And you thought we were done campaigning to get stuff at NASA renamed! Well, so did we, to be honest. But then one line in Space Karen's emails we FOIAed changed everything! These next two episodes are a fascinating look at an old Dixiecrat and how effing racist people like that were able to be while still being not just accepted, but HIGHLY regarded and honored within our political institutions. Lydia has lots of archival material for us that paints a very vivid and troubling picture. But, you know, he sounded all Southern and nice and he really respected the institution of the Senate, so let's definitely keep a bunch of stuff named after a white supremacist, right? Feel free to email us at lydia@seriouspod.com or thomas@seriouspod.com! Please pretty please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/wherethereswoke!
Anywhere you see diversity, equity, and inclusion, you see Marxism and you see woke principles being pushed.
Wokeness is a virus more dangerous than any pandemic hands down.
The woke monster is here and it's coming for everything.
Instead of go-go boots, the seductress green Eminem will now wear sneakers.
Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke.
This is episode 18.
I'm Thomas.
That's Lydia.
How you doing?
Hi.
I'm good.
Oh boy.
Oh boy.
It's too much.
It's too much.
It's always too much.
This was completely unexpected.
It's always that way.
And then we're like, oh, we'll just do a quick little thing, just a little, little thing.
And then this is the most fascinating thing.
So, folks, we teased it last time that this is going to be hashtag rename Stennis Center.
Or Stennis anything, I guess.
All the things.
There's also a boat that should... We could also sink it.
I think we could either sink the boat... I'm not advocating terrorism on the show.
There won't be anybody on it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Either it needs to be sunk or you could rename it.
Those are the options.
There's a big boat.
And then there's the Stennis Center, which is... It's a rocket testing facility out in Mississippi, one of NASA's major facilities.
And so what started this, and I just have to say, folks, just please trust me.
This was something where I started reading.
We were just going to figure out, like, what does this email mean?
What is this little line?
That fucking Kristen Erikson.
Space Karen, as I call her.
Space Karen is just a... I want all her emails.
Can we do a FOIA that's like, can you just give us all her stuff?
Because she's just, like, fascinating.
What's she been up to?
She's such an asshole.
Anything she says...
will lead us to something.
You know what I mean?
It's like if we got Ginny Thomas' texts.
Yeah.
That'll give us something.
We'll be like, ah, ah, okay.
You're on the next war front.
Of this, which she was.
So she said in just one of the last emails we went through, and this was the same one that I sure hope someone is speaking truth to power, which is the best.
Listen to the previous episode, if you didn't hear that, mandatory, go listen, stop now, do that, and then come back.
The line that we teased, it's the last paragraph here, quote, this administrator must decide he cannot have mission equity And Stennis at the same time.
And then I sure hope someone is speaking truth to power.
So that obviously instantly got us both interested.
Yeah, a name we've never heard before.
Yeah, and I also, she's so fucking weird that I don't know what she means.
You know, like it takes a minute.
There's actually like a good interpretation.
Yeah.
And then you realize like, oh no, she's so shitty that she means it the other way.
Because think about that sentence.
Look, spoiler alert.
Which you could already figure out because of everything.
Stennis is someone who sucks.
You mean because you want to sink a ship that has his name on it?
Stennis is someone who sucks and there's stuff named after him.
And she's saying he cannot have mission equity and Stennis at the same time.
And that's perfect because you and I are like, yeah, no, I agree.
Look, that would be like us saying, look, you can't sit there and tell me you care about equity and inclusion.
You can't tell me you care about that and then have something named after Stennis at the same time.
And Space Karen is like, yeah, I agree.
I'm like, wait, what?
What?
You agree with that?
She's like, yeah, we got to get rid of mission equity.
We got to get rid of the good part of that and keep the Stennis part of it.
And I really wrestled with this the last episode.
I just thought that she was calling him a hypocrite, not necessarily saying that equity was the bad thing there, just saying that Bill Nelson's, you know, trying to both sides it.
I don't know how this edit is gonna work, but Lydia and I are still arguing over Space Karen and what she means.
She's a Pandora's box.
I can't understand it.
Because my interpretation is that she's saying, yeah, fuck mission equity, essentially.
But I grant that's a little extreme.
Maybe she wouldn't quite be saying, yeah, let's get rid of mission equity.
Because mission equity is actually a thing.
She doesn't mean that in vague terms.
Right, right.
Oh, just like equity as a concept.
It's a capitalized thing, mission equity, which is a particular... It's like a strategic plan of sorts with how they're going to tackle DEI and NASA, yeah.
And so her reasoning, this is neither here nor there, but now I have to understand this person.
Of course.
So she's saying, because her whole fucking thing, okay, let's go through it.
We're going through the steps here of logic.
Obviously, she wants to keep James Webb.
Yes.
Duh.
And she's saying, I do grant that if you keep the name, the agency is exposed to other naming issues.
And remind me, this is 2021 when this email?
Yeah.
Okay.
Interesting.
Because the articles about the little bit of renaming push that Stennis got, those were in 2020 and NASA had to issue a statement back then.
Oh, did they?
Yes.
So, that's interesting because I came across those but I didn't look too much into it because, you know, we were delegating.
Yeah.
And from what I could tell, though, correct me if I'm wrong, this has gotten almost no attention.
Like, yeah, there was an article or two written to rename, and one of them was the ship.
And then I think there was an even smaller bit of fuss made about the name of the... It was covered in the New York Times, but it didn't pick up much traction.
Yeah.
You know, besides the guy himself covering it on Twitter.
And trying to kind of draw some attention to it.
And you get those typical Twitter responses being like, why do you care?
But NASA, they responded to the New York Times inquiring about the Stennis campaign to change the name from Stennis.
And NASA said the agency was engaged in ongoing discussions about the names of its facilities.
And in quotes, NASA leadership is sensitive to the discussions of racism, discrimination and inequalities going on around the world.
Including conversations about renaming facilities.
We are having ongoing discussions with the NASA workforce on all of these topics.
NASA is dedicated to advancing diversity, and we will continue to take steps to do so.
And then they did nothing.
I was going to say.
So wait, was there a change in the guard?
Although, but even though we don't like- That was that Jim Bridenstine travel appointee at that point in time.
Yeah.
But like, there's no way he's better than Bill Nelson on these issues, is there?
Right, right.
So it's not like, oh, the leader changed and then things got worse, it's just like- I think it just got forgotten about.
I think that's how this, this is, again, another reason we're doing this.
The ability of the entrenched power to just wait it out often.
Yeah, yeah.
Because like, there's so much shit wrong that, you know, you gotta do podcasts about, that like, it's just if people tried for a minute, hey, rename this thing, and then they're like, oh yeah, no, we're looking into that.
And then they just didn't give a shit.
But here's what I can't escape with Space Karen.
So why would keeping James Webb have a negative impact on keeping Stennis?
Like if anything, it would be like, yeah, if you back down on that, then next they're going to, first they came for our webs and I said nothing.
And then they came for our Stennis's.
I think it could be, like, if you get rid of that, like, it might just kind of draw attention to what else is, you know, they're recognizing that there was problematic naming here, and it might just, like, renew attention on something that they dealt with the previous year from that email.
And who knows if she knows anything about that.
I'm drafting a FOIA right now.
Must be.
Oh, yeah, must be.
But, okay, okay.
Yeah.
And again, this is us trying to get in the mind of something where you zoom in and it may just be a couple of monkeys playing ping pong or something.
I don't know what's in this person's brain.
This is blowing my mind.
This could be just like a bonus addendum or something because I can't.
So, okay.
I respect that by reclaiming the name, the agency is exposed to other naming issues, but why, why would you be exposed to other naming?
So then is she saying, then you also have to reclaim Stennis?
I think you have to pick a side is what she's saying.
But then you can't have mission equity and Stennis at the same time.
Because Stennis is anti-mission equity basically.
So that's why I'm saying she wants to get rid of mission equity.
Otherwise she'd be saying, hey Stennis, that's a different story, that guy sucks, go ahead and rename that.
Don't rename James White.
Right.
And I guess that's what I'm saying is that, like, initially when I read this, it's the benefit of the doubt, you know, that I tend to do with everybody.
But then I think the more that you and I have talked about it and that her stance with that reclaim the name, you know, just even though the PR firm or whatever that they were working with was like, get rid of it, get rid of it.
God, now here's the weird thing.
Now I'm coming around to your interpretation.
and all of her wisdom was like, no, you just, you hold on tight to the Jim Webb name and, and it'll all go away.
And so maybe that's why I'm coming around to your interpretation.
Now here's the weird thing.
Now I'm coming around to your interpretation.
Oh God.
Cause I, I, this, I can't fucking make heads or tails of the sentence, this paragraph.
It actually, maybe it does make more sense if she, she is acknowledging like, yes, Dennis does suck.
She doesn't say this, but like, let's pretend in her mind somehow she is acknowledging that Dennis sucks.
And she's saying like, yeah.
And if you reclaim this one, But I still don't know, what's the logical connection?
You're going to need to address that one also.
Yeah, but... I don't know.
We're going to have to resolve it another day.
We need to do a FOIA request of just like, hey, just get on the phone with us while Lydia and I argue about this sentence.
That's the FOIA request.
Some poor NASA person's like, I have no fucking idea what you're talking about.
Or if we just FOIA like, please send us all of Christian's emails and they'll be like, we knew this day was coming.
Here you go.
Kristen Erikson, Space Karen, has sent me like a Mensa mind puzzle in this fucking haphazard, weird nonsense she typed in an email on June 29th, 2021.
And I will never let this go, but I'm just going to mute myself.
I'm going to continue talking it through.
And I'll continue the episode.
Yeah, and you just record the episode we planned.
Okay.
Because I can't handle that I don't understand this.
Yeah.
Okay.
So obviously we both looked into Stennis and we're like, what does that mean?
And we come across this.
And initially I was looking into this.
I asked you, I was like, did you look into Stennis?
And I think you kind of were like, oh yeah, a little bit, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I kind of got the basics.
I had just by pure happenstance of which internet research rabbit holes we went down, I had come across something that was, I have to share.
I'm saving this for the end because I guarantee you that what I have is the much more We're gonna do a slow build.
thing.
And I don't think we should lead off with that.
So that's when I was hooked.
And I was thinking, yeah.
And I'm thinking like, well, I have to talk about it.
Just trust me that there's so much that this relates to that are themes that are important to us in the show.
And it's just fucking fascinating history.
And I've unlocked some new research techniques that I didn't think of that are just now I just want to do that.
So anyway, all those teasers aside, why don't we start with the basics?
So Stennis, in addition to being a boat and a test facility, He was a man first.
Yeah, Stennis McStennisface.
Who was he?
Okay, John Stennis, John Cornelius Stennis, great middle name, was a senator from Mississippi.
And he was a senator from Mississippi during the Dixiecrat timeframe.
So this was a period of, you know, Jim Crow and racial segregation and moving through the civil rights era and everything.
And a lot of the Southern states were not interested.
Not huge fans.
Yeah, not huge fans.
Strom Thurmond wrote the Southern Manifesto and he helped write it with him.
The Southern Manifesto was signed by all slave-holding states and their representatives basically saying that they were not fans of integration in the wake of Brown v. Board and their response to that.
This guy, man.
I initially saw that information, I was like, okay, cool, racist senator from Mississippi, got it.
Yeah, and like, already we're like, oh, okay, yeah, something shouldn't be named after that fucking guy.
Yeah, yeah, and not good.
But there's so much more to talk about.
Yeah, and then when you told me, you're like, hey, I stumbled on this crazy stuff that I'm not gonna tell you about because I'm a tease, and you're just gonna have to wait.
Yeah, and I did a little dance with like a feather boa, and I was like, I'm not- Yeah, yeah.
Then you said, you know, like, hey, poke around, see, like, if there's anything else you can find on him.
And I stumbled on some stuff that's really gross.
It'll probably be better.
And then I'll be like, well, shit, never mind.
I should have gone first.
Yeah, we'll fix it in post.
But essentially, you know, what the setup is, is this guy did not like racial integration.
He thought segregation was the way to go.
Would you say he thought segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever?
Yes.
George Wallace quote?
Yeah.
There was actually something.
So as part of my research, I stumbled on Mississippi State and they have a big John C. Stennis repository, I guess, of archived things, you know, correspondence with constituents.
And Stennis did like weekly radio addresses for his constituents while he served, which I think is like pretty cool.
Yeah, it is actually.
Yeah.
And so I was listening to a lot of that audio, reading a lot of the correspondence that he had.
I have some things to share with that, but funny that you just mentioned George Wallace.
It was like some sort of forum that he was participating in.
It wasn't the Weekly Address.
And one of the questions was about whether he would support George Wallace for his 1968 campaign.
And he really sidestepped it.
He knew that he couldn't say yes.
Really?
Uh, yeah.
Was that just him running re-election for governor or did he run for president?
Yeah, presidential campaign.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because he was running as an independent.
I know all this in my brain, and now I'm realizing, crap, I've learned a bunch of new stuff about Stennis and boats and crap, and I've just went to that file.
Because, like, 60s politics is just the most interesting thing.
Yeah.
And I do remember primaries didn't work the same way back then.
There's the whole thing.
Anyway, there's a lot of interesting stuff there.
And so this is him running for president in 1968.
Yes.
Yeah.
Running for president in 1968 as an independent against Nixon and Hubert Humphrey.
Which is amazing being like, this Nixon isn't racist enough.
I need, I need to do a third party run.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's crazy.
He ended up getting 13 and a half percent of the vote nationwide.
He carried Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
And I wonder who Stennis voted for.
I'm trying to think.
Yeah.
Is there like a pattern to which states?
I don't know.
I can't think of what that would be.
Just a random cluster, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
Just, you know, spread out by not— You threw just a fucking bag of marbles on a map of the United States.
You might end up with that—it's just random.
Yeah.
You know, it's not the most that, like, any third-party candidate has won, but yeah, I think it's interesting that it's such a concentrated area.
For a third party to win.
Apologies, but I wanna just signpost something that I'm constantly thinking of that is actually one of the reasons I wanna do the part that I am doing on this episode.
And this is particular to me, and maybe you, but I also think it's particular to a lot of people roughly our age and roughly our race.
Which is, being raised in the 90s, in California, I cannot communicate enough How much we were raised in a post-racial lens.
Yeah.
Where it's like, yeah, racism was a thing they solved in the 60s, the march and the speeches, and then they fixed it.
And it wasn't that explicit, but that was kind of, especially as a conservative, one of the storylines of me personally kind of learning that the way I learned things was wrong, I cannot tell you how much, as a conservative, I had the mindset that racism has been solved and all that was happening now is black people were still just complaining about stuff.
I cannot that is a mainstream conservative view.
Yeah, absolutely mainstream.
And it was back then.
And it is now it could be worse now.
I feel like it's regressed now because the more time goes by, the more conservatives, especially white conservatives are like, it's even been further since we've fixed everything.
So how are you still complaining and discovering just how much out and out fucking racism has existed forever and even up until today in ways that as someone who's not from the South and has spent no significant time in the South, it's still hard to keep in mind.
For example, Stennis is just unambiguously a hero, In these, like we look at this historical document collections, it's all, it's ubiquitous positivity about Stennis and other people of that generation.
He served in the Senate for 41 years.
Hero of the Senate.
Yeah.
And it's just crazy how recently, obviously there's still racism, but like how recently there was Open support of segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.
That's a blink of an eye ago.
And so now having grown up more and seeing how quickly time goes by, it's like I was learning this stuff in 1994 or whatever.
That's five minutes from when this happened.
Yeah.
It's crazy, like, how short time really is.
But when you're a little kid and you're learning about these black and white things that happened, and, you know, cameras looked all different, you're like, God, that was eternity ago.
I'm glad we fixed all that.
That's a big part of, sorry, teaser for my section.
Yes, it's a while ago.
It's also so fucking recent.
And when you see the depths of the horrors of it, that also makes it even more salient that it was not all that long ago.
OK, apologies.
Please continue.
That's all right.
So we talked a little bit about how he sidestepped that George Wallace question.
He was, as I mentioned, staunchly opposed to desegregating public schools.
He voted against the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968, the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Can I tell you, there's no way he sidestepped that question because of, like, being sensitive to racism.
No.
It's probably because of the electoral politics involved.
Yes, so that is one thing that I wanted to bring up in my research.
He was someone who people appreciated because he was more polite, right?
He wasn't a demagogue when it came to racism.
It more like informed his politics and his position.
Yeah, he's like, segregation now, please.
Yes, but he went about it.
Segregation tomorrow if you can.
Exactly.
If you don't mind.
The Constitution would appreciate it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because you compare him to the people that he beat out.
It was a special election that he won initially and then ended up getting reelected and reelected.
And that first special election, he beat out two, like, literal white supremacists.
Who were, like, very out and proud white supremacists.
And he might have been one, too.
He probably was one, too.
It wasn't his campaign tagline, you know?
And so he was able to kind of just approach it in a way that was more like a bowl of soup for people, right?
Like, it was just kind of, like, easygoing.
Their old racist soup.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Nothing, like, too spicy.
Campbell's Chunky.
Campbell's Chunky racist soup.
Some of the people who cast Dennis in a more positive light these days, or if they've talked about him post-death and everything, they'll say, hey, you know, he came around.
He voted for extending the Voting Rights Act in 1982.
And yes, he did.
He did vote.
But that was also during a reelection campaign that was thought to be pretty competitive for him at that time.
And he needed the support of black voters.
So he never came out and said exactly why he voted for it.
But he turned around one year later, after he was comfortably in his seat, to vote against recognizing Martin Luther King Jr.
Day as a federal holiday.
And he was one of four Democrats and 18 Republicans who voted against it.
And his spokesperson at the time said that Stennis thought, in quotes, we already had more than enough holidays.
Yeah, his position on extending the Voting Rights Act definitely feels like it was a calculated choice because he knew he had a re-election campaign coming up.
But some things that I wanted to talk about specifically related to kind of his trajectory and to, I don't know, demonstrate how racist this guy is.
I have some of the correspondence that I mentioned with some constituents, and there's this one from 1949 from a constituent that it goes on for a literal full page.
I won't read the entire thing, but I did want to clue in on a little bit of this.
Also, I will be saying the word Negro, and it makes me very uncomfortable, but please know I'm quoting it from these materials.
So this is regarding black people serving in the military.
So this is 1949, and this particular constituent—it's all redacted, of course—says, Seems as if President Truman is strongly bent on the civil rights program.
I am of the opinion that President Truman does not understand the Negro problem of the South.
There are not very many Negroes living in the section of Missouri where President Truman was born and reared.
What Negroes that they have in that part of Missouri are entirely different from most of the Negroes that we have in the South.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
I am of the opinion that President Truman did not learn very much about the Southern Negroes while he was in the service during World War I. During World War I, the Negro soldiers sold the French people on the idea that they were American Indians, which was an outright misrepresentation.
Jesus fucking Christ.
For combat duty, Negro soldiers have always proven to be a complete failure in wartime.
What?
Yeah.
During World War I, the Negro division that was tried out for frontline duty proved to be a complete failure for frontline duty.
I've been informed that one or two Negro divisions tried out for frontline duty in Italy.
The Germans got wise some way about the Negro troops, and the German troops went through that part of the line like a dose of salts through a sick person.
Jesus fucking Christ.
So this goes on for a page.
Yeah.
You know, here's the other thing about the old timey past.
They had a lot of time to talk about their racism.
Yeah.
There's other stuff where I want to read a lot of it, but it goes on for fucking hours.
It's so much.
It's so much.
There wasn't even a sense back then of like, okay.
They were like, no, tell me more about the Southern Negro, please, sir.
So why, I might ask, was he talking about how ineffective black people were in war?
Right.
So he says, if plan has ever tried to force social equality between Negroes and whites in this section of country, it would result in outright rebellion and mutiny.
He mentions that white girls that stand for what is right would not want to enter the service and have to be mixed and mingled with Negroes.
And then he says, I appreciate what you have done to prevent enactment of laws along the line of FEPC, anti-lynching, anti-poll tax, anti-segregation and other laws that would have a tendency to try and force social equality between Negroes and whites.
I know that you will do your best to try and stop the legislation that's been advocated for a political purpose.
This is a horrible.
Yeah.
So not a great start.
1949.
constituent.
And then, you know, he it was Christmas holidays and stuff.
And so he apologizes for not responding sooner.
And then he says, I appreciate very much your views on such legislation as FEPC and anti-lynching, et cetera, and assure you that it is my intention to continue to fight against this legislation.
With best wishes and kindest regards.
I am sincerely yours.
Oh, boy.
Yeah.
So not a great start.
1949.
Not a great start.
So an incredible racist writes in is like, hey, I'm worried about imposing social equality in the form of Czech's notes, anti-lynching laws.
Yeah.
And Stennis is like, no, but I gotcha.
Please.
Yeah, don't worry.
I'm staunchly against those things.
I'm on it.
1954, he receives a letter from a teacher who's a constituent.
This, man, this was very depressing to read.
So this is June 6, 1954.
This individual says, My dear Senator, today I listened to your discussion of segregation in the Southern schools.
You are very right in what you have to say concerning racial differences.
I teach in a high school where many Negro youngsters attend.
Some are very good students.
Others are stupid.
Those that cooperate are a minority.
Discipline is a terrific problem.
A teacher does not put a hand on one.
The white youngsters profit by the situation, and the teacher has a very rough time of it.
Basically saying, like, they don't feel comfortable hitting black kids, so now, like, white kids are being even worse as a result.
Okay, yeah.
We have a policeman close at hand at all times.
So there's a huge psychological problem for these youngsters branded by a sense of inferiority and carry a chip on their shoulder and are different.
Maybe no child should be born with this stigma.
I pity the teachers who will have half white and half colored youngsters in their classes.
Should you have the two races together, I suggest that there be colored teachers for colored kids And that all the hardships of this reconstruction agony, in quotes, be not put upon teachers.
Jesus Christ.
Yeah.
And then he just had kind of a funny closing paragraph where he says, in another generation or so, having the two races in one classroom may work out all right.
The white youngsters do very well and have a sincere regard for the colored kids.
They are far ahead of us as an older generation in accepting all races as equal.
Wow.
Why don't you just lean into that then, sir?
That's an interesting bit of self-awareness of this awful racist.
Yeah.
Okay, okay.
Contrast that with nowadays where the people we cover on here are like, no, the kids are fucking losing their minds about gender and they're wrong and I'm right.
Yeah.
I mean, even this fucking awful racist from 1954 or whatever is like, You know, credit to the youngsters.
They're doing a lot better with this integration thing than I'm doing.
Wow.
Jesus Christ.
That just shows how fucking backwards a lot of the people today are.
They think they're going to be the first generation that's like, nope, too much progress has been had, and then they're going to be right about it.
Yep.
This one gives us some awful Stennis material.
So this is Stennis initiating contact with someone who we do not know.
This is to somebody in Mississippi that he wrote to in 1954.
And it says, this letter is for your information and merely an effort to briefly discuss the school situation.
I have been disappointed that a financial program has not been adopted by our state legislators because I felt that whichever way the decision on segregation goes here, we would be better off in Mississippi to have the program adopted.
At the same time, I have felt all the time that if the United States Supreme Court should declare segregation illegal within itself, that this would mean that no tax dollar could be lawfully spent in a public school which enforces segregation and thus we would be forced to spend our educational tax dollars on some other system than an outright public school system because to huddle our children together on a non-segregated basis would certainly bring a mongrelized race within a few generations.
Yikes.
Yeah, that was appalling when I saw that.
This is like one of the most blatant things that I've seen him write.
I read a lot of these letters.
Yeah, because you've got to remember, this wasn't a shameful view for these people.
Yeah, yeah.
They're like, no, you don't understand.
Maybe you didn't hear me correctly.
It's going to be a mongrel race.
If we allow blacks and whites, like they were, they're proud of this.
We have to get out of our mindset of our white millennial mindset of like, well, surely this must've been like a secret letter or that.
No, this is, they were proud of these views.
Yeah, it's so awful.
He closes it, I of course do not know when the decision will be handed down here nor its contents, but I judge that it will be before too long and I am considerably discouraged by the prospects as to just what the ruling will be.
What rumors and straws in the wind that I have heard, and they are of course just rumors, have been discouraging.
So he kind of saw Brown v. Board turning out the way that it turned All right, I have a couple more pieces I wanted to share.
This one's from 1962.
This is a letter from a constituent that says, attached is an article by Mr. Holmes Alexander titled, however, Bob Kennedy didn't mention the increase in crime and immorality.
Again, 1962.
So this says, it is requested that you send this to Mr. Bob Kennedy as the expression of the thoughts of many Southerners if you deem it proper to do so.
The Brothers Kennedy just may be, the Brothers Kennedy.
Just may be interested in knowing something of the strength of the smoldering sentiment against their efforts to change so drastically our way of life toward the example rapidly being achieved in the capital city.
And so essentially what this is saying is the increase in crime that's happening as a result of integration.
And Stennis responds, this is a special word of thanks for your excellent and most timely letter with reference to the crime situation in Washington and the attitude of the Attorney General.
Frankly, your letter is very much in line with an address which I made on the Senate floor recently pointing out the serious situation which faces the nation's capital, all because of the coddling of members of the Negro race and the leaders of both political parties seeking their vote.
The records of the Police Department of the District of Columbia show that 80% of all crimes in Washington are committed by Negroes and 94% of all robberies are committed by Negroes.
Uh-huh, right.
It is apparent that the plan of the integrationists to make Washington a model city of integration has succeeded in numbers and percentages, but it has also succeeded in making Washington a model city of crime.
I will continue to pose with all my strength efforts to force integration.
So what you're saying is San Francisco is crime.
It's the same thing.
Isn't it amazing?
Yeah.
It's all the same logic of today.
Your liberal cities are overrun.
Exactly.
Overrun with crime.
Exactly the fucking same.
Yep, this is 1964, June 1964.
He's like, you heard that new Beatles record?
God, that thing fucking slays.
God, I wish, I wish.
So this, this letter from this constituent is also awful.
They're all awful.
I don't know why I keep practicing with it.
Yeah, it's not going to be like a good one.
What are you talking about?
So I'm just going to skip to certain parts of this one.
However, I have a couple criticisms to make.
Why haven't you and all other Southern senators demanded that President Johnson send federal marshals to New York City to protect the white people from Negro punks?
You have far more right to do this than Senator Javis and Senator Keating has demanding federal marshals be sent to Mississippi for the situation up there, according to reports are far worse up there than in Mississippi.
I think it's time and apologies for the language here, folks.
I'm reading it literally verbatim and there are missing words and whatnot.
I think it's time that really little men, in quotes, like the above, mentioned, be put in their place.
I'm surprised that all of you from the Southern group haven't gotten together and demanded that federal marshals be stationed on buses, streetcars, and residential neighborhoods to protect the masses of people from stabbing, rape, and getting beat up by Negro punks in New York City.
Another thing, why don't you and other congressmen and Senator Eastland from Mississippi expose the fact that 26.5% of Negro children born in Mississippi in 1962 was born out of wedlock, compared to 1.5% for whites, and the fact that in the same year venereal disease among Negroes was five times greater than that of white?
There's no fucking chance that 1.5% of white people were born in— I know.
I know.
It's just lies.
Absolutely no chance of that.
Yeah.
I recently talked to a group of Northerners who were shocked and said they did not blame us for not wanting to mix with them with this much difference in the morals of the two races.
I think it's time that the people in the South hear its senators and congressmen speak out on radio, television, and newspapers and demand that Martin Luther King and his group and his efforts and the National Council of Churches spend their time, money, and efforts in the South and Christian leadership to raise the morals of the Negro before they try to force the Negroes into the society of the white people.
Is this making too much of the men we the people sent to Washington to represent us?
Fucking yikes.
But I still again, I cannot get over sending.
We need to send troops to the cities where there's too much crime because of the brown people.
That is today.
It's still today.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is mainly about, you know, illegal immigrants or whatever bullshit.
But like, that's the same fucking thing.
Yeah.
He responds.
This is a special word of thanks for your letter, and I want to commend you for your appraisal of the situation.
It is the people of Chicago and New York who should have relief from the reign of terror which has been going on in those cities for years.
Frankly, I am opposed to the meddling of the federal government in any city or state.
Those who are in favor of federal encroachment on state and local authority can very well devote their activities to Chicago or New York.
I appreciate your letter and shall certainly use it in an appropriate way.
Wow.
He is a horrible, horrible person.
There's a lot of letters like that.
That's just a sampling.
But we're also really lucky, I guess, lucky to have him speak in his own words.
And so I sent you over some clips from those weekly radio segments.
If you want to pull those up, we can start with the one regarding race riots.
What effect, Senator, do you think the riots will have on the passage of civil rights legislation pending now before the Congress?
Well, I don't think the civil rights bills this year were going to be passed anyway.
But now they're dead as hector.
And I hope they, and think they will stay that way for the rest of this session and many sessions to come.
This is going to be a lesson to a lot of people in the country who have not realized heretofore Just how this matter will operate.
Basically saying the race riots are going to have a completely negative effect on the civil rights bills and that they're dead in the water.
There's no way they're going to pass.
The race riots are just making it worse.
I could not help.
As dead as Hector.
Yeah.
Did you look it up?
Well, okay.
So there's an idiom my dad used to say, and even when my dad said it, he was like, yeah, this is This is from a long time ago.
My dad is saying something.
He used to say when Hector was a pup.
Oh.
And so now I'm hearing the dad is Hector.
I'm like, is this the same thing?
Is this a, you know, like I want to know the relationship between Hector and Hector as a pup.
Yeah.
So now that's a new deep dive.
Stop the episode.
No, I'm just kidding.
But yeah, no.
Okay.
I got distracted by that, of course.
But what did I miss?
Racism?
Yes, racism.
And how dare people riot at all.
But he predicted the civil rights legislation was as dead as Hector.
Yes.
Yes, dead as Hector.
Truly a Nostradamus.
This one is about the March on Washington.
I'm very deeply concerned about this so-called March on Washington, which is in reality a march on the Congress, which will take place on August the 28th of this week.
I think that a grave constitutional question is involved here.
Not a matter of tradition and custom.
I have the Constitution here before me, which properly provides that people shall always have the right to petition the government for redress of grievances or the right to peaceably assemble.
But that's really not the question involved here.
This Constitution relates to consultations and interviews Letters in exchange of ideas.
This is a mass march on the Congress in an effort to intimidate and choice and politically black men.
Just to clarify, this is the famous I Have a Dream speech?
Yes.
Like this is that march on Washington for jobs and freedom?
Yes.
I think it's not only a fraud on the public, but it seriously challenges Our form of representative constitutional government.
This march is now estimated to constitute 200,000 people.
We coming in here composed of Negroes and Whites.
Coming in during the night of Tuesday and here all day Wednesday and take them all night of course some more to get out.
Senate and the House will, of course, then be in session.
And actually, the members of the Congress are invited to take part in the parade.
Right, so it hasn't happened yet.
There's like a week before.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now, I hope this, uh, assemblage here will be peaceful.
But police evidently think there's a strong chance that it will not be.
Because they're planning to have 8,000 policemen here.
Uh, to keep order, this includes 2,000 extra national guardmen and 2,000 special marshals, over 1,800 military police, and according to the Washington Daily News, 75 dog teams will be on duty.
Uh, this group will be led by William Randolph, and his deputy will be Bayard Rustin, a man who has a jail record and who, uh, was a member of the Young Communist League in his earlier days.
They will talk about and ask about the better jobs and better salaries and integrated schools and other so-called civil rights.
Now, I... So-called civil rights.
...approve everyone and praise anyone for wanting to improve their lot, to improve their work, improve their job.
And I want everyone to have a job.
But I certainly do not favor taking a job away from a man because he's white and giving it to a man because he's colored.
And that's about what they're asking for here in New York and elsewhere.
By the way, I saw some figures the other day.
The income of our Negro citizens in the United States is estimated to be $23 billion, which is just slightly less Then all the income of all the people of Canada put together.
Say now that's no small amount.
I find that most of the salaries of Negroes are equal the salaries of white people are comparable training and comparable knowledge and equal preparation.
I find, too, that the average salary of a Negro citizen in the United States is in excess of the average salary of a citizen, say, of England or Germany.
Wow.
Yeah.
Even the fucking, the gender wage gap arguments.
Yeah.
No, you don't understand.
When you control for, it's the same shit.
It's always the same shit.
Exactly.
And so, you know, obviously did a little fact checking on this guy.
Yeah.
Wasn't able to track down that Canada comment.
I know.
Back in the day, you used to be able to just say, I saw some facts and figures.
And they were whatever the fuck I'm about to say.
Yeah, foghorn leghorn.
What was anyone gonna do?
Oh, yeah, give me the link for that.
What page of the encyclopedia did you find that from?
If something was, like, typed, then it was like, well, that must be official then, I guess.
Yeah, in 1940, weekly wages of the average black male were 48.4% that of the average white male.
And then the Civil Rights Act of 1964 helped improve that wage gap.
In 1990, it had risen to 75% of a difference in the wage gap, which was great.
And then, unfortunately, there's been, like, some dips and stuff here and there.
But it certainly was not comparable.
There's no way.
There's no way it was comparable in terms of black and white wages back in 1963.
Well, you're comparing apples and oranges.
Yeah.
You're like, well, it was, you know, the number of black... Well, let's just fucking... Okay, let me do some quick...
Googling.
Okay.
How many black people were there in America in 19?
Okay.
We got, uh, 19 million, roughly speaking.
All right.
Now let's look population of Canada.
The entire population of Canada was less than that in 1960.
So what is that comparison?
I don't know.
There's just too many factors.
It doesn't make any sense.
Yeah, it's more people.
And also, I don't even know that he's got the currency right.
Like, honestly, was it that Canadian dollars?
Yeah, great point.
We don't know.
But all I know is I'm just doing quick Googling, which he could have fucking done back then.
Take a minute to Google it.
There were more black people in the U.S.
than the entire Canadian population at that time.
So, yeah, OK.
What is that stat supposed to be?
Yeah.
This next one's 1968 regarding the Fair Housing Act.
Senator Stennis, for almost two months the Senate was involved in a debate on civil rights.
What does this indicate to you?
Well, it taught some lasting lessons to me and many of us here in this way.
First, you just must make the entire country understand the meaning of these far-reaching bureaucratic bills, the power they carry, and also how this will affect the people in their daily lives.
Number two, it was an amazing thing to me that this housing bill, which really invaded the rights of all the people, not just one group,
even down to their own dwelling houses as to whom they could sell it to, or rent it to, or lease a home, a room in the home, that a matter of that importance could be hollered up and gained so much support, mainly on the ground, that, well, we must do this in order to stop the marches or hold down the would-be rioters.
I just can't understand logic and common sense, even if it is election year, of how we, the United States Senate, any appreciable part of it could yield to an argument of that kind.
We'll have more questions on this and other subjects in just one minute.
First question, say some racist, kind of drunk-sounding ramblings.
Well, sure.
Well, I think the bureaucracy—literally, talk about softball question.
It was, hey, the Senate is debating civil rights.
What does that mean to you?
What?
I know.
Yeah, like the Fair Housing Act.
I know.
I just love it.
I just love it.
Because if you're a neophyte, like when I was a certain age and you heard these same arguments, you're like, well, yeah, the government getting their dirty paws on things, the bureaucracy, like there's a certain plausibility to it.
Ah, the government getting the whatever.
But it's funny now when you see it through the lens of like, no, this has always been the fucking game.
It's if you ever try to make things slightly better for non-white people.
Yeah.
All these like, it's just imposing upon us that get your hands, the government's going to come tell you what all these arguments, all these libertarian sounding arguments, they all have the, they go back forever and they're all the same fucking thing.
I watched a documentary from Mississippi Public Broadcasting, and I'll include that for folks to watch if they want to check it out.
It's really well done, and hearing from some folks that were there in Mississippi at this time and kind of reflecting on what that experience was like, and some of them shared that more black people voted in the 50s than they did in the 60s in Mississippi because of the things that were put in the way.
And Stennis defends literacy tests in a statement that he issued in 1963.
Regarding civil rights, he says, Further, it is proposed that literacy be presumed where an applicant to vote possesses a sixth grade education.
Even the Supreme Court has recognized the right of the states to impose a reasonable literacy test.
And the federal government has no authority whatever in this field.
So it was that, it was like poll taxes, you know, it was just, it was everything.
And hearing that from black folks in that video, what voting looked like for black people in the 50s in Mississippi versus what it looked like in the 60s was just really sad and really important, I think, also to watch and just to kind of see How hard they were fighting to be able to cast a ballot, something that the rest of us certainly probably take for granted.
So nothing screams space exploration like everything that I just heard.
I would like to name a building and a ship and whatever after this guy.
So, I mean, he was involved in the budget for NASA.
That was something that he oversaw and helped fight for additional funding for them and stuff.
So there was, like, some involvement there, but big whoop.
I don't know.
It's just, it's, yeah, not very striking, I guess.
One last thing I do want to share.
Well, actually, two last things I want to share.
One constituent letter that I stumbled on, not related to race, but 1977, someone wrote to him and said, it is our understanding that the Senate may soon take up S.
995, which requires the inclusion of pregnancy and abortion under employee benefit plans.
As you know, this bill was introduced to overturn a Supreme Court decision which upheld the right of employers to exclude time lost for these reasons from sick pay plans.
Obviously, this constituent is a business person, does not want to do this.
We do not feel, however, that we should be obligated to pay her salary during her absence from work under the formula that we use for a regular illness.
And he responds, I'm grateful for your recent letter letting me know of your opposition to S-995, which would amend the Civil Rights Act to prohibit discrimination based on pregnancy.
As I'm sure you know, I agree completely with your position.
Unfortunately, despite my vote against this bill, it passed overwhelmingly.
I regret that I could not be more encouraging.
So yeah, so he also felt that people who get pregnant should be discriminated against in a workplace and that'd be perfectly fine.
The last thing I want to share is just kind of some difference in memorial tributes.
There was a huge document put together when he passed away.
Again, you know, he served in the Senate for 41 years.
Went through, like, quite a lot, to be honest.
Like, some of the things I read about him, he was robbed by, like, two teenagers.
I was gonna say, if it makes you feel any better, two black kids shot him at some point.
In the 70s.
And so that happened.
And then his wife died and he still was serving.
And then he got cancer and lost his leg and was still going to chambers in a wheelchair.
And then he had like his desk retrofitted to have a bar so he could be able to stand up and support himself.
Like whenever he spoke to the Senate, he was like very interested in the rules and procedures.
And he really cared about like the institution.
And so he made efforts in those ways.
But he's still a horrible racist.
But these memorial tributes that were part of this documentation at the end of his life, one was from the Clarion Ledger newspaper.
And it says early in his career, he was, as were most Southern political leaders, a staunch segregationist.
But Stennis came to understand that the issue of racism was tearing apart America and became an ardent supporter for equality.
He did not change his ways because it was politically popular, which of course it was not, but because it was the right thing to do, period.
Therein lies the difference between a politician and a political leader.
There's zero evidence for that.
What the fuck is that even talking about?
Yeah, it's nonsense.
Indianapolis News has a more reasonable take.
Their obituary feature says, He was a good man, but a good man often can serve a bad cause.
Stennis certainly did.
He was one of the roadblocks on the journey to end institutionalized racial discrimination in this country.
For nearly a quarter century, Stennis opposed every civil rights measure or activity that came before the country.
He condemned the 1954 Brown v. Topeka Board of Education Supreme Court decision that ended school segregation.
He resisted attempts to pass anti-lynching bills and measures that would end the discriminatory poll tax and literary tests for black voters.
He voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.
When it came to race, he was wrong, wrong, wrong.
And then later, to his credit, Stennis eventually saw the light.
In 1983, near the end of his long career, he voted to extend the Voting Rights Act.
Yeah.
But a more reasonable take than Cleary and Ledger.
I know, but I love it.
You know, he eventually saw the light.
There was a bill that was passing 83 to 8, and he probably went, Trying to get reelected.
Okay, fine.
And then that's good enough.
As long as you understand he's a fucking saint.
One fucking vote.
Stupid.
The low bar for reclaiming your entire legacy.
And we haven't even gotten to the worst part.
Yeah.
I will say that the New York Times ran that article about renaming the Space Center.
They reached out to his daughter and She said the call to remove her father's name from the Space Center and a similar effort to rename the USS John C. Stennis, a Navy aircraft carrier, were going too far, in quotes.
And then her quote, my father was a segregationist at a period in history, but I can tell you there was nothing racist about him.
She's 82 when they quote her, by the way.
No way.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, that's great.
And then one of his grandchildren also says that they opposed the call to rename the Space Center.
He said his grandfather's vote to extend the Voting Rights Act and his support of Mike Espy's successful 1986 campaign to become Mississippi's first black representative in Congress since Reconstruction were signs that his stance on segregation had changed.
Sure, that's enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I also didn't realize it was a fucking aircraft carrier.
That's bigger.
That's that's a bigger boat.
You're going to need more to sink that boat.
That's a goddammit.
OK, I think a perfect teaser for my part of this.
Which you absolutely must hear, is his daughter saying he wasn't racist.
Look, he might have supported segregation at a time in history.
I love that.
She didn't even bother finishing that thought.
Look, he supported segregation at a time in history.
Yes.
Oh, okay.
It was a time in history.
Yeah, I thought it was the future.
Okay, nevermind.
So he didn't support it like in the year 2525.
Okay, it was a time in history.
You don't even bother to say, like, the rest of that fucking stupid sentence.
A time in history when, you know, it was fine that white people did that.
We were cool of it, right?
We were all cool, right?
Yeah.
Thought we were fucking cool.
Now you're gonna be mad at him?
I love it.
You don't even have to finish the sentence.
He was supported and it was a time period, is the thing.
There are years involved and months and also it was the past so he's fine.
Well, we're going a little weird chronologically on you because my stuff is from when Hector was a pup.
My stuff is from when he's first dipping into public service of any kind.
And it's fucking horrible.
So, uh, get ready.
It's awful.
It's like truly awful.
I don't want to create like a cheery environment around it because it sucks, but I cannot not tell you all about this.
So.
Hashtag rename fucking Stennis Center and the goddamn— And the boat.
Here's what we'll do.
Crash the aircraft carrier into the Stennis Space Center and they can both blow up or just rename them.
Those are the two options.
Whichever you find more budgetarily— Sound.
Acceptable.
Yeah.
So fucking, another part, we have to, you have to hear this.
Anyway, next time on Where There's Woke, Jesus fucking Christ, racism was so fucking horrible and prevalent.
I can't even believe what I'm going to read you guys.
Yeah.
See you next time.
She, uh, what the fuck was it?
So. - Oh.
Sorry, he wrote in cursive, so I'm trying to read it.
