Reflection

culture and systematic injustice. So when I first interviewed J. D. Hudson in two thousand and two, I never imagined I would be getting an education into the two Americas, a term often used to denote the different experiences between white communities and black and brown communities, and also into the worlds of the police and the people of color they

were assigned to govern. I didn't expect to discover so much more about Atlanta, the city I was born and raised, and also come to learn that this world of hustlers and policemen where Chicken Man and JD were born, was just miles away from where I grew up. I was in my early thirties when I began pursuing this story, and I was ignorant and misinformed about several topics in our collective American history. But for some reason, these two incredible men trusted me to tell their stories, and I'm

honored by this opportunity. I was also fortunate to have other voices as guides, including our historian Dr Maurice Hobson. In this final episode of Reflection, Dr Hobson and I explore some of these topics and issues in more depth and try to wrap our minds around the nuance and complexities of these characters and events. We've again with the topic of how the black communities are seen and viewed by white communities. The expansion on that conversation really has

more to do with what White America cannot see. In Black America. It's not visible via the naked eye. You know, by and large, within black communities, the idea of who black people were has always been extremely much more complicated within the black community than what White America can see. And so in this regard what Husson was referring to it he was discussing how he was far more superior, far more intelligent than the white police officers that were

his superior. But you know, he had to kind of present himself as not being as such because that was a way of survival. Historically, this is known as a slave with But what this also does when white men begin to work for him, they didn't want to leave him because, you know, he was cool, he was fair,

he was smart, and they understood that. But the way in which this works in the larger context, oftentimes, in European cultures, the idea of success is based on you know, income, or it's based on profession, you know, the kind of job that you have. That's not necessarily the case in

the black community. The black community operates under a different set of cultural practices, and so one of the things that should be articulated is the fact that these hustlers, uh, these gangsters were probably some of the most intelligent people that you would meet. But it did not register or it was not presented in a way to where White

America could understand it. Within Eurocentric culture, you know, if you're smart, you're supposed to do well in school and be Validatorian and go on to college and be rich and famous and successful. Well, the truth of the matter is that Black Americans will not afford it those opportunities.

And this goes back to w eb Devoce's double consciousness, where Black America always has to see itself through the eyes of others, and so there's a folk culture that black people understand, which does fully understand the normal economic opportunities that are presented by these quote unquote hustlers versus you know, the kind of New England pious kind of thrift and self help in denying yourself gratification. And so Hudson's reference to that really does articulate the way in

which he's functioning in two worlds. He understands the criminal element of this world in a very clear and precise way, and he also understands the world of, you know, being

a professional as a police officer in Atlanta. One of the things that I've found fascinating as I was going back and listening to episode one was the way that this cyclically came back when he first was sworn in by Herbertie Jenkins, the chief of police, or at least his boss as the end police, and then later went on to explain to the audience that Herberty Jenkins became one of the most liberal police chiefs in the country.

So talk about that kind of Here's the word that blew me away, Maurice is he said that Herbertie Jenkins evol involved. That means you change your character and heart to mean, that's that's a that's a strong word. So talk about I mean, is it not or do you disagree with that? I agree, But you know, I'm listening to this and and and for a living, I study people. Maybe it wasn't that Herbert Jenkins evolved. Maybe he was

playing politics in the front end. And the political climate in Atlanta changed, particularly in the middle of the nineteen fifties when Mayor Bill Hartsville decided to coin and market Atlanta as the city too busy to hate. I want you to think about it this way. In the nineteen fifties, I mean, Montgomery is absolutely rebelling, there's unrest Jackson, Mississippi. There's unrest Little Rock, Arkansas, Nashville, Tennessee, Greensboro, North Carolina.

And so what Atlanta understands is if it presents itself as being a moderate city, that it could actually be the poster child for race relations in the American South. Atlanta in nineteen one is the first Southern city to integrate in terms of public schools, in terms of transportation, and different aspect of life. And Jenkins is on record as saying that plansmen from you know, Florida or Alabama

or Tennessee, Mississippi. You know the Carolinas, that they would be put in jail, they would get their heads cracked if they came to Atlanta trying to start problems. You also have doing this time is RALPHL. McGill, who is the editor for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, who has taken a seriously heartlined stance on really presenting Atlanta as a

city that has moderate race relations. And so I think that Herbert Jenkins that he fits into this new refashioning and rebranding of Atlanta, and I think he then becomes a leader or pioneer in terms of how race relations can go. I mean there there are a lot of major political figures in the history of the United States that have done that. I mean, one that comes to mind is Linda Baines Johnson. He ran as a segregationist.

He's out of Texas, but he does more in terms of civil and human rights legislation than any other American president, And any movement towards the advancement of democracy is centered around someoneline President Lynda B. Johnson. Now we can see that same kind of experience with her Jenkins. What I'm saying is he may have evolved, but what he may have evolved from is not having to play politics as

much as being a human being. That's fair to say. Again, the interconnection between Herbertie Jenkins and j D from early on, specifically as it relates to our story, I guess that's a better way to put it. You know, this guy that's sworn in with this racial slur. J D even says at the time, I didn't even think about it. I had to reflect back on it. That's kind of unusual, and that statement itself. And then as you see, as the story progresses, however we would define it, you know,

evolution or playing politics or whatever. But ultimately, Herbertie Jenkins assigns j D, the same cop that he's sworn in to lead this case, so obviously they got either some kind of bond or trust or respect or whatever it is to put him in such a case with such a high spotlight. Is that fair to say? It's fair to say it. And you know, across the American South, I mean particularly, you know, we think about race relations in the American South and we see it as a

sordid relationship between blacks and whites. But people are complicated, and one on one they do different things, and maybe you know safe to say that Hudson and Herbert Jenkins really did just have a bond and there was a trust. And also, you know, think of it this way. What really maybe happening here is that J. D. Hudson as a police officer who had to arrest the young people of the Atlanta student movement, you know, at LEPs Diner, but he had to do so with dignity and pride.

And it may be that Chief Jenkins understood that j D was the kind of person that could keep the black community office back, and see there may have been appreciation for that. It was one of those things to where because j. D. Hudson had an organic relationship with all of the black communities in Atlanta, and Herbert Jenkins

understood that the black community respected j. D. Hudson. That's probably why j D was able to you know, become Ali's bodyguard and to be with him seven you know, during the time when Ali is here before his fight. You know, I've had some reservations about some of the phrases and topics that we're discussing, So let's take one of those so we can expand on it a little bit, which is black on black crime. Just talk a little bit about the history of that phrase. Black on black

crime is a pathologizing kind of term. Oftentimes that came into the American English lexicon with other words such as inner city which means black, well, welfare queen. They're the

scripted narratives. And the thing about it is, I want you to think about this, only of the United States is identifies as of African descent, and the fact that someone would throw out black on black crime, it negates all of the horror and terror in the violence that America has put on all of its citizens, but black, brown, Native women, poor people. So to throw that out there, it really shifts to blame from what the real culprit is.

And so when we talked about black on black and what that means, oftentimes, you know, black on black is presented to kind of take the focus off of what America has done in terms of violence towards other communities, and it just focuses on a particular group to show that black people are their own worst enemies. And it doesn't take into account American greed, it doesn't take into account segregation, it doesn't take into account sexual assault, and

trafficking and all of those different things. It doesn't really take it to account American history exactly. All right, Let's seg to Mohammad Ali. Mom was telling me that Muhammad Ali had a real love affair with Atlanta of the years well as a result of Ali being able to fight here, he endears that relationship with Atlanta. And there are at least four things that Ali does with Atlanta

over his career because they become partners. So Muhammad Ali and Atlanta, Georgia create this love affair and what I call it is a love story in the Key of the Black New South. The Black New South deals with the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four and the Voting Rights Act of ninety five, which politically changed the American South where black people are able to really assert

themselves politically. And so what all he does is in the late nineteen seventies, he comes back to Atlanta to help raise money for the Dr Martin Luther King Center. He comes back to Atlanta, King's hometown and celebrates Dr King in his non volunt direct action by helping to raise money. He has a fight in effigy with Maynard Jackson to help raise money for this cause. Also, during the notorious episodes known as the Atlanta Child Murders, it is Ali who gives his money from his own winnings

to the City of Atlanta. He gives four hundred thousand dollars in cash because the City of Atlanta could only muster one thousand dollars for an award, so he gives that to the City of Atlanta because he says, it's shameful what's happening to those children. And then, of course in the nineteen eighties, he does come back to Atlanta to again help raise more money for the King Center. But it's in when he likes to torch for the Centennial Olympia that we really see that deal sealed in

in their relationship. The relationship between Muhammad Ali and Atlanta, Georgia is one that deserves considerable research and attention. Ali understood that Atlanta given him the opportunity to come back and fight, set a stage for him to do what he loved to do most and that was, you know,

be a champion of humanity. Atlanta understanding the bron the brain, the brilliance of Ali as not only a heavyweight fighter, but as a champion for civil and human rights attached to itself and the both the city and Ali merge themselves and present it the kind of image of what it meant to be rising in the black New South.

What are some similarities and some tie ins about this story, that event you just discussed, that heist from nineteen seventy and what we're dealing with now in two thousand and twenty. Some of the similarities between the Ali fight nineteen seventy, the all black everything heist that takes place after the fight, and what we have going now is also a conversation around equal protection and due process under the law. Let

me connect this in a particular kind of way. You know, Mohammad Ali was buked in scoring because he was deemed as on patriotic because he did not want to adhere to policies that would have sent him to the front lines to be murdered on behalf of the country that didn't love him. And it goes back to the conversation I mean with with Ali being a prize fighter, I'm pretty sure that white America would have loved to have

seen him just shut up in box. And you know, right now we are in the midst of a pandemic where the American President and even the governor in the state of Georgia has failed to try to protect people from this pandemic. Things such as personal protective equipment ppees that is seriously impacted folks with pre existing conditions, who are overwhelmingly black and brown, who who don't have access

to adequate healthcare, they live in food deserts. We see the rise of the prison industrial complex and and how that works. But what we also began to see here is right now with professional sports, you see athletes that are taking a page out of Muhammad Ali's book and they're standing up. Of course, Colin Kaepernick is going to get his due for taking a knee in regards to the playing of the national anthem to bring, you know,

attention to police brutality. You got the NBA players who with the Kenosha, Wisconsin police shooting Jacob Blake in the back seven time times, who basically say, you know what, this is an injustice and they said we're not going to play tonight. You have Lebron James and the rest of the NBA players who meet with President Barack Obama who's able to really fully discuss how they can will their power as athletes to be able to make this

world more democratic. So I mean, we see how Atlanta, Georgia is going to make state from arena become a place for voting. What we're seeing here is that Ali was the kind of world persona. He showed us how it should be done. But then on the flip side of it is in each in every world and each

and every time, there's always an informal economy. And there are those within all communities, but the Black community in particular that feel as if America has never done right by black populations, and thus they operate on their own terms. And in operating on their own terms, that's why you would have a fireball, or why you would have a

you know, Richard Wheeler, Yeah, short, Papa. I love the story of Ola May and her daughters tressing up, going to the malls and stealing everything and then obviously using

it to it. But there are white politicians and white people in corporate worlds that are stealing money and breaking the law all over the place, and of course they it's not looked at in the same regard, or they have the finances to hire people to protect them legally, or they have the connections politically to protect them from certain things. But it's all criminals. Discussed that a little bit in nineteen seventy and that hypocrisy in some ways, well sure, I mean the founding of this country is

based on that same kind degree. I mean, you know, there were people Native Americans that were that have been on this land for thousands of years. And when Europeans come, they decide that, you know, they are guys, chosen people, and they are going to go from sea to shining sea. It's called manifest destiny. And so when this new nation was created, the laws were created to keep a particular group of people in power, uh, the top five percent in power. And as a result of that, when you

create the laws, you also create the loopholes. When we talk about this gangster all of this gangster stuff, what we're really talking about as capitalism and greed. I mean, that's what America was based on. We're talking about a group of hustlers who have figured out how to manipulate the system based on how they can, versus bankers and Wall Street who is able to manipulate the system of money how they can, and then they can get just slapped on the wrist. Oh, I didn't know that that happened.

You're talking about the haves and have knots historically and how they have knots have always had to be much more creative whereas to have they function in terms of money. One of the things that I argue and how I teach history is that racism, sexism, classism equals prejudice plus the use in the abuse of power. Everyone has prejudice. And when I say prejudice, I mean you may not

like red meat. That's that's your own prejudice. I mean, for whatever reason, you may at late meat, or you may not like the New Orleans Saints because you just don't like them. But the real issue is the use of the abuse of power. And what that means is if I am a New Orleans Saints fan and you are one of my students, Jeff, and I give you an F in my class because I have the power to use it and abuse it to give you an F because I'm holding my prejudice against you. Then that

creates a problem. And when we talk about the us and abusive power of what we're saying is we're talking about the creation of policies and policies dictate laws, and so the laws of this nation have failed to protect the least amongst us, the Black America, Brown America women, pool whites, the First Nations, and Native groups l g B, t q I. The laws have failed to protect them because at the end of the day, this nation was

based on white Anglo Saxon Protestant male ideas. I was just raised with an interest in other cultures, whatever it may be. I mean, I'm talking. I mean, you could be going from Russia to Asia, Africa, whatever, and so I find it interesting that there's a lot of people that just aren't interested in other cultures. There's so you know what I mean, they're so locked into their own. That's what fascinated me with this world. I was like,

oh my goodness, this is incredible. And the fact that it was in Atlanta, Maurice under my nose, in a city that I grew up in all these years, and a true crime and and literally miles away an you know, I'm in Decatur, Georgia. You know a lot of this is happening on the west side or the southwest side. So anyway, I just I'm constantly reflecting on that, and it's just I'm just like And it was different to Maurice because a lot of people get obsessed with stories.

I wasn't obsessed with this. I would move on and move away, but this story always seemed to come back and grab me and find me and say no, you need to tell me. So I'm a static we get a chance to tell this story. We don't know how time works, we don't know how it will move forward. And right now, right here, you're doing this work and it is going to be recorded and it is going to be released. And the cool thing about it is

you have a different network that because it's you. Because black folks are interested in black history in Atlanta, it's also going to teach some something. So you know, when someone googles my name, what they know is they know I do African American history. They know I do political history of American South, they know I do Atlanta. They know it's black. They know that about me. So for certain demographics, no matter what I do, they're like, I don't want to hear what he has to say because

he's gonna come with that leftist, extremist kind of stuff. Whatever, whether it is that or not doesn't really matter. But with you. Your own communities are going to support you, and that that's a vast community right there. So sometimes it takes a Jewish kid from Decayta, Georgia whose mother and father met at the high est and whose dad is picking up his sister and nieces. Woman. I mean, hey, you were born for this, I mean the meeting of your parents and what all this stuff does, and it

comes back to you. You've chosen for this and I look forward to, you know, helping you promote this kind of story. But you're the right clearly, you're the right person for the job, because we were out here talking about it. I'm saying that to say that I'm not promoting time or chance, but I do believe that there's something bigger working. You know, when you do these types of pieces, documentaries, these limited podcasts, you have this material.

You're trying to find this story and what we realized is it really is about this friendship that developed between this white Jewish Southern kid from Decatur and this black hustler turn preacher from Atlanta. And just over time, I mean I go in, you know, to track down this story, Maurice and to tell it because I'm so excited because i love true crime so much. But ultimately, I'm having dinner with Gordon Williams and his family. I'm meeting his children,

We're going to film premiers together. He's meeting my family, He's meeting my wife and kids. So I mean, it really develops into this friendship. What starts as research and an education just turns into something so much more. Listen, man, it is always a beautiful thing. You know the old A Team show Hannibal used to say, I just love when a plan comes together. But what you are exemplifying and what you embody is what we call research to practice.

It's not just about the story. You have thoroughly immersed yourself so truly understand this. And basically you have this story in your mind. You're connecting with all of those to make sure that the story is told correctly. And now you're able to take what's in your mind and present it to the rest of the world so they can see the story there. And also it's it's the

background in history and the situation they're in. I mean, you say, oh, these people are criminal, but you've got to look at the four hundred years that fall behind him, and you've got to look at the education that's afford them and key ingredient in all humanity, which is survival. Some people are just trying to survive for their families. And and so he really got and then what we ultimately must do is we have to look at each person, not by the face and not that a skinned but

there's a name, and there's a storage everyway. This is Gordon Williams Senior. This is his story, and there this is J. D. Hudson. And so not every cop is going to be the same. Every hustler is going to be the same. And you know, wherever we go anywhere, there's going to be a name to the face of

the story that we're telling. And that's vital. There's a really good book called The Warmth of other Sons by Isabella Wilkerson, and one of the stories he tells is about this black family in Limestone, Alabama, which is North Alabama, and how the youngest child was a feeble child and he would never be suited to do farm work because he was just a small framed feeble child. And so they tell the story on how this family moves north. I think they moved to Ohio because there was southern

and there was not a lot of education. When the youngest child went to school, his name him was James Owens, but the teachers named him Jesse because they called him j C. They named him Jesse. And so this becomes the same Jesse Owens who his feeble body and rule Alabama sharecrop and may have not have meant anything, but in another environment he becomes the fastest man in the world as debunks the idea of white supremacy by beating

the Nazis. So what I'm saying is that given different situations and opportunities, Chicken Man could have been mayor of Columbus, Ohio, or the head of a multimillion dollar corporation exactly, or vice versa. The heads of these corporations could ended up impoverished, in prison or whatever it is. So you use the word, well, there's a lot of complexity to all of these stories, but ultimately this is just a great heist. It's a great high it's a great story to tell. Thank you

for listening to Fight Night. We hope you joined us for our next podcast about a professor who conducted over fifty interviews with the most infamous mass murderer in South Carolina history. It's called pee Wee. Gaskins was not My friend. Fight Night is a joint production from My Heart Radio, Will Packer Media and Doghouse Pictures in association with Psychopia Pictures.

Produced and hosted by Jeff Keating. Executive producers are Will Packer, James Lopez, Kenny Burns, Dan Bush, Lars Jacobson, and Noel Brown. Supervising producer is Taylor Shoyne. Story editors are Noel Brown and Dan Bush. Written by Jeff Keeting and Jim Roberts. Edited by Matt Owen. Mixing and sound designed by Jeremiah Kolanni Prescott. Music written and performed by The Diamond Street Players.

Additional music by Ben Lovett. Audio archives courtesy of WSB News Film and Video Tape Collection, Brown Media Archives, University of Georgia Libraries. Special thanks to Dr Maurice Hobson and David Davis. Fight Night is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, check out the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.