype. Yeah.
02:29:51
Speaker
Using that ah to breathe... the a the terrible air in underground, they were able to save two lives and retrieve four bodies from the tunnel using their safety hoods.
02:30:03
Speaker
um Really ah almost a miracle. Yet instead of being commended, the reveal that this black man was the one that was selling all these products that people liked, it actually hurt their sales because, you know, being heroic while black or whatever.
02:30:21
Speaker
yeah he went in there and risked his life to save your lives but he's black and i've been buying his stuff yeah it's just oh my god terrible he was nominated for a carnegie medal but he did not win it nor did his brother get any recognition in their lifetime either sadly He was an early member of the NAACP, active in the Cleveland Association of Colored Men, donated to black colleges, opened an all-black country club, and invested heavily in his own son's education. he That was really cool.
02:31:01
Speaker
Yeah. He got glaucoma in 1943 and lost a lot of his sight. And he had other health issues at this time at the end of his life. And they were likely somewhat to do with the toxins inhaled during the disaster of the tunnel.
02:31:18
Speaker
Or so he figured. But, you know, like someone's go to check him out and actually confirm that. Right. I think it'd be pretty hard. Yeah. yeah that's true.
02:31:33
Speaker
find me Right before he passed, he was given an honor by the government for his inventions. At the time, he was 86, and he had just about almost made it to see the celebration of the Emancipation emancipation Proclamation Centennial in Chicago.
02:31:52
Speaker
So he didn't make it to that, but that was like the anniversary of when Abraham Lincoln... Abraham Lincoln.
02:32:03
Speaker
Is that a name?
02:32:07
Speaker
Lincoln issued the preliminary um proclaate proclamation to kind of release all enslaved people, but it was just in the states that were currently engaged in rebellion against the Union. so it was basically like, we release all the people from the southern states in the Confederacy.
02:32:28
Speaker
was like, okay. um But nowadays, Garrett Morgan is buried at Lakeview Cemetery, along with President James Garfield, the leader of the Untouchables, Elliot Ness, and John D. Rockefeller.
02:32:42
Speaker
And in 2005, he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in Akron, Ohio. And they have even named the Garrett Morgan School of Engineering and Innovation in Cleveland after him. It's very cool. Nice.
02:32:57
Speaker
I know.
Marie von Britton Brown: Home Security Innovation
02:33:01
Speaker
so and The first guy it took so long to talk about that I was like, I couldn't fit other people.
02:33:09
Speaker
But very briefly, I touched on a cool inventor woman who helped invent the first security system. and was a black lady named Marie von Britton Brown.
02:33:23
Speaker
nice Yeah, this is, sorry, and this is quite shorter, just because we're running a little bit late. She was born in October 22nd, 1922 in Queens, New York.
02:33:39
Speaker
She was a nurse whose husband was also an electronics technician. um I think he helped, and that's why they call her the co-inventor of the security system.
02:33:50
Speaker
But they lived in Queens where the police presence was slow and very unreliable in their neighborhood. So she often felt unsafe when home alone at night because they were like working shift work and not home at the same time. Obviously still a problem today.
02:34:07
Speaker
So she had helped devise a camera device that she could see on a monitor from her like bedroom where, and because it was that type of camera, she's also credited with inventing the first closed circuit TV.
02:34:20
Speaker
Which was in 1966. Yeah. it's like Damn. Back. ah Farther than I thought. And... Oh, shit.
02:34:32
Speaker
Okay. ah Yeah, there was one picture that showed how... um like complicated the not complicated, but for us, maybe now it looks a little complicated the device was.
02:34:48
Speaker
Did I get it up there? Folder upload. I can see it suggested files. Um, like prototype pictures, kind of crazy looking new folder. There we go.
02:35:02
Speaker
I'm uploading something that's called new folder. Maybe I already did that. Already exists. Okay, never mind. There's one that's called Marie Van Britton Brown that holds, that shows a diagram of the system.
02:35:18
Speaker
Anyway, it was the basis for a two-way communication and surveillance features of a modern security system and involved three peepholes, which were at different heights in the door, I guess, because it was like one for tall people, one for average height people, and one for like, if a child was to come up to the door, at like different height peepholes.
02:35:37
Speaker
Yeah. And the camera slid up and down a track that allow it to see through all the different peepholes that then projected wirelessly to a monitor um in whatever room, you know, she was in.
02:35:52
Speaker
And the speaker, the two way speaker allowed them to talk to the person at the door and then either press a button to either call the cops or just open the door. it was very much like, yeah, yeah.
02:36:04
Speaker
Like what a modern security system is. Yeah. That's wild. okay Okay. In 66. I know. She filed a patent in August of that year titled home security system, utilizing television surveillance. And then it was approved on December 2nd, 1969.
02:36:24
Speaker
Then won them an award from the national scientist committee in an interview with the New York times.
02:36:31
Speaker
And it said it took off from there. It kind of laid the foundation for quote, later security systems that make use of its features, such as video monitoring, remote control door locks, push button alarm triggers, instant messaging to security providers and police, as well as two way communications or comms.
02:36:53
Speaker
Yeah. That's like crazy. Everything. Like, what did they What have they added to this in, like, 60 years?
02:37:05
Speaker
Like, she perfected it on the first Idea kind of remains the same. It's just, like, it seems like our technology of how to, like, monitor it It's like, oh, what do you want to do? You want to contact the cops. You want to unlock the door. You want to talk to the person. You want to see them on the screen. She just, like, hit everything. And it was like, okay. Well, like, how...
02:37:23
Speaker
i Sure, we can make the wait the signal no stronger, but like, what did you ever do that she didn't do on the first try? It's certainly about that episode of Friends we're watching where Joey's like, you're gonna move it across the street?
02:37:39
Speaker
We can use the cup thing! And you're like, no, Joey. We have phones now. it But yeah, I can't believe how far back the initial idea went. yeah It seems like so it's so much more modern.
02:37:54
Speaker
Yeah, like, I would have, if you had told me, oh, yeah, like, it'll, um, it'll send a radio frequency to her room, and she can hear it on the radio. A telegraph, yeah. Um, I would have been like, oh, okay, cool, but then you're like, oh, yeah, now she can unlock the door, now she can alert the cops, now she can talk back to And I was like, holy shit.
02:38:15
Speaker
Oh, and look at the, um there's kind of, like, a diagram, which was maybe one of the only reasons I wanted to put any pictures up. If you look now, it kind of was like, it shows like the people from the door and then it's like pointing arrows to the, all the way to the bedroom or the room the person is that can monitor. And that was just like, this looks like so complicated back in the day. I don't know.
02:38:40
Speaker
Yeah. Like feel like this is crazy. oh yeah. Yeah. It's obviously gotten so much more complex, but according to the articles, some of her more simple rudimentary systems are still used, you know, basically the same way by small businesses, homes, apartments, and condos.
02:39:01
Speaker
And then kind of cue one of her two kids, because she had Albert Jr. and Norma. Her daughter Norma also became a nurse and inventor and followed in her mother's footsteps.
02:39:12
Speaker
Yeah.
02:39:15
Speaker
And that's the story of... What was our first name? I just said that. I said, Marie died on February 2nd, 1999. Marie... Ben... Britton?
02:39:29
Speaker
Brown? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. There's definitely some... I didn't even get into all the... You know, there was other female ones that I saw that I was like, oh, if I had the time to cover them...
02:39:42
Speaker
The first, like, black female's entire list. Oh, totally. I had, I don't know, I think it was like 10 or 11. And o and i was just like, oh my gosh, this is too many. Right? When you stumble upon, like, the listicles where everything is super interesting, you're like, okay, maybe we'll have another episode.
02:40:06
Speaker
Yeah. was good. I really enjoyed that too. Well, thanks for sticking with us. I know it probably took a little while, but yeah, that was really good one. It'll be a ah long episode.
02:40:19
Speaker
Yeah. Y'all love it You know, we'll let us know. don't know until next week, I guess. Keep it k cryptic. Yeah.