Welcome back to the show.
It's Black History Month.
And guys, we are not doing too well.
I think we need a refresher.
I'm looking at you, Virginia.
ANNOUNCER: Hi, kids.
It's February again, which means it's time for "Great
Moments in Black history."
Rosa Parks sat down.
Martin Luther King made a speech.
Uh-- um-- uh--
Barack Obama.
This has been "Great Moments in Black History."
I'm sorry, what?
No.
That is not all of black history.
ANNOUNCER: Uh, but my notes say that--
Are you kidding me?
You have not learned enough about black history.
People know Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman,
and not even really a whole lot about them.
We can only talk about the bus boycott
and "I Have a Dream" speech.
When we get to the Civil Rights movement,
it's literally just King and X.
ANNOUNCER: Well, I definitely remember
learning about the Civil Rights movement.
1968-- when racism ended.
[LAUGHTER]
19-when?
68?
Did Trump wake up this morning?
ANNOUNCER: Come on, guys.
Didn't the great Martin Luther King Junior tell us
that we all have to get along?
Absolutely not.
ANNOUNCER: Wait, what?
King is difficult. He is challenging, uncompromising.
At the end of his life, a radical Social Democrat
who denounced the United States government as the greatest
purveyor of violence on the planet.
JAMILAH LEMIEUX: But again, that doesn't really make
for a good Hallmark moment.
JELANI COBB: No.
You can't separate children from their parents at the border
and then tweet out congratulations about Martin
Luther King's great legacy.
ANNOUNCER: Next, you're going to tell
me that George Washington Carver didn't even invent the peanuts.
JELANI COBB: That's so wrong, I don't even know where to start.
ANNOUNCER: OK, your turn.
What do you want to teach these kids?
I mean, Rosa Parks was another person
who was hidden in plain sight.
She's not who you think she is.
ANNOUNCER: Oh, I think I know exactly who she is.
A brave seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama.
When the bus driver ordered her to move, she quietly--
so quietly-- said, no.
JAMILAH LEMIEUX: Wrong again.
Rosa was not a tired lady on the bus.
She was a Freedom Fighter.
She was a liberator.
She was a badass.
Rosa Parks was a radical.
JELANI COBB: Before 1955, when we know about the bus boycott,
Ms. Parks had a long history as an investigator,
where she would gather information
on sexual assaults committed against black women
in the South.
And she was concerned with women's rights
and reproductive freedom.
There was no Olivia Benson back then, right?
There's no SVU unit that's showing up to investigate.
[GASP]
ANNOUNCER: Oh my god.
That would be such a good show.
Just-- just-- just-- just stop.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you all.
I-- I've learned so much.
And that's all of black history.
How old were you when your mind just got
up and walked away from you?
ANNOUNCER: OK, good point.
Who's next?
I think that Bayard Rustin is one
of the people who's kind of almost
criminally under recognized.
ANNOUNCER: Oh, yeah.
Bynar Frarbart.
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: No.
Bayard Rustin was a lifelong organizer
who played a critical and strategic role in the March
on Washington, which was certainly
seen as a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights movement.
He was an activist for labor rights and civil rights.
He's a peace activist.
He's doing anti-war protests.
ANNOUNCER: Wow.
But if that's the case, why haven't I heard of him?
It's because he was gay.
He was openly gay in a period of history where to do so
was to open yourself up to arrest.
He is black, gay, socialist, pacifist.
Right, like, he's actually America's worst nightmare.
He worked to alert the NAACP to the emerging AIDS crisis.
But he would experience discrimination
and marginalization within the Civil Rights movement.
[SCOFF]
ANNOUNCER: Who's this guy?
I was Bayard Rustin's partner for the last 10 years
of his life. ANNOUNCER: Oh.
OK, Yeah.
Sorry, sir.
We met sometime around mid-April in 1977.
We were both on the corner, waiting for a light to change.
And we kind of looked at each other and started talking.
And the conversation went on for 10 years.
ANNOUNCER: Wow.
That's so sweet.
You know, after listening to you guys,
I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm the idiot.
Yep.
Mm-hmm.
ANNOUNCER: Oh.
Sometimes it's a little frustrating
to see Bayard overlooked.
But I also understand what happens
when people write history.
The problem with sanitizing black history
is that we really neuter it of its usefulness in the present.
Understanding that history gives us some insight
into the dramatic disparities that often
exist between African Americans and the rest
of American society.
This is not just my child's history or the history
of people who look like us.
It is American history.
To leave people out of that, to leave these stories
of challenge, to leave these stories of triumph,
to leave these stories of heartbreak and failure
out of that means that you're telling an incomplete story.
ANNOUNCER: Whoa.
I wonder who else we're leaving out.
GEORGE WALLACE: Redd Foxx, Simon Davis Junior, and Lena Horne.
JAMILAH LEMIEUX: Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes.
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: Medgar Evers.
WALTER NAEGLE: A. Philip Randolph.
JELANI COBB: Recy Taylor.
Dr. Carter G. Woodson.
KEEANGA-YAMAHTTA TAYLOR: The Black Lives Matter movement.
This is the story of America.
And, like, the way that we tell the story of who we've been
will determine who we become.
ANNOUNCER: Because black history isn't just history.
It's happening now.
And now.
It's almost like it just keeps happening.
OK.
All right.
Now you're getting it.
ANNOUNCER: Huh.
Guess I'm invited to the cookout.
Please stop.
ANNOUNCER: By the way, when slash where is the cookout?
Oh, and has anyone signed up to bring the mayonnaise salad yet?
Yeah, no.
There's no cookout.
ANNOUNCER: This has been just a few
of the many "Great Moments in Black History."
Bye, Felicia.
ALL: No.
OK.
Any questions?
E-- everybody got--
read a book.
Read the whole book.
Read it on Twitter.
We'll be right back.