Drunk History (2013) s05e05 Episode Script
Civil Rights
1 The Suffragettes were like, if these fucking men aren't gonna give us the right to vote, then we're just gonna have to take it, and they're rowdy as fuck.
So buckle up, baby.
Hundreds of black kids in Birmingham linked hands and said, "Not today, bitch.
Not today.
" Who was I talking about? The kids.
People with disabilities around the nation were like, we're about to make a change.
I feel way drunker than I should be.
(Laughs) (Groans) (Gospel music) I'm so drunk.
BOTH: Cheers.
Cheers, cheers.
Did you ever take, like, any karate growing up, or I did judo for a second.
- You did? - Yes.
All right, try to do it to me.
Okay.
(Laughs) That's really slow.
It's, like, a hair.
(Laughs) That's more than a hair.
It's like a whole afro too slow.
Yeah, yeah, one afro too slow.
(Laughs) That was good.
Still got it after all these years.
(Laughs) All these years.
Hello, I'm Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and today we'll be discussing Suffrajitsu.
BOTH: Cheers.
This is gonna be some good shit.
Buckle up, baby.
So our story starts in England.
There is a Suffragette protest lead by Emmeline Pankhurst, and she's like, oy, listen, women.
We need the right to vote, so if these fucking men aren't gonna give us the right to vote, then we're just gonna have to take it.
Right? And they're rowdy as fuck, obviously, because they're, like, ready for this.
So the Metropolitan Police are like, listen, oh, these women want to step out of line, but we're gonna show them who's boss.
They start grabbing women, twisting their arms, pulling on their breasts.
Can you imagine? Putting on their breasts? Pulling, not putting.
Oh, okay.
- (Laughing) Putting on their breasts.
- Putting on their breasts.
I didn't know.
So the fight turns completely nasty.
Two women got killed.
One was Emmeline Pankhurst's sister, so she's like, oh, no.
Like, you killed my sister.
I'm fucking coming for you.
This event was known as Black Friday.
So this was, like, in history, a big, big day.
It's still a big day.
Yeah, for sales.
Mm-hmm.
Great deals.
Great deals.
Anyway, so Emmeline Pankhurst goes to Edith Garrud, this 4'11" woman who runs a jiu-jitsu school.
And Emmeline is like, Edith, I need your help.
These police are acting wild.
We need to, like like, help, like, train these Suffragettes so that they can defend themselves against the police.
So Edith put together 30 Suffragettes.
And she's like, we're gonna call you the Bodyguard.
So Edith Garrud was tea Edith Garrud teaches so Edith Garrud taught (Chuckles) Edith Garrud starts training these girls, and she's like, hi-yah! Block the titties! And they'd all go, hi-yah! Block the titties! We! Want! The! Vote! (Laughs) So then the cream rises to the top, and one of the people who were just the cream of the crop was Gertrude Harding, ultimate bad bitch.
Any relation to Tonya? (Laughing) Can you narrate every story? No one reacts to my jokes like that.
(Laughing) So (Laughs) In February 1914, Emmaline delivered a speech in Camden Square, and at the end she goes, okay, you lot.
I'm coming down now, and police, you can try and grab these titties.
Whatever.
She comes downstairs and then the Commissioner goes, "Grab her by the titties, I say! I say, grab her by the titties!" And the other guy goes, whoa, this is my first day.
I didn't know we were gonna be grabbing people by the titties.
And he goes, welcome to the Metropolitan Police! (Both laughing) Oh, my God.
So, um, there's a big tussle.
The police grab her, they pull off her bonnet, and they're like, you're not Emmeline Pankhurst! And she goes, yeah, no shit, idiot.
I'm her body double.
Emmeline goes downstairs with the rest of the Bodyguard.
They get her out perfectly safe.
The police are mad as hell.
But the whole of England knows about Emmeline now, so she's going out to Glasgow for this huge talk at St.
Andrew's Hall, and the Bodyguard are standing by the stage, and there's, like, beautiful bouquets behind them.
And Emmeline strides over to the stage, and she's like, we need to fight and we need to do all this stuff.
And then the Scottish police, they're like, let's play that that bitch's tits like a bagpipe.
And the Bodyguard are like, oh, hold on a minute.
You're not playing anyone's titties like a bagpipe.
Not today.
And they're flipping them onto the bouquets of flowers, and obviously you might think, oh, well, that's what's that gonna do? That's gonna make them smell nice and maybe get a tiny bit wet? 'Cause the flowers? And no, there's barbed wire concealed in all the flowers.
She's like, oh, you like titties? You know what is also a titty? Barbed wire.
And he goes, I don't get it.
And she goes, it doesn't make any fucking sense! You just got barbed wired.
(Laughs) (Hard rock music playing) And they go buck-wild.
They start grabbing police officers, just flipping them over, doing all their fucking jiu-jitsu moves, all the grappling and flipping, and all this.
And that's the great thing about jiu-jitsu, is that it's not about your size.
But there's a lot more police than there are of the Bodyguard, and they arrest all the women.
But Emmeline knew she was gonna be arrested.
She even said, "If I'm not arrested, "if I continue to evade the police officers, "I make them look like a fucking joke, right? "However, if I am arrested, I will turn sympathy towards "the Suffragette movement "'cause I'm a martyr at that point.
Like, I'm fucking Joan of Arc-ing this bitch.
" And that's exactly what happened.
There was, like, a rally in support for the Suffragette movement.
All of a sudden, all these men were like, oh, yeah, why not? Let's give you the right to vote.
It's really the least we can do anyway.
And in 1918, the bills passed.
- The bills passed! - The bills passed! - Cheers! - Cheers! Everyone is happy.
Whoo! Ooh! The bills passed.
Women in England and Ireland now have the right to vote.
Emmaline's like, oh, these titties? These titties get to vote now.
- Hell yeah.
- Hell yeah.
That's two votes.
That's two votes.
Voter fraud.
(Popping sounds) (Laughing) (Dramatic tone) (Laughs) Hey, guys.
I'm Crissle West, and today we're going to talk about the Birmingham children's march.
- Cheers, Crissle.
- (Laughs) Let's march.
Mm.
Delicious! All right, so where does our story begin? Fuck.
Who knows.
(Laughs) So our story begins in 1963 in Alabama, where racism is so deeply embedded in the community.
But the breaking point for Gwendolyn Sanders was when she realized, in the 7th grade, that her textbook had previously been used by a white 5th grader.
And she's like, I knew I wasn't allowed to go to the same movie theaters and shit like that as white people, but y'all are giving us raggedy, old textbooks that you were giving your 5th graders.
Like, not only do you not give a fuck about me or my people, you don't give a fuck about my education, either.
And so she realized then that things needed to change and she wanted to be a part of it.
So around the time that this story sh starts sharts.
- (Laughs) - It sharted.
Oh, no! Don't let the story shart! (Laughs) So around this same time, Martin Luther King, Jr.
was urging the newly elected President Kennedy, like, man, we need some official legislation to stop the bullshit that's happening to black people.
Like, you need to get involved.
You're the fucking president.
And Kennedy sympathized.
He was like, you know, I agree with you, but the party is still made up of poor, white, Southern voters, and I cannot alienate them, which doesn't that sound super familiar? - It sounds a little similar.
- And kind of distressing? Right.
So Dr.
King is using the 16th Street Baptist Church to try to organize protests.
And Martin Luther King being, like, yo, for real though, it's time for us to do something.
And the adults were like, listen, it's not that we don't agree with you, but at the end of the day I still have to put food on the table and pay the rent in this hoe, and I don't want them burning crosses on my lawn or any shit like that, so like, bitch, it's not fucking safe! We can't do this! And Dr.
King was like, if we can't enact change in Birmingham, we can't do it anywhere.
Who can join in the protest and get arrested with us? And he was sort of shocked to see Gwendolyn Sanders and her sisters get up and say, "You know what? "We'll do it.
We will do something about this.
" And then more and more kids stood up to volunteer.
They decided to mobilize, so that's exactly what they did.
They went back to school, like, listen, we know y'all are sick of the racism, and there's something we can actually do about it.
And on May 2nd, they the protest went down.
And administrators started locking the doors to keep them from getting out, and kids would just straight up jump out the window.
Like, bitch, you not gonna keep us here.
Over 1,000 kids left school to go to Kelly Ingram Park to protest.
(Tense music) But then Bull Connor, the head of the Birmingham Police Department, was like, okay, well, y'alls black asses can go to jail.
So they started carting these kids off by the dozens, and over 1,000 kids were arrested on that first day, which is insane.
And after a few days of protest, the Birmingham jails are totally overcrowded.
And so as more kids are arrested, others come back out to take up their place.
But on May 5th, that was when shit got really real.
Bull Connor was looking at hundreds of black kids standing up to his bullshit.
He's like, let's bring out the hoses.
And these are high-pressure, knock-you-the-fuck-out water hoses.
But the kids realized that there's strength in numbers and togetherness matters, so those kids linked hands and said, "Not today, bitch.
Not today.
" So Bull Connor decides, oh, okay.
Release the K9 units so that the dogs can fuck these kids up.
(Coughs) Excuse me.
(Laughs) And at this point, there were news crews there that caught the entire situation on camera, and these are now some of the most infamous shots of the Civil Rights movement.
And after people saw children on international TV being sprayed with hoses and attacked by dogs, a mind shift occurred, and after eight solid days of protest, President Kennedy felt motivated to come out and say, "You know what? "I didn't want to say it before "because of the Southern white voters, "but them motherfuckers are racist, "so it's time to just be real.
"This shit that you are going out here and doing to people in my name is not the fuck okay.
" (Triumphant music) Oh, man, I love drinking.
How come I don't do this more? (Both laughing) Whoo! (Laughs) So anyway, who was I talking about? - The kids.
- Yeah, yeah.
So after the success of the Birmingham children's march, Dr.
King decided to ride that momentum, and he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
Bull Connor was fired, and the Civil Rights Act was passed within a year of all that, so it was monumental that Gwendolyn Sanders and these kids were willing to say this is not a fucking game, and you won't treat us and our people this way because we're here and this is what's going on, and it's time for us to stand up too.
And so I don't have to worry about that sort of thing the way those kids even did or their parents even did, and I don't take that for granted.
Cheers to the kids! Cheers to the kids.
(Glasses clink) - All right.
- This is gone.
I'm not drinking shit else! No! No more.
I'm done, Viacom! (Laughter) - Here you go, young lady.
- Here we go.
Cheers to you.
And you.
To everybody.
To everybody and you.
And myself.
Thank you.
- Mm-hmm.
And me.
- And that includes you.
- Great, thank you.
- Mm-hmm.
Hello.
I'm Suzi Barrett, and today we're talking about the Section 504 sit-in.
I'll sit in for this.
I'll sit in with you.
(Chuckles) Okay.
Act one, scene one.
A backdrop appears slowly in front of the audience's eyes.
What's on this backdrop? The 50s and the 60s.
We got people with disabilities being treated not as normal citizens.
If you're in a wheelchair, you can't just, like, walk into a bank and apply for a job.
There's no access, and they're like, uh, fuck you.
You use a wheelchair.
Or, like, you can't see and therefore fuck off, dude.
A disability is dismiss-ability, basically.
Put that in your fucking pipe.
I will.
And I'll smoke that.
Will you? I will.
I like this pipe.
Okay.
So here comes 1973.
Richard Nixon signs this thing called the Rehabilitation Act, and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is the section that says you can't, uh a federal institution can't, like, uh, you know, discriminate against people with a disability.
So section 504 needs to be signed.
So so so Joseph Califano, the head of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare HEW was like, well, this sounds like a lot of work.
So, like, what do we have to do to our buildings? What's braille? I mean, if this is that, and that is what, and what this is what we're talking about, and (Snoring) (Laughs) So it sits there for four fucking years, and he doesn't sign it.
So the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, headed by Dr.
Frank Bowe, are like, what the fucking fuck? Make us equal.
We have rights.
We are citizens.
(Spits) Sign this by April 5th or else.
And "else" is not a "Frozen" character.
"Else" is a fucking disability surprise.
(Burps) I feel way drunker than I should be.
You're all good.
You're all good.
(Laughing) (Groans) Okay.
So the deadline, April 5th, comes and it goes.
And at the federal building in San Francisco, this woman, Judy Heumann, rolls up, and doorman's like, oh (stammering) I'm sorry, ma'am.
Do you need some help? Would you like some punch or maybe a cookie? And she's like, nope.
Uh me and my 150 friends would actually like to roll over your ass (Funky rock music) 'Cause we're about to make a change.
And this started the first protest for the disability movement.
All over the nation at all these federal buildings, protests erupt.
People with disabilities are like, fuck you! We're gonna camp out in your hallways.
We're gonna sit on your motherfucking desk.
But none of these protests across the country lasted more than 28 hours except for San Francisco, where the days start dragging on, and people have needs.
Like, oh, my God.
I don't have my ventilator.
I can't fucking breathe.
I don't even know why I'm speaking right now.
I'm wasting oxygen.
And, like, the news is covering this.
And people start really feeling for what's happening here.
And the floodgates open, and you got people bringing in medicine, coming in with food.
The Black Panthers show up.
Everyone's sitting in, not just people with disabilities.
It's allies and people with disabilities.
I's veterans coming home from Vietnam being like, man, we got you.
Jefferson Airplane shows up, like, we're Jefferson Airplane.
Get it you know, get your shit on.
We love you! If Woodstock was in an office building and filled with wheelchairs and medical supplies, this is Woodstock.
And all these people are finding a community that they hadn't had in person until now.
And finally, they get the attention of Washington.
So they're like, okay, okay, let's, um, let's make a little hearing, and we'll hear your little disability complaints.
When people start noticing that they're being dicks, then they start trying to fix their dicks.
(Laughs) That's my favorite Dr.
Seuss quote.
(Laughter) I'm so dumb.
(Laughs) (Groans) Hey.
- Oh, hey, Suzi.
(Laughs) - Oh, hey.
This is a real fucking - Is that too much? - No.
(Laughs) Okay.
So Judy Heumann gets 20 of her friends from her activist group in San Francisco, and they haul ass to Washington.
Boom.
We're in Washington, D.
C.
And she's like, if you are going to claim to be a country of the land of the free, then you have to include us in it.
Otherwise, yikes, do we have a weird revolution that's about to happen.
So here's Senator Alan Cranston.
You know, he's nodding his head.
"Oh, yeah.
Oh, my gosh, yeah.
Oh, I'm so feeling it.
" Judy Heumann's not having any of it.
She's like, I'd appreciate if you wouldn't act like you understand what I'm saying because you don't understand.
We're going through this shit.
You ain't.
Party's over.
Peace out.
Sign the shit.
Crowd goes wild.
Everyone's cheering for Judy.
Love it.
Then Frank Bow steps up, and he's like, we're not even second-class citizens.
We're third-class citizens.
And here come the tears.
How do you not cry after that? You know, why would you want to be on the side of history that categorizes people rather than the side of history that's, like, liberating and, like, let's be the piñata.
Yeah, break it and let everyone come out.
Yeah! Let's make let's make candy.
Okay.
Califano's like, ooh.
I, uh, funny thing.
Uh fine! I'll sign it.
Jubilation.
504 was signed, and this opened the floodgates for the American Disabilities Act for ramps, for braille, for everything that we know today that is for disability access.
(Triumphant music) So Judy Heumann's people have been in the federal building in San Francisco for 26 days.
And these protestors are coming out so happy, fists raised in victory.
And they're loving it because they're having a voice in their place in history.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
To everybody.
To literally everybody.
So buckle up, baby.
Hundreds of black kids in Birmingham linked hands and said, "Not today, bitch.
Not today.
" Who was I talking about? The kids.
People with disabilities around the nation were like, we're about to make a change.
I feel way drunker than I should be.
(Laughs) (Groans) (Gospel music) I'm so drunk.
BOTH: Cheers.
Cheers, cheers.
Did you ever take, like, any karate growing up, or I did judo for a second.
- You did? - Yes.
All right, try to do it to me.
Okay.
(Laughs) That's really slow.
It's, like, a hair.
(Laughs) That's more than a hair.
It's like a whole afro too slow.
Yeah, yeah, one afro too slow.
(Laughs) That was good.
Still got it after all these years.
(Laughs) All these years.
Hello, I'm Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and today we'll be discussing Suffrajitsu.
BOTH: Cheers.
This is gonna be some good shit.
Buckle up, baby.
So our story starts in England.
There is a Suffragette protest lead by Emmeline Pankhurst, and she's like, oy, listen, women.
We need the right to vote, so if these fucking men aren't gonna give us the right to vote, then we're just gonna have to take it.
Right? And they're rowdy as fuck, obviously, because they're, like, ready for this.
So the Metropolitan Police are like, listen, oh, these women want to step out of line, but we're gonna show them who's boss.
They start grabbing women, twisting their arms, pulling on their breasts.
Can you imagine? Putting on their breasts? Pulling, not putting.
Oh, okay.
- (Laughing) Putting on their breasts.
- Putting on their breasts.
I didn't know.
So the fight turns completely nasty.
Two women got killed.
One was Emmeline Pankhurst's sister, so she's like, oh, no.
Like, you killed my sister.
I'm fucking coming for you.
This event was known as Black Friday.
So this was, like, in history, a big, big day.
It's still a big day.
Yeah, for sales.
Mm-hmm.
Great deals.
Great deals.
Anyway, so Emmeline Pankhurst goes to Edith Garrud, this 4'11" woman who runs a jiu-jitsu school.
And Emmeline is like, Edith, I need your help.
These police are acting wild.
We need to, like like, help, like, train these Suffragettes so that they can defend themselves against the police.
So Edith put together 30 Suffragettes.
And she's like, we're gonna call you the Bodyguard.
So Edith Garrud was tea Edith Garrud teaches so Edith Garrud taught (Chuckles) Edith Garrud starts training these girls, and she's like, hi-yah! Block the titties! And they'd all go, hi-yah! Block the titties! We! Want! The! Vote! (Laughs) So then the cream rises to the top, and one of the people who were just the cream of the crop was Gertrude Harding, ultimate bad bitch.
Any relation to Tonya? (Laughing) Can you narrate every story? No one reacts to my jokes like that.
(Laughing) So (Laughs) In February 1914, Emmaline delivered a speech in Camden Square, and at the end she goes, okay, you lot.
I'm coming down now, and police, you can try and grab these titties.
Whatever.
She comes downstairs and then the Commissioner goes, "Grab her by the titties, I say! I say, grab her by the titties!" And the other guy goes, whoa, this is my first day.
I didn't know we were gonna be grabbing people by the titties.
And he goes, welcome to the Metropolitan Police! (Both laughing) Oh, my God.
So, um, there's a big tussle.
The police grab her, they pull off her bonnet, and they're like, you're not Emmeline Pankhurst! And she goes, yeah, no shit, idiot.
I'm her body double.
Emmeline goes downstairs with the rest of the Bodyguard.
They get her out perfectly safe.
The police are mad as hell.
But the whole of England knows about Emmeline now, so she's going out to Glasgow for this huge talk at St.
Andrew's Hall, and the Bodyguard are standing by the stage, and there's, like, beautiful bouquets behind them.
And Emmeline strides over to the stage, and she's like, we need to fight and we need to do all this stuff.
And then the Scottish police, they're like, let's play that that bitch's tits like a bagpipe.
And the Bodyguard are like, oh, hold on a minute.
You're not playing anyone's titties like a bagpipe.
Not today.
And they're flipping them onto the bouquets of flowers, and obviously you might think, oh, well, that's what's that gonna do? That's gonna make them smell nice and maybe get a tiny bit wet? 'Cause the flowers? And no, there's barbed wire concealed in all the flowers.
She's like, oh, you like titties? You know what is also a titty? Barbed wire.
And he goes, I don't get it.
And she goes, it doesn't make any fucking sense! You just got barbed wired.
(Laughs) (Hard rock music playing) And they go buck-wild.
They start grabbing police officers, just flipping them over, doing all their fucking jiu-jitsu moves, all the grappling and flipping, and all this.
And that's the great thing about jiu-jitsu, is that it's not about your size.
But there's a lot more police than there are of the Bodyguard, and they arrest all the women.
But Emmeline knew she was gonna be arrested.
She even said, "If I'm not arrested, "if I continue to evade the police officers, "I make them look like a fucking joke, right? "However, if I am arrested, I will turn sympathy towards "the Suffragette movement "'cause I'm a martyr at that point.
Like, I'm fucking Joan of Arc-ing this bitch.
" And that's exactly what happened.
There was, like, a rally in support for the Suffragette movement.
All of a sudden, all these men were like, oh, yeah, why not? Let's give you the right to vote.
It's really the least we can do anyway.
And in 1918, the bills passed.
- The bills passed! - The bills passed! - Cheers! - Cheers! Everyone is happy.
Whoo! Ooh! The bills passed.
Women in England and Ireland now have the right to vote.
Emmaline's like, oh, these titties? These titties get to vote now.
- Hell yeah.
- Hell yeah.
That's two votes.
That's two votes.
Voter fraud.
(Popping sounds) (Laughing) (Dramatic tone) (Laughs) Hey, guys.
I'm Crissle West, and today we're going to talk about the Birmingham children's march.
- Cheers, Crissle.
- (Laughs) Let's march.
Mm.
Delicious! All right, so where does our story begin? Fuck.
Who knows.
(Laughs) So our story begins in 1963 in Alabama, where racism is so deeply embedded in the community.
But the breaking point for Gwendolyn Sanders was when she realized, in the 7th grade, that her textbook had previously been used by a white 5th grader.
And she's like, I knew I wasn't allowed to go to the same movie theaters and shit like that as white people, but y'all are giving us raggedy, old textbooks that you were giving your 5th graders.
Like, not only do you not give a fuck about me or my people, you don't give a fuck about my education, either.
And so she realized then that things needed to change and she wanted to be a part of it.
So around the time that this story sh starts sharts.
- (Laughs) - It sharted.
Oh, no! Don't let the story shart! (Laughs) So around this same time, Martin Luther King, Jr.
was urging the newly elected President Kennedy, like, man, we need some official legislation to stop the bullshit that's happening to black people.
Like, you need to get involved.
You're the fucking president.
And Kennedy sympathized.
He was like, you know, I agree with you, but the party is still made up of poor, white, Southern voters, and I cannot alienate them, which doesn't that sound super familiar? - It sounds a little similar.
- And kind of distressing? Right.
So Dr.
King is using the 16th Street Baptist Church to try to organize protests.
And Martin Luther King being, like, yo, for real though, it's time for us to do something.
And the adults were like, listen, it's not that we don't agree with you, but at the end of the day I still have to put food on the table and pay the rent in this hoe, and I don't want them burning crosses on my lawn or any shit like that, so like, bitch, it's not fucking safe! We can't do this! And Dr.
King was like, if we can't enact change in Birmingham, we can't do it anywhere.
Who can join in the protest and get arrested with us? And he was sort of shocked to see Gwendolyn Sanders and her sisters get up and say, "You know what? "We'll do it.
We will do something about this.
" And then more and more kids stood up to volunteer.
They decided to mobilize, so that's exactly what they did.
They went back to school, like, listen, we know y'all are sick of the racism, and there's something we can actually do about it.
And on May 2nd, they the protest went down.
And administrators started locking the doors to keep them from getting out, and kids would just straight up jump out the window.
Like, bitch, you not gonna keep us here.
Over 1,000 kids left school to go to Kelly Ingram Park to protest.
(Tense music) But then Bull Connor, the head of the Birmingham Police Department, was like, okay, well, y'alls black asses can go to jail.
So they started carting these kids off by the dozens, and over 1,000 kids were arrested on that first day, which is insane.
And after a few days of protest, the Birmingham jails are totally overcrowded.
And so as more kids are arrested, others come back out to take up their place.
But on May 5th, that was when shit got really real.
Bull Connor was looking at hundreds of black kids standing up to his bullshit.
He's like, let's bring out the hoses.
And these are high-pressure, knock-you-the-fuck-out water hoses.
But the kids realized that there's strength in numbers and togetherness matters, so those kids linked hands and said, "Not today, bitch.
Not today.
" So Bull Connor decides, oh, okay.
Release the K9 units so that the dogs can fuck these kids up.
(Coughs) Excuse me.
(Laughs) And at this point, there were news crews there that caught the entire situation on camera, and these are now some of the most infamous shots of the Civil Rights movement.
And after people saw children on international TV being sprayed with hoses and attacked by dogs, a mind shift occurred, and after eight solid days of protest, President Kennedy felt motivated to come out and say, "You know what? "I didn't want to say it before "because of the Southern white voters, "but them motherfuckers are racist, "so it's time to just be real.
"This shit that you are going out here and doing to people in my name is not the fuck okay.
" (Triumphant music) Oh, man, I love drinking.
How come I don't do this more? (Both laughing) Whoo! (Laughs) So anyway, who was I talking about? - The kids.
- Yeah, yeah.
So after the success of the Birmingham children's march, Dr.
King decided to ride that momentum, and he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech.
Bull Connor was fired, and the Civil Rights Act was passed within a year of all that, so it was monumental that Gwendolyn Sanders and these kids were willing to say this is not a fucking game, and you won't treat us and our people this way because we're here and this is what's going on, and it's time for us to stand up too.
And so I don't have to worry about that sort of thing the way those kids even did or their parents even did, and I don't take that for granted.
Cheers to the kids! Cheers to the kids.
(Glasses clink) - All right.
- This is gone.
I'm not drinking shit else! No! No more.
I'm done, Viacom! (Laughter) - Here you go, young lady.
- Here we go.
Cheers to you.
And you.
To everybody.
To everybody and you.
And myself.
Thank you.
- Mm-hmm.
And me.
- And that includes you.
- Great, thank you.
- Mm-hmm.
Hello.
I'm Suzi Barrett, and today we're talking about the Section 504 sit-in.
I'll sit in for this.
I'll sit in with you.
(Chuckles) Okay.
Act one, scene one.
A backdrop appears slowly in front of the audience's eyes.
What's on this backdrop? The 50s and the 60s.
We got people with disabilities being treated not as normal citizens.
If you're in a wheelchair, you can't just, like, walk into a bank and apply for a job.
There's no access, and they're like, uh, fuck you.
You use a wheelchair.
Or, like, you can't see and therefore fuck off, dude.
A disability is dismiss-ability, basically.
Put that in your fucking pipe.
I will.
And I'll smoke that.
Will you? I will.
I like this pipe.
Okay.
So here comes 1973.
Richard Nixon signs this thing called the Rehabilitation Act, and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is the section that says you can't, uh a federal institution can't, like, uh, you know, discriminate against people with a disability.
So section 504 needs to be signed.
So so so Joseph Califano, the head of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare HEW was like, well, this sounds like a lot of work.
So, like, what do we have to do to our buildings? What's braille? I mean, if this is that, and that is what, and what this is what we're talking about, and (Snoring) (Laughs) So it sits there for four fucking years, and he doesn't sign it.
So the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities, headed by Dr.
Frank Bowe, are like, what the fucking fuck? Make us equal.
We have rights.
We are citizens.
(Spits) Sign this by April 5th or else.
And "else" is not a "Frozen" character.
"Else" is a fucking disability surprise.
(Burps) I feel way drunker than I should be.
You're all good.
You're all good.
(Laughing) (Groans) Okay.
So the deadline, April 5th, comes and it goes.
And at the federal building in San Francisco, this woman, Judy Heumann, rolls up, and doorman's like, oh (stammering) I'm sorry, ma'am.
Do you need some help? Would you like some punch or maybe a cookie? And she's like, nope.
Uh me and my 150 friends would actually like to roll over your ass (Funky rock music) 'Cause we're about to make a change.
And this started the first protest for the disability movement.
All over the nation at all these federal buildings, protests erupt.
People with disabilities are like, fuck you! We're gonna camp out in your hallways.
We're gonna sit on your motherfucking desk.
But none of these protests across the country lasted more than 28 hours except for San Francisco, where the days start dragging on, and people have needs.
Like, oh, my God.
I don't have my ventilator.
I can't fucking breathe.
I don't even know why I'm speaking right now.
I'm wasting oxygen.
And, like, the news is covering this.
And people start really feeling for what's happening here.
And the floodgates open, and you got people bringing in medicine, coming in with food.
The Black Panthers show up.
Everyone's sitting in, not just people with disabilities.
It's allies and people with disabilities.
I's veterans coming home from Vietnam being like, man, we got you.
Jefferson Airplane shows up, like, we're Jefferson Airplane.
Get it you know, get your shit on.
We love you! If Woodstock was in an office building and filled with wheelchairs and medical supplies, this is Woodstock.
And all these people are finding a community that they hadn't had in person until now.
And finally, they get the attention of Washington.
So they're like, okay, okay, let's, um, let's make a little hearing, and we'll hear your little disability complaints.
When people start noticing that they're being dicks, then they start trying to fix their dicks.
(Laughs) That's my favorite Dr.
Seuss quote.
(Laughter) I'm so dumb.
(Laughs) (Groans) Hey.
- Oh, hey, Suzi.
(Laughs) - Oh, hey.
This is a real fucking - Is that too much? - No.
(Laughs) Okay.
So Judy Heumann gets 20 of her friends from her activist group in San Francisco, and they haul ass to Washington.
Boom.
We're in Washington, D.
C.
And she's like, if you are going to claim to be a country of the land of the free, then you have to include us in it.
Otherwise, yikes, do we have a weird revolution that's about to happen.
So here's Senator Alan Cranston.
You know, he's nodding his head.
"Oh, yeah.
Oh, my gosh, yeah.
Oh, I'm so feeling it.
" Judy Heumann's not having any of it.
She's like, I'd appreciate if you wouldn't act like you understand what I'm saying because you don't understand.
We're going through this shit.
You ain't.
Party's over.
Peace out.
Sign the shit.
Crowd goes wild.
Everyone's cheering for Judy.
Love it.
Then Frank Bow steps up, and he's like, we're not even second-class citizens.
We're third-class citizens.
And here come the tears.
How do you not cry after that? You know, why would you want to be on the side of history that categorizes people rather than the side of history that's, like, liberating and, like, let's be the piñata.
Yeah, break it and let everyone come out.
Yeah! Let's make let's make candy.
Okay.
Califano's like, ooh.
I, uh, funny thing.
Uh fine! I'll sign it.
Jubilation.
504 was signed, and this opened the floodgates for the American Disabilities Act for ramps, for braille, for everything that we know today that is for disability access.
(Triumphant music) So Judy Heumann's people have been in the federal building in San Francisco for 26 days.
And these protestors are coming out so happy, fists raised in victory.
And they're loving it because they're having a voice in their place in history.
- Cheers.
- Cheers.
To everybody.
To literally everybody.