The Folly Chronicles
A mother daughter podcast looking at when historical figures clash with the societal norms of their times.
The Folly Chronicles
Georgia Theresa Gilmore: Cooking for justice
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In Georgia Gilmore's pursuit of Black equality, she fought first with her fists and then with lawsuits – but always with a side of sweet potato pie!
Jo Ann Robinson, a Civil Rights activist, president of the Women’s Political Council (WPC) and a professor at Alabama State College, organized a one-day bus boycott after Rosa Parks’ arrest — which preceded and was crucial to the year-plus 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott. To learn more about the boycotts and Robinson’s remarkable achievement of creating and distributing 35,000 flyers with the help of students and WPC members, read this article (Robinson is mentioned on page 6).
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=thetean
Sources used:
Pies From Nowhere, a children’s book by Dee Romito
The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South, by John T. Edge
Article: Food History & Culture: Meet the Fearless Cook Who Secretly Fed and Funded the Civil Rights Movement, by Maria Godoy
Article: Montgomery Advertising: Plenty With Little and Most Without a Lot, by Safiya Charles
Article: The Clerk’s Black History Series, by Debra DeBerry
Encyclopedia Alabama
Household Workers Unite: The Untold Story of African American Women Who Built a Movement, by Premilla Nadasen
Kids Encyclopedia Facts
NPR: Morning Edition/Hidden Kitchen series, 2005 and NPR: Code Switch, 2023
The cookbook Gwen mentioned that Georgia Gilbert’s 7-Up cake would fit right in! 50+1 Weird Recipes cookbook by Val Dutton.
Hi, and welcome to the Folly Chronicles, a mother-daughter podcast looking at historical figures who clashed with the societal norms of their times.
SPEAKER_02I'm Fail, the mom.
SPEAKER_01And I'm Gwen, the daughter.
SPEAKER_02Hi, honey.
SPEAKER_01Hi, Mom. How are you today? I'm doing just fine. I've got I've got my mug, my coffee mug here. You are so good. And I guess it's not filled with coffee today. I'm not gonna ask any questions. What are you drinking tonight?
SPEAKER_02Water.
SPEAKER_01Okay, all right. Well, how was your work today?
SPEAKER_02I did not have work today. Because of Memorial Day weekend, I had Friday and I will have Monday off. I'm just so excited. Um so just a chance to get caught up on you know personal business.
SPEAKER_01But is the weather gonna be nice?
SPEAKER_02I was back in a winter jacket today. What in God's name is happening?
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm I'm personally really upset because it was like high 90s all week, and that got quick for when I go to the beach, which I did want to and had planned on going to this weekend, but it's literally going to be raining the entire weekend and like high of 60s. Like it's um it's gonna be miserable. So I'm now I'm now really upset. I will survive, it will be okay, but I was really hoping to have a nice like welcome warm weather, let's go to the beach, hang out at a park type vibe.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we're ready for warm weather. It it just seems like it's an extension of a really long winter.
SPEAKER_01It is, and um my spirit is kind of becoming a little broken by it, but a love bug.
SPEAKER_02No, I'm okay.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry. I shall survive.
SPEAKER_03Well shall we get into it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let's get into it. Okay, so who are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_02So this episode just strikes it a little differently. Okay because of the time frame, the events that we're talking about are really not in the distant past. So our person is Georgia Teresa Gilmore. Okay, I haven't heard of this name before. Yeah, she's tricky to talk about because there are huge chunks of her life story that just aren't covered in the online articles that I found. There are children's books written about her, in fact, several children's books, but no bios. She's mentioned in books, but always in relation to her role in the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, which she was so integral to. Interesting. Um of the info that we have on her early years is conflicting, which I'll flag as we go along. But um, so because we're light on details of Georgia's life, today's session will be almost as much about the bus boycott, which was such an amazing endeavor, and about life in the Jim Crow era of the South. Okay, all right. But no matter how many holes in her history, Georgia Gilmore was such a badass that we just have to say, let's go. Okay.
SPEAKER_01All right, so let's buckle in.
SPEAKER_02And Georgia was a fighter for justice all of her life, first with her fists and then with legislation. Okay, an evolution. I'm excited to hear. Georgia Gilmore was born on February 5, 1920, in Montgomery, Alabama, which was considered by many to be the cradle of Confederacy. Georgia's parents were Taylor Burns and Janie Gilmore, or Eula, or Alice Gilmore and Cleveland Gilmore. Most articles I read had Georgia's mom down as Janie, so that's where we're gonna go with. Okay. Yeah, Georgia was one of five children or seven children or eight children. Whatever its number of members, the family lived on a farm in Montgomery County where Georgia took care of the hogs and chickens. She attended a school run by nuns at the St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. Can I ask a big question?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Where does she stand in the lineup? Do we know? I mean, it sounds like there's not a ton of okay. You're like really pushing, you're really pushing things because I'm telling you, it was just so hard to find. You're so right. You're right. They don't even have the accurate names of her parents or how many siblings she actually had. And here I am. Like, but I just wanted to know because I feel like that was a little bit more. No, no, no, no, I hold on. I'm just saying that you're right. That's my that was my bad, but my reasoning behind it is that um I think personalities have a lot to do where with where kids fall in the lineup. Yeah. She was like one of the older kids, kind of makes sense if she has like a very fiery personality, can do attitude, that sort of thing.
SPEAKER_02Well, she probably is on the upper end just because of information that we'll come to all later, but I I really don't know. So that's fair. Okay. Here we go. So the only other information that I found about her childhood was that she was cooking by the age of eight. And hint that's for shadowing.
SPEAKER_01Interesting. That's very young, but yeah, foreshadowing.
SPEAKER_02Okay. We know that one of her early jobs as a young woman was to lay tracks for a railroad, which is absolutely backbreaking. Wow.
SPEAKER_01And I'm sure getting paid like literal pennies to do that.
SPEAKER_02One thing that is clear throughout her story is that Georgia was not afraid of hard work and lots of it. So fast forward to 1955 when Georgia again popped onto the radar. She's 35 years old, a widow raising six children on the east side of Montgomery in the Centennial Hill District, a middle-class African-American community with a robust black business section. Wow. Georgia's mother lived with her, and along with her own kids, Georgia was helping to raise her little sister and her niece.
SPEAKER_03Wow.
SPEAKER_02The children were in Catholic school, and when she was older, Georgia said she was most proud about funding their education, which is absolutely remarkable considering all of her accomplishments.
SPEAKER_01Okay. That's a big household. That's like a lot of things to juggle. And I'm, you know, lots of people. Lots of people, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yep. So to support her family, Georgia worked multiple jobs, including as a cook at the National Lunch Company, which had a separate white and black counter for customers, as was mandated by law in the General Crow era.
SPEAKER_01Of course, because when you want to be racist, you just build it into your legislation.
SPEAKER_02Correct. So work at the cafe was a family affair. Her sister Alice ran the steam line there, and her teenage son Mark washed the dishes. Sometimes Georgia was paid in chicken feet from the chicken that she fried for the customers. The white owners of the restaurant would not always treat her right, as we will shortly see. But during this time, Georgia's skills in the kitchen were fine-tuned, and she learned the business of running a restaurant. Perhaps more importantly, she gained quite a reputation for her fried chicken and sweet potato pie, all of which will come into play later.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01So let's just go back for a second because it sounds like she is one of the sole like financial providers for multiple children, including and also her mom, and yet she's getting paid in chicken feed. How are you supposed to sustain a household of like eight plus people on that?
SPEAKER_02So her mom's working too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Everybody's contributing.
SPEAKER_01One of the jobs you have, she's working multiple jobs. One of the jobs she has is not even paying her adequately. So I just want to highlight that point.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I I totally agree.
SPEAKER_01It's a slap in the face, that's just like being laughed at.
SPEAKER_02I wouldn't think that that was much. I mean, money is money, right?
SPEAKER_01Money's money.
SPEAKER_02Yep. So Georgia was a big woman, weighing about 350 or 400 pounds. Okay. And had an even bigger personality. She was known for her raunchy language and her generosity both. She went by the nicknames Georgie, Big Mama, and Ma Dear. Martin Luther King Jr. teasingly called her tiny.
SPEAKER_01She called him Heifer. Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_02That is so wild. Benjamin Sims, an Alabama state professor whom Georgia met during the Montgomery boycott bus boycott, said that Georgia was the sweet woman, but no one should rub her the wrong way. I would not want to cross her. That this charming woman once beat up a white man who had mistreated one of her children since. He owned a grocery store, and Mrs. Gilmore marched into his place and wrung him out. The story goes like this: a white store owner would not sell a loaf of bread and a box of laundry detergent to Georgia's son and grandson. When she heard about it, Georgia stomped down to the store and burst inside, wrenching a pistol out of the owner's hands and then whipped him with it. Oh my word. She pistol whipped him. Isn't that crazy? I mean, considering that everything was stacked for the whites in that era, that took so much courage.
SPEAKER_01And just oh, I wish it could have been a fly on the wall to witness her like barge through that door, charge that man, and the satisfaction of pistol whipping him. And then getting away with it. Like, yeah, you're right. Like that it could have been serious retribution and like exactly her and her family.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and because it was so crazy, word got out through all of Montgomery. Don't mess with Georgia Gilmore, she might cut you.
SPEAKER_01Even the police let her be. Yeah, I could imagine she must have been such a voice that they're like, okay, we don't want to.
SPEAKER_02All right. On December 1st, 1955, Georgia had not yet met either Professor Sims or Martin Luther King Jr. She was at work in the kitchen of the National Lunch Company cooking and quote, listening to the Negro radio, she said, when the music was interrupted with the news that an African-American woman had been arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a bus.
SPEAKER_01Rosa Parks.
SPEAKER_02Rosa Parks. Who said the reason she didn't move from her seat that day was because I felt my rights as a human were being violated. Rosa's act of defiance sparked off one of the most impactful events within the civil rights movement and in George's life as well.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Oh, I'm so excited to hear what role she plays in this.
SPEAKER_02Oh my goodness. It's just remarkable. The whole um, well, what what comes next is just so remarkable.
SPEAKER_01Exciting because obviously we know the household names, Rosa Parks and M. Will K. Jr., but um Georgie Gilmore is someone I haven't heard about before. And yet I'm I'm excited to hear what kind of role she she plays in this. So, okay, keep going.
SPEAKER_02So important. So Rosa Parks was arrested on Thursday. So three days later, on December 4th, the Women's Political Council or WPC, a grassroots civil rights organization led by Alabama State Professor Joanne Robinson, called for a one-day boycott for that Monday, December 5. Wow. Joanne Robinson didn't get any sleep on Saturday night because she was making up flyers for the boycott, because she had been waiting and planning for this day for years.
SPEAKER_01So she already was like plotting in the background, like had already been set in motion this idea for boycott. Absolutely and then she's using this moment as like a launching point for this.
SPEAKER_02Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Hey, also another name I haven't heard of before.
SPEAKER_02Yes, so many women involved in the civil rights movement that we just have not heard about. Right. We know about so many of the men, and they were extremely important and instrumental, but there were so many women that were also very integral to the movement and just don't get the press.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, okay. Well, I'm glad we're giving them their flowers now.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. So Joanne Robinson um went out and she and her members of the WPC distributed 35,000. 35,000. 35,000.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh. I thought there was no way that could be right.
SPEAKER_02I know. Wow. They distributed that around the black community and called on ministers at the local churches asking them to encourage their Sunday congregants to join in the boycott.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that's amazing.
SPEAKER_02Georgia was already on her own boycott.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I'm not surprised.
SPEAKER_02That's our girl. She had experienced an incident with the bus driver two months before Rosa Parks' righteous act and had sworn off all buses. And I'll talk more about that incident later because it becomes very significant.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02But Gwen, why a boycott on buses? Why target buses?
SPEAKER_01Everyone has to take public transportation.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. According to Georgia, bus drivers were the meanest, nastiest people in the world. But most people in the black community in Montgomery did not have their own cars. Bus drivers were crucial in getting workers to their jobs and back.
SPEAKER_01And they knew it. And that's why they used whatever little power they had to make themselves feel so much bigger.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And in the Jim Crow era, blacks were forced to use the back of the bus while whites got the front seats, seats that were held open, even if there were no whites on the bus. That's just I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean it makes sense to be like as cruel as possible, but in my head, I just, you know, I didn't even think about that aspect of it. Like it could be so crowded in the back with just standing room, and seats are available and yet they can sit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And if the bus started filling up with whites, then the blacks were expected to move farther back in the bus. A white person could not sit across from a black person, they had to sit ahead of the blacks to show superiority, explained Claudette Colvin. A few months before Rosa Parks Act, Claudette, at the age of 15, had been arrested for refusing to move from her seat on her way home from school. I felt the hands of Harriet Tubman holding my shoulder down on one side and the hands of Sojourner Truth on the other, she said. I was glued to the seat. She had to sit there listening to the insults and the threats coming from the white passengers until the officers arrived to haul her off the bus and drag her to an adult jail, even though she was just a young teen.
SPEAKER_01And also it just the it's just it's just classic bullying where these rules don't make any sense, they're just there to oppress. Oh, you can't sit across from a white person. If you are, I'm gonna haul you to jail. Like I know so extra cruel, these little details that I think are kind of can become lost to time. Yeah, so this mod we're like highlighting the fact of like just yeah, how cruel it actually could be.
SPEAKER_02Right. So she had an assault charge on her record until at the age of 82, just in 2023. Yes, she petitioned the Montgomery Juvenile Court to clear her record.
SPEAKER_01Oh my gosh, this poor. So, but why assault?
SPEAKER_02Just because she refused to stand up, like well, because she wouldn't do what the police officers said, they hauled her off physically because she refused to move on her own volition. Good, good for her.
SPEAKER_01I I hear you, yes, but also how insane that like she didn't get her record wiped until 2023, and just because she had to go to them too, right?
SPEAKER_02But um, Claudette's parents bailed her out that afternoon, but her father spent that night awake, armed with a shotgun and watching the door, afraid of retribution, which happened all the time.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. I was gonna say it's like you the constant fear and awareness you had to have moving throughout your life as a black person in this time, thinking at any moment, like it could happen. And when you do stick up for yourself and stand up for your rights, what can happen later down the line when the white people catch wind of it and want to retaliate? Oh, that poor father, he must have been terrified.
SPEAKER_02And and Claudette said that because of that that constant fear of retaliation or um aggression by the whites, that most black families owned weapons, yeah, just in anticipation of something like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So and and this is I mean, this is just such a heartbreaking period. I mean, I just it's just so hard.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it's important because that we talk about absolutely impressive. We can so easily forget these little details.
SPEAKER_02we have i think we have forgotten the details no and also just the the fact that like it really is just around the corner in terms of how long ago it was like yes not that long ago yeah so 10 years before rosa parks a woman named violet white refused to give up her seat and was arrested by a police officer named a enger enger was so incensed at Violet's act of rebellion that he then kidnapped her 16 year old daughter and raped her the teenager memorized Enger's license plate which identified him and eventually which much stalling by the courts a warrant was signed for Enger's arrest but before an arrest could happen the police chief tipped Enger off and Enger vanished without facing consequences of course and he got to live the rest of his life without any sort of consequences meanwhile this poor child has just been traumatized beyond belief.
SPEAKER_01And also how horrible it is to be like oh you thought that you could stand up for yourself well I'm gonna target you in the way in that will hurt you the most which is not even towards you but your own child that's the part that is just like so extra insidious of it all it is it's gross.
SPEAKER_02Yeah it is so although this ugliness had gone on for years the timing seemed right when Rosa Parks acted especially because many in the community thought the violence toward them was escalating. One maid said that it was time that they stopped treating us like dogs. Yeah Georgia knew that maids and cooks were crucial to the boycott success. You see they was the ones that really and truly kept the bus running she said and after the maids and the cooks stopped riding the bus well the bus didn't have any need to ride Monday December 5th the day scheduled for the boycott was cloudy with a threat of rain. Would people abandon the boycott because of the weather members of the women's political council who had handed out all those flyers anxiously watched the buses go through town. But you know what the buses were empty the boycott was so successful that the ministers of Montgomery called a meeting that night at Holt Street Baptist Church. pieced together interviews of the women who had been involved in the boycott. Yeah and because it's audio I couldn't identify who said what but someone was grumbling that the women had had to force the men to pay attention to the boycott and then the men took over of course and just as what we were saying earlier it's like it's always a woman doing it but most importantly it's always a black woman doing it.
SPEAKER_01And that is quite literally the reason why we won the 2020 election is thanks to all the black women that pulled together their votes like they were always the ones time and time again because there's so much writing on it as well.
SPEAKER_02So yeah again I'm really glad that you know we're giving them their flowers this episode because they they truly deserve to have their names be absolutely so the meeting that night in 1955 was a catalyst for Georgia the church was full with 5000 people inside and as many people outside hearing the events through loud speakers set up for them. Wow a skinny 26 year old unknown stepped up to speak Martin Luther King Jr. MLK had only just been appointed as minister to a neighboring church the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and was brand new to the area living three blocks away from Georgia his wife Coretta Scott King said that he'd had 20 minutes to organize his keynote speech for that night and it may have been put together in haste but his speech clearly hit the mark Georgia said that she was moved by the young man's words especially these there comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression yeah and he prayed that no one would die during the boycott or that if someone did to let it be him oh my goodness it's crazy to hear the origin of this obviously growing up it's like it's such an integral part of our history and I think now that I'm older it's just so um like me now at 28 I'm older than MLK when he first rose to prominence and him stepping on that stage as a skinny nobody speaking in front of a crowd of over 5,000 people like and the fact that that was the spark and the start of it all and like he couldn't just see that.
SPEAKER_01And it's just like so in my head and as a little kid like this older person and you just see him and you're like of course he's successful because he's successful but then like I don't know it's just now that I'm older and putting it into perspective is it's just kind of really surreal to hear I guess I don't know but yeah yes he's only 26 that's remarkable young so Georgia said I never cared too much for preachers but I listened to him preach that night and the things he said were things I believed in.
SPEAKER_02Everyone at the church must have felt the same because they all voted to extend the boycott indefinitely. Wow and in the process unknowingly launched MLK onto the political stage as you said.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_02The boycott meant a lot of sacrifice instead of taking the bus some men rode mules to their destinations and many people started walking to and from errands and work through rain and shine and even though they were often heckled by whites driving past and I'm gonna sanitize what was said as much as it can be sanitized. Georgia had a positive take on walking sometime I walked by myself and sometime I walked with different people and I began to enjoy walking because for so long I guess I had this convenient ride until I had forgot about how well it would be to walk I walked a mile maybe two miles some days going to and from a lot of times some of the young whites would come along and they would say N-word don't you know it's better to ride the bus than it is to walk and we would say no cracker no we rather walk yeah but alternative transportation besides relying on folks two legs and the mules was needed also local ministers um formed the Montgomery improvement association or the MIA the MIA created a carpool of 300 rented or borrowed vehicles and hired drivers to drive those vehicles and posted 42 pickup and drop off sites to accommodate the boycott's general job locations that's amazing we need more associations like they're getting things done i love how organized they are and also this is like it's like they're being so like so smart about it it's like choreography what they had to put in place so the MI the MIA also pledged to assist anyone who had been arrested or fined or who had lost their jobs for their involvement in the boycott and in addition it was responsible for fundraising publicity legal representation security patrols and the insurance repairs and the gas for all of those borrowed cars.
SPEAKER_01That's amazing and I was I was thinking about the the sacrifice of the transportation is is yes it's one thing it's walking many miles to and from work back breaking work you're exhausted but then it's also the retaliation by your white employers people who like Georgie are um supporting multiple family members people who rely on that money and you know having an employer retaliate because they're their you know their maid or their cook or whoever have decided to do these boycotts like that's it's it's so much that's riding on this is I guess what I'm trying to say yes exactly that's life or death as well it's literally life or death like these you know yes so it was a very expensive operation and this is where Georgia jumped in.
SPEAKER_02Our girl okay she and her friends pulled their money together and came up with $14 to essentially launch the first mass fundraising effort in American history whoa what we could do best was cook Georgia said we had a lot of our club members who were hard pressed and couldn't give more than a quarter or half dollar but all knew how to raise money they put that $14 towards ingredients and started cooking their way to profit and began raking in the cash. They sold box dinners at the MIA's strategy meetings at the Holt Street Baptist Church. Georgia knew that people rushed from work directly to the twice a week meetings with no time to eat beforehand. So Georgia and her friends positioned themselves in the parking lot or on the church steps to sell their meals to hungry attendees that is so smart. So smart and it was hugely successful and then they expanded to sell sandwiches baked goods and dinners in their neighborhoods they sold to local stores grocers doctors' offices laundromats and beauty shops Georgia's repertoire included fried chicken baked macaroni and cheese turnip greens red velvet cake pound cakes seven up cake sweet potato pie and peach pie i figured it people always had to eat Georgia said so I made the pies wow I love her two things um seven up pie is something that I I want to put a little pin in I want to do research and see what that is it reminds me of something that would be in your weird and wacky cookbook um the seven up cake oh okay seven up cake still you know that sounds like something that would be in your cookbook yes it would um and then I feel like there needs to be like a national fundraising day like dedicated like named after her for being like a pioneer for fundraisers that's just so cool it is so cool it is so cool. So and and what is also cool which I hadn't known before I started doing this research is that the home cooking that Georgia and others served up during this era the civil rights era became known as soul food because it represented the strength of the black community during times of oppression.
SPEAKER_01Wow so this woman really was involved in so many like groundbreaking things it's things we just like you know the phrase soul food is something that is like colloquially known everywhere and to know where it actually like originated from is so cool.
SPEAKER_02Yeah I agree I agree so um Georgia donated her club's earnings each week at the Monday night strategy meeting at the church did she do a demure money dump at the altar oh no oh no that's not our girl style no no no our friend quote high step down the aisle singing gospel songs like shine on me or I dreamed of a city called heaven then she announced the amount of the money that she was donating to wild cheers and thunderous applause the donations were always in cash which was anonymous because most of Georgia's customers had livelihoods dependent on white employers right as Georgia's sister Betty Gilmore explained it was like where did this money come from it came from nowhere which is why Georgia named her women's group the Club from nowhere. Oh I love her she's like so tongue in cheek she's like I don't know where this money came from the boycott carried on city officials tried to stop it by penalizing taxi drivers who charge less for the boycotters gave parking tickets to those providing rides to the boycotters and arrested drivers and passengers for overcrowded cars. But still bus after bus traveled down the streets empty a lot of laid off bus drivers however and unfortunately joined the police force yeah duh which was so dangerous because they were mean to begin with and now they had a grudge and now they had a grudge and now they have even more power and a weapon exactly yes yes yes and then data as well but it's also like it's they profit off of black people using public transportation simultaneously oppressing them and then restricting them and their usage of the bus and then their choice to not use the bus is also suddenly criminalized and penalized like it's just it just shows there's no win and there's no win. Yep so many white housewives because they depended on their maids to run their households inadvertently assisted the boycott by driving their maids to and from work so or to their homes right so much so that the mayor of Montgomery get this name tacky gale.
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah that makes sense he seems like a tacky awful evil villain anyways he urged the white employers to stop driving their maids this suggestion was not well received the women had a suggestion for tacky the mayor could come do their household chores well I do love that I do think it's very telling that like the reason why they're driving their maids is simply for their own benefit and not because they are supportive of the it's it's all due to their own like yeah entitlement yeah entitlement exactly so Montgomery was losing a lot of money in desperation city officials ratcheted up the tactics and arrested 90 people including Rosa Parks Dr.
SPEAKER_02King and Joanne Robinson of the WPC for their roles in the boycott and do you remember when I said that Georgia had been conducting her own boycott two months before the Rosa Parks event yes she was called to court to testify about what had happened to her one Friday evening at rush hour and I just want you to prepare yourself because it's another redhead oh oh hey listen we're not all created equal we're we're not all you know I'm repenting for redheads I'm doing the work to for based off of their bad behavior yeah you're gonna have to really confront this this kind of bias for redheads so Georgia didn't know the bus driver's name but described him in detail she said this bus driver is tall red haired and has freckles and wears glasses he is a very nasty bus driver. So this night she had boarded the bus and paid her fare and the bus was packed with mostly African Americans there were two white passengers on the bus because there were only two whites in front Georgia asked the driver if she could stand in front instead of going into the crowded back. Not even wanting to sit like not even asking to sit exactly no he wouldn't allow that nor would he allow her to walk through the front part of the bus the whites only section which was completely empty remember to go toward the back he demanded that she get off and enter again at the back exit I pleaded with him Georgia said I told him I was already on the bus I can see why I had to get off she eventually exited the bus but before she could reboard at the back doors the bus sped off absolutely just unbelievably nasty behavior. Exactly nasty nasty and of course this wasn't the first time that she endured abuse on the bus but after this last incident Georgia decided right then and there I wasn't going to ride the buses anymore. Well after so many instances where you were treated like a subhuman and you're supposed to stay like dignified and gracious and not let and don't and you can't crack and it's just yeah I understand why she chose to boycott and and walk instead yeah so she wasn't the only family member who had been targeted she told the court Georgia spoke about an incident that her mother Janie had endured Janie did laundry for white households a process that just is described as steaming soaking and scrubbing the laundry clean then rinsing and hanging it to dry before then pressing it. Janie had to either walk to her clients or use the bus lugging the laundry with her just really heavy heavy work.
SPEAKER_01Wait so she's not even doing it at her employer's house she's having to go there pick it up take it back and then do all the laundry at her place yes yep that's what she did.
SPEAKER_02Oh that's awful so she was an old person Georgia said and it was hard for her to get in and out of the bus except through the front door the bus was crowded one evening with everybody coming home from work she went to the front door to get on the bus and the bus driver was mean and surly and when she asked him if she could get in the front door he said she would have to go around and get in the back door and she said she couldn't get in the steps were too high. He said she could not go into the front door then Georgia said something that shocked the packed courtroom causing everyone there to give a collective gasp. The bus driver said you damn and word are All alike, you don't want to do what you were told. If I had my way, I would kill off every N-word person.
SPEAKER_04Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Georgia insisted that the bus system needed to be desegregated. Yep. When you pay your fare, Georgia told the judge, and they count the money, they don't know the Negro money from the white money. And she has a point there.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly. Not to mention how many workers who are using the bus system that are predominantly black. Like they're profiting off of them. Every single one of those bus drivers, and like it's just so telling, like you said earlier, that they all join the police force. Because those types of personalities, that is exactly the type of career path that they they go for.
SPEAKER_02Well, the trial was splashed all over the nation's newspapers. A photo of Georgia wearing a black suit and flanked by lawyers dominated the second page of the Pittsburgh Couer. Okay. People across the country and abroad were beginning to pay attention to the realities of segregation in Montgomery. Wow. On March 22nd, 1956, Judge Eugene Carter found MLK guilty of violating an obscure 1921 anti-boycott statute and ordered him to pay a $500 fine or to face 386 days in jail. Whoa. King said he would appeal. But instead of the trial and verdict ending the boycott, it only strengthened the resolve of the black community and the boycott continued.
SPEAKER_01Okay. And I just want to say what originally was supposed to be a one-day boycott has now spiraled or snowballed into a much bigger affair that has gained international attention.
SPEAKER_02Yes, absolutely. International attention. So there was held to pay for those involved, of course, especially the leaders of the movement. Something was thrown through Joanne Robinson's picture window at her home one night, and she looked outside to see that police officers were pouring acid onto her car. Oh my god. Angry whites bombed MLK's home. King wasn't there at the time, but his wife Coretta and their seven-week-old daughter Yolanda were inside the house but managed to escape. The black community rallied around MLK, understandably angry, wanting to protect Dr. King, but also wanting revenge. Yeah. Dr. King would not hear of it. This is a non-violent movement, he said, clearly on one side only, right? Yeah, right. So remember, Dr. King was only 26. I mean, the maturity of this young man is just remarkable. Yeah. But this moment was seen as a moral victory for the civil rights movement.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02And you know, the white sure as heck, we're not getting any moral victories.
SPEAKER_01No. If anything, they're just showing how nasty and horrible they are. Yes. Meanwhile, what are black people doing? They're just not riding the bus. Like it doesn't really look good in their favor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, not in their favor. So although she was a hero to the black community, Georgia faced consequences too. Her testimony had been public, and the white owners of the National Lunch Company knew about it and were not pleased. They weren't satisfied with just firing her. They blacklisted her. Georgia couldn't find work. And remember, she had a really large family to support. Yeah. MLK had her back. All these years you've worked for somebody else. He said, now it's time you worked for yourself. He funded the improvement to her kitchen to meet city standards, helped her buy pots and pans and cooking supplies. So Georgia opened up a backdoor kitchen in her home on Delacote Street. And that backdoor kitchen with its green-tiled floor, double oven, and side-by-side fridge was an instant hit. She would often greet her guests with, Come here, little whore, and get your food. Then she'd hand them a cornbread muffin and a glass of buttermilk to crumble the muffin into. So they ate standing up. The camaraderie and the amazing dude around the wooden table that seated 10 people bridged the community, growing to eventually include not only blacks and whites, the working class, the middle class, professors, politicians, lawyers, clerical workers, and even you'll never guess, police officers. Oh, we're not they're not wanted. Sorry. But of course, this didn't happen immediately. She ran her restaurant. Georgia woke at 4 a.m. each day to slow cook two meats, and sometimes she cooked while watching her soap operas. She served stuffed pork chops, meatloaf, fried chicken, barbecue ribs, fried fish, spaghetti and meat sauce, colored greens, black-eyed peas with okra, stuffed bell peppers, corn muffins, bread pudding, apple pie, and sweet potato pie.
SPEAKER_03Oh my god.
SPEAKER_02Sweet potato pie. The menus she handed out to guests were handwritten in pencil on notebook paper. Wow. And gonna remember that all the time that she was running her restaurant, she was still selling food to fund the boycott.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Yeah, it's I'm just I'm really floored by this woman. And also I just want to like take a moment to like this woman who has been working for white people her entire life, started out laying railroad tracks, getting paid in chicken feet, enduring just the most awful things that a human can endure, and then having her children face it as well, being blacklisted from ever working in the industry that she's obviously very much so loves and takes pride in, but then not only able to support herself but become so incredibly successful in running a restaurant that and and it shows that it's it's her cooking, but also her, like her as a person, her personality as well that even politicians are coming and traveling from all over to her doorstep. Like she is such a remarkable woman, and also I really I hope she felt the and I'm sure she did, but that pride. And and again, it's like no matter how much you try to stamp me out and to break my spirit, I will refuse. And she's really a testament to that.
SPEAKER_02She is so Georgia's restaurant became more than a restaurant, it became the place to hear the latest news on the boycott and what was happening in courts locally or nationally. And Dr. King, who apparently always drank a second glass of Georgia's sweet tea and could never get enough of her potato salad. Okay, maybe that's why Georgia called him Heifer.
SPEAKER_01I was gonna say he's definitely not that skinny little 26-year-old anymore.
SPEAKER_02But he met there with Robert Kennedy, President Lyndon Johnson, President John F. Kennedy. Wow. In fact, John F. Kennedy once ordered Georgia's fried chicken as a takeout for a flight on Air Force One. Wow. And also the singer Aretha Franklin ate at Georgia's Kitchen. So Georgia's place was a necessary safe space for the leaders in the civil rights movement.
SPEAKER_04Wow.
SPEAKER_02Dr. King needed a place where he could go. The Reverend Al Dixon explained, you know, he couldn't just go anywhere and eat. He needed someplace where he could not only trust the people around him, but also trust the food. And that was George's. Can we just pause a minute and think about that? He was afraid he was going to be poisoned if he went to just any place to eat.
SPEAKER_01I mean, that is just and yeah, and it's it's that constant preparation fear, you have to always be ready for anything. Is that's uh is exhausting and unfortunately heartbreaking too, because he was uh taken out, he was assassinated, so he had a right to be that you know, diligent always, yeah, careful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so people came to her place and I served them and let them talk, Georgia said. So on number on November 13th, 1956, Georgia, who's 36 years old now, was cooking at home when she heard on the radio that this is Supreme Court had declared that segregation on buses was illegal. The boycotters had won after 381 days of protest. More than a year, and during that time, Georgia and her club had raised an estimated $500,000 in the equivalency of today's money. $500,000. That is so remarkable.
SPEAKER_01It's crazy, that's huge. That is truly amazing, and I just again that the fact that it was supposed to be a one-day boycott, and that lasted over a year is just so remarkable, and it really goes to show like the strength in numbers and community, and it it required so much, so many people sacrificing everything and organization, and that's right, you know, and yeah, it's wow, that's truly amazing.
SPEAKER_02And you've heard of a victory dance. Well, let me tell you about a victory ride because when they heard that verdict, that segregation on the buses was illegal, many in the black community loaded up on those city buses, sitting anywhere they wish for their well-deserved victory ride. I love that. I wish I could say that that was the end of racism in Montgomery, but no, and it again affected Georgia personally. In 1957, just a year after the boycott, Georgia's son Mark, 18 years old, took a shortcut through Oak Park on the way to his job at the hospital. City parks and recreational facilities, even the zoo, were not available for use by African Americans under Jim Crow laws. White police officers were in Oak Park, they spotted Mark, and not only did they arrest him, but they beat him. Now you remember how Georgia dealt earlier with the grocery store owner? Yes, yes, so you know she wasn't gonna let that slide, but MLK was Georgia's dear friend, a member of her extended family, she felt. And Dr. King said that although his motivation to become an activist came from Jesus, he used the techniques of Gandhi, non-violent civil disobedience, and that influenced Georgia. She said that MLK had taught her how to be nicer to people, reminding her of what her mother said when Georgia was young. You think twice before you do some things, because some things you do, you will regret it later. So this time she didn't retaliate physically, which I'm gonna tell you is kind of disappointing.
SPEAKER_01I know I'd love to see what who else she's gonna pistol with. I mean, like I love her for that. I think it's pretty badass. Like, I know, so badass. It just shows her spirit, but yes, okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I am so she instead took the city to court in 1959. She was the lead plaintiff in Gilmore versus the city of Montgomery, suing on the grounds that taxpayers were subsidizing segregated educational institutions. So Georgia won the lawsuit, and all charges against Mark were dropped. Um by the way, he became a long-term and influential Montgomery councilman.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_02He had a career in politics.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Yeah, that's another rabbit hole I'd love to go down.
SPEAKER_02So the city was told to integrate its parks and recreational centers, pools, and tennis courts. So what do you think they did?
SPEAKER_01Um Kumbaya, they integrated with open arms. They said, everyone, come on in. We're one great happy family.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Instead of complying, the city closed the parks to everyone, and not only this, oh my god, I just can't even believe how spiteful it filled its eight pools with dirt rather than to we are so and I would say that is the folly of white people that in order to restrict some, they restrict all. If you if I don't want you to have it, no one can have it. And that is actually genuinely why we do not have universal health care in America. I was doing some research about this just randomly. And there was lobbying against universal health care in the fort then from the you know early 1900s uh to the 40s. And when Theodore Roosevelt attempted to introduce healthcare, universal healthcare, the American Medical Association mobilized against it. Conservative politicians using Hoffman's racist arguments to argue that government-sponsored healthcare would subsidize inferior populations, successfully killing early attempts to model a national system. So the reason why our current healthcare system is so unbelievably messed up right now is all because of racism.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Just can't even. So, okay, so we're back to okay the city filling in its eight pools with dirt rather than to integrate because that makes sense. But I mean, it wasn't until the early 1970s, the 70s, about a decade and a half later, that Montgomery reopened the parks. That is so insane. It is insane, and I wish I could say that that lawsuit was the end of racism in Montgomery. Um, but no, and Georgia was affected this time as well, although in a more peripheral way. In May of 1961, when Georgia was 41, the Freedom Riders came to Montgomery by Greyhound bus. The Freedom Riders was a group of white and black students who rode interstate buses into towns in the south to challenge the local laws of segregation. Kids, I mean, there's so much show of strength and courage in young people.
SPEAKER_01And I want to say that women students have always been on the right side of history, always, and so and I'm just thinking about all of the Columbia students protesting against the war, and then these students riding into the south, always on the right side of history.
SPEAKER_02So the bus pulled up just as the local police conveniently evaporated, nowhere to be seen. And when the students got off the bus, a mob of white people attacked them with baseball bats and pipes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the reason why that the police aren't there because they're in their planes clothes beating the students.
SPEAKER_02Well, they knew it was coming.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, and they're also actively participating, but yes, okay, keep going.
SPEAKER_02James Werg, a white ministerial student at Garrett Theological Seminary in Illinois, was first off the bus. He was beaten so badly that he lost his teeth and lost consciousness as well. William Barbie, a black ministerial student from the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Tennessee, took a baseball bat to his spine, uh, resulting in permanent paralysis. And many other students were badly hurt. And when white ambulance crews refused to take the injured students to the hospital, the black citizens of Montgomery stepped up and transported them. And once again, Georgia's kitchen became a safe space. She took four of the injured students home, fed them comfort food, and cared for them until they were safe to leave Montgomery that night. I know, sweetie. So the information trail on Georgia drives up after this. Although we do something, we do see something in the papers just months after the Freedom Riders tragedy in Montgomery to let us know that Georgia was still going strong. On November 3, 1961, an incident hits the papers that's really titillating, most because of what wasn't said. Okay. A headline in the Alabama Journal read, Huge Negro woman draws cursing fine. The Montgomery advertiser wrote on that same day, a hefty Negro woman who weighed in excess of 200 pounds was fined $25 today in city court on charges of cursing a diminutive white garbage truck driver. I mean, oh my god, are they setting us up to to see who the victim was and who the assailant was? I mean, really a little heavy-handed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I also would love to hear language. And also, like, you know, he had it coming as well. Like, you just know he did something awful.
SPEAKER_02Yes, what did he do?
SPEAKER_01I would love to know what like what happened. Yeah. I just also I just think like those freedom writers of young students and the fact that they were all like theology majors is just so telling of like I feel like we have a lot of like good family value uh principles that to this day are just it's a it's a it's just white nationalism. It has nothing to do with good family values because if you were a good Christian, like you would never beat these students. And I'm just so proud of them, but also like so heartbroken that yeah. It came with such a cost. Exactly. Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Because I think in today's world we've forgotten about the golden rule and you know Jesus saying turn the other cheek. You know, Christianity is a different Christianity today than it used to be. So although not much is publicly recorded, we know that Georgia was devastated when she learned of Dr. King's assassination on April 4, 1968. I mean, she thought of him as family. He had been hugely influential in her life. But fast forward to March 7 of 1990, Georgia is 70. Wow. She was in her kitchen that morning whipping up a feast 25 years earlier on that day, March 7th, the 1965 voting rights march had taken place. 600 civil rights activists had begun in Selma and marched 54 miles to Montgomery in protest against voter repression in the Black community.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because even though the amendments, you know, the 15th and the 19th Amendment allowed them to have the right to vote, they still weren't allowed to vote, right? So our Jews were attacked by law enforcement with Billy Clubs. And the event was so violent that it became known as Blood Sunday. And it was seen as a turning point in the fight against poll taxes and literary tests that the black community was subjected to at voting times, but at such a cost. And I can't help but thinking about what is happening now in our country. You know, that the current legislative acts that are going into place um are destined to erode the hard-earned vetting rights. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm thinking about all the gerrymandering currently taking place. I'm thinking of all of the the new voting laws of providing ID, everything that, like you said, people have fought and died for to make sure that everyone had those rights that are currently being eroded. And again, it is always racism through legislation. They get away with it because they legalize it.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I know. So many activists in the civil rights movement were coming to Montgomery to commemorate the anniversary of the march. Georgia was preparing macaroni and cheese and fried chicken in anticipation of their arrival when she suddenly became severely ill and had to be taken to the hospital. She died the very next day from peritonitis, a rupture in her intestine. To all those who came to mourn, her family served the food that Georgia had made. Because, as her sister Betty said, no one could do it better. Oh my goodness. You would have thought she was a world figure, her son said. Can you believe that? No.
SPEAKER_01No, and I'm also like, get away from her. You have no right being a pallbearers. I understand that we have to bridge the communities and in order to do whatever, but no.
SPEAKER_02So Georgia received recognition posthumously in 1995 when the Alabama Historical Commission commemorated her house as a historical site for her role in the Montgomery bus boycott.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02As Georgia said once herself, you cannot be afraid if you want to accomplish anything.
SPEAKER_01Wow, she's such a remarkable force. And I'm I'm really glad I got to learn about her. Yeah, I hadn't known about her. Yeah, I hadn't either. And I I really think that there's so many takeaways from this episode, but I think most importantly is that in the face of oppression when it seems that all cards are stacked against you and you have no power, you do have power, and it's hitting them in their pockets. Finances are always, unfortunately, this way. It's never about appealing human to human, it's about hitting them again where it hurts, which is finances, and then boycotting, which takes sacrifice, a lot of sacrifice, and it's so important though. Um, yeah, I'm just yeah, I'm thinking about our current about how applicable this is to our current state right now. Yes, I hear you. Yeah. Um it's just truly remarkable. And also, shout out because I think we both have been on the bus that Rosa Parks um refused to stand up on at the head of in Michigan, Detroit, Michigan.
SPEAKER_02That's right. And do you know why it's there? Let me tell you. So I want to go into um like what happened to some of the others in the boycott, and the the bus kind of folds into that. Oh, Rosa Parks, whose simple act of defiance started the whole 1955 Montgomery bus boycott with someone Claudette Colvin said, who came across as quiet and proper, but when she talked about rights, she became someone else. Rosa Parks lost her job as a seamstress in a department store because of what she had done. She and her family received so many death threats and faced such financial hardship that in 1957 they moved from Montgomery to Detroit to start over. Oh she eventually found work as an administrative aide and receptionist for the late Congressman John Conyers, who is such a name here in the Detroit area. And he was the longest-serving African-American member of Congress in history. Wow. So in 1987, she founded the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self-Development in Detroit, an institution that focuses on youth empowerment and civil rights education. So that bus, bus 2857, the famous bus where Rosa Parks unknowingly sparked the year plus bus boycott, has been restored and is in a permanent exhibit called With Liberty and Justice for All at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. So you've been there.
SPEAKER_01Oh yes, I've been there. And I would have to highly encourage anyone who's in the area to go because it is this feeling when you step on that bus, it's like you get chills. It's truly a remarkable experience.
SPEAKER_02And so do you remember how they came about the bus?
SPEAKER_01Well, I remember that they really had to track it down because some random person, when the bus went out of commission, some random person bought it and it was just in his backyard, just decaying. And I can't they it took a really long time. And when they finally purchased it, uh they had to refurbish it and they had to really source a lot of the materials to kind of you know uh replicate it in its like original form. That's right, which is so cool to think about. I'm like, it's just like this bus that was so integral and such a pivotal moment in history, rotting away in someone's backyard and then being recovered and taken to a museum.
SPEAKER_02It's so cool. Yeah, I know. So I've been there too, and it's just um it is remarkable. It's a remarkable experience to see that. So Joanne Robinson, the president of the WPC, she continued to teach at Alabama State University until 1960 when she resigned in solidarity with students protesting segregated lunch counters.
SPEAKER_03Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_02Later, she relocated to Los Angeles and taught in the LA public school system until 1976.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Sorry, I just wanted to again prop her to being the the impetus of this whole thing. Like, if it weren't for her and all of her prior planning, like they it wouldn't have been such an organized like launch for the no absolutely, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02So Claudette Colvin, the teenager who refused to give up her seat, couldn't find work in Montgomery. She was being shunned, and she moved to New York City and eventually found work as a nurse's aide, and she died this past January at the age of 20, of 86. So in 2026, so this is how current this all is. Yeah. Which is why I think it hit me so hard, is because we're going backwards, and there was just so much that had taken place, so much sacrifice to get to this point, and we we can't afford to go backward. Yeah. So Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., as we've said, was assassinated in 1968 when he was in Tennessee supporting black sanitation workers striking for better wages. Yeah. He was 39 years old. His murderer was James Earl Ray, a racist and escaped convict, who confessed and then recanted his confession. And some of MLK's family members doubt that Ray acted alone in the assassination.
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, you know, the conspiracy theory behind that. There's definitely foul play by the government.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, yeah. So four days before his death, MLK gave his last sermon, Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, while standing at the Canterbury Pulpit in the Washington National Cathedral. Do you remember the National Cathedral? Yes. Okay, you're lying. You are so lying. You're lying, aren't you?
SPEAKER_01Um, I mean, describe it to me. I think so. How old was I? I don't know.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, clearly you don't remember, but we've been there. And I mean, the pulpit is absolutely gorgeous with all of this wooden carving. But do you remember the children's chapel by chance? Everything is done is in two-thirds normal size.
SPEAKER_01I mean organ. I'd eat that up. I love when things are tiny sized, but no, I don't remember that.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Well, I'm so glad we took you there.
SPEAKER_01That was really thank you for educating me with these historical moments, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So, but it was donated by a family whose little six-year-old son Roland had died in 1911. I mean, it's just, it's really a really very special space. But the church in Montgomery where MLK first ministered is now called the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. And the home that was bombed in 1956 is now the Dexter Personage Museum.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I gotta ask you. Would you have a drink with Georgia Gilmore?
SPEAKER_01Of course. I am picturing us at her house sitting on that wooden picnic table. Her doors open. She's got chicken frying. She hands me a glass of sweet tea. And I just want to know absolutely like everything. I want to hear all the stories. I want to hear all the gossip. You know, because when that quote when she was like, I cooked and they talked. Oh, her ear is to the door. She is listening to everything. She hold held the nation's secrets in that kitchen. And I want all that gossip. Especially because we know Umlucky Jr. was kind of uh a little bit of a plier. He was not faithful to his wife. So I want to, I'm like, I'm sure she was privy to that. So all the gossip I want a part of.
SPEAKER_02Um that's right. I'll bring the booze if she does the pie. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And I want to know like what that diminutive trusted driver said to her that caused her to curse at him. Like, what did he say or do?
SPEAKER_01Wow. Wow.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So after seeing all of this, what do you think needs to be done? Do you think we need to flip the script? Flip the script.
SPEAKER_01I do. I think we need to flip the script. And I think that us as Americans, we have a lot of power with our money and our choices. So I think we need to be strong when it comes to how we spend it. I think we all need to cancel our Amazon Prime subscriptions. I just did. I just canceled Excuse me.
SPEAKER_02You just didn't. Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_03I died a couple months ago.
SPEAKER_02Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. All right, let's move on. No, I don't. I have not ordered anything from Amazon Prime for you.
SPEAKER_01You still have an Amazon Prime because that's how I watch it.
SPEAKER_02You're using it. That's how you I still watch it. Oh, we're gonna have to have a chat. Okay, hold on.
SPEAKER_01You make me look like a fake. You make me look like a fake um activist.
SPEAKER_02I am just absolutely okay. All right, let's move on here. We will have a discussion later. Unbelievable. Okay. Okay. Shout out to the wonderful people that we have to thank.
SPEAKER_01I mean, shout out Wendy Berry for our artwork. Shout out Dolores. Hold up your wait a minute. Hold up your own that I definitely was drinking coffee out of this entire time. Wendy Berry Arts. Wendy Berry Arts for our amazing logo. Shout out Dolores and their partner Saya for our amazing theme song. And then shout out Brother Bear, my brother William Gray Torrance for editing all of this and making us sound coherent and like we have our shit together.
SPEAKER_02Clearly, one of us does.
SPEAKER_00I just want to step in here at the end and say, uh, make your voice heard. Call local politicians and administrators and hold them accountable for their votes to disenfranchise people of color through gerrymandering. Call those on the College and University Board of Regents about their removal of DEI on campus. Also consider donating to organizations such as the NAACP, the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the United States fighting to end race-based discrimination and advance political, educational, social, and economic equality and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. That'll do it for us here, and we will see you again in the next episode.