The Daily Show: Ears EditionA Daily Show salute to Black History Month. Take a peek back at what TDS might have sounded like in 1965. Trevor Noah unpacks the lives and legacy of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. Roy Wood Jr. recalls the history of civil rights marches in CP Time. D.Ll Hughley challenges Los Angelenos to a Black History quiz. Trevor and Roy dig into the surprising origins of Peanuts character Franklin. Finally, After the Cut, Trevor remembers legendary singer Aretha Franklin.
You're listening to Comedy Central.
February for nineteen sixty five. It's the Black History Months Daily Show.
Welcome to the Daily Show. I'm Trevor Noah.
My guest tonight, up and coming comedian Bill Cosby. This guy's jokes are gonna knock you out. But we begin in Selma, Alabama. If you aren't familiar with Selma, it's a small southern city located ten miles east of No Negroes Please and five miles north of say Boy. And it's also where today recent Nobel Peace Prize winner doctor Martin Luther King Junior, got into some legal trouble.
Dateline. Selma civil rights leader the Reverend Martin Luther King Junior was arrested today while attempting to lead a mass march of three hundred Negroes on the Dallas Kelly Courthouse to protest voter registration procedures. The Negroes were taken into custody uncharged as of parading without a permit.
For more, we go to our junior civil rights correspondent, Roy Woods Senior.
Now, Roy, what did you see out there?
I saw a bunch of bulls, Trevor Proud Negro men and women being arrested for no reason.
Well, now, roy the police said there was a reason they were parading without a permit.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Did the Klan fill out their paperwork before marching in my neighborhood? What have you ever seen white people arrested for parading without a permit?
Well, Royd, that's just the world we live in.
Black people aren't ever gonna get the same treatment as white people, and that's never gonna change.
Actually, Trevor, I don't agree. You have to look at the bright side of things. Yeah, maybe the cops arrested doctor King and a bunch of our brothers and sisters, but they did at this time without violence. That's progress. I mean, forty years ago, a white man would even give a black man a glass of water. Now, not only can we have water, we can get it whether.
We want it or not.
Well, I mean you, I guess you could call that progress.
Do call that progress? We've gone from lyncheons to beaten's now to peaceful arrests. In fact, I heard doctor King is coming back right here next month to Selma to march across that bridge. And that the rate of progress we make it I bitch it's gonna be a fun day, march in arm in arm with the police, and one day they'll make a movie about it and it'll be called Selma that day when nothing happened at all.
Obama's main purpose in South Africa was to pay tributes to Nelson Mandela.
Medieva's life shown so brightly even from that narrow Robin Island self that in the late seventies he could inspire a young college student on the.
Other side of the world.
Adella said, young people are capable, when aroused, of bringing down the towers of oppression and raising the banners the freedom. Now it's a good time to be aroused.
Yeah, this is a.
This is probably the only thing that Trump and Obama agree on.
Trump's like, you're so.
Right, Barack, there's never a bad time to be aroused.
Was like, that's not what I meant. He's like, too late, then Junior's out already. Baby.
We were catching up with President Obama, who's in South Africa to celebrate Nelson Mandela's one hundredth birthday.
And let's just acknowledge how.
Dope you have to be for people to keep throwing you birthdays after you're dead.
Just think about how amazing you have to be.
Like most of you can't even get your roommates to come to your party, and you're alive. Yeah, because like, dude, what do you mean you can't come over?
We live in the same room.
So who was Nelson Mandela to get Obama to take a break from kitesurfing and go all the way to Africa to give his first big speech since he left the White House? Well, really, there are two Nelson Mandelas. The first is played by every black actor in Hollywood.
My name is Nelson Mandela.
I'm the first accused.
I have dedicated myself to this struggle of.
The African Those in power deny your freedom. The only path to freedom is power.
I will walk to the quarry, but I will.
No longer run.
It is not your place to tell me what is possible. This is the time to build our nation. Ignorance brings chaos, not knowledge.
Now I know, I know a lot of people complain that she takes roles she shouldn't, But I think she nailed it there, she killed it.
She's pretty good Scarlet nact.
Yo.
So there's movie Mandela and there's real Mandela. And because today marks one hundred years since his birth. I just wanted to spend a few minutes talking about the man because he spoke about me on my birthday.
Now that's that's not true at all.
Now, the first thing you need to know about Nelson Mandela is that his name was not Nelson.
When I went to school, the lady teacher missed some ding anne as to what is your name? I told you my African name. He says, no, I don't want that one. You must have a Krishia name. So I said, no, I don't have one. She says, you are from today, You're going to be Nelson. That's how I ended the name Nelson, not given by my parents.
Wow.
Can you imagine how Mandela's parents must have felt their kid left the house as Relitiashah and comes back as.
Nelson Like his dad must have been so mad.
He'd be like, they called you what I'm calling your teacher right now?
Hello, this is Godda Mandala.
No, your name is Jeremy now ah, they got me too.
Now.
Now, the reason Nelson Mandela had to have a Christian name is basically because back in the early twentieth century, white people ran South Africa. So you couldn't have a name that they couldn't pronounce, right, Even though they were only twenty percent of the population, they controlled the government, the land, the economy, everything. Yeah, it's kind of like how today all those no gluten people have.
Control of all of our menus.
Yes, except in South Africa, the intolerance was real.
So it was this suppression.
It was this suppression that pushed Nelson Mandela to join a revolutionary movement called the African National Congress.
Right.
He joined politics when he was just twenty six years old, partly to fight racial inequality and also because he had just been kicked off his parents Obamacare.
Now at first, at first, the ANC.
Fought for racial equality peacefully, but the racist government only got more oppressive. In fact, in nineteen forty eight, South Africa's government set up a part type which made legal racism the foundation of the entire country. Black people couldn't vote, they had to live in certain areas, and they were banned from playing sports.
With white people. And I'm gonna lie that last part I completely understand, right.
I mean, if your system is based on white supremacy, you kind of black people dunking all over your shit.
It just doesn't go with the narrative, you're.
Like white people are superior white I wasn't ready.
I wasn't ready.
In fact, the government became so oppressive that Mandela and the ANC decided to resort to violence. They bombed power stations, post offices, and I mean they did it when people weren't in there, but still they blew shit up. And there were many people not just in South Africa but around the world who wanted him to respond to the brutality of the government with civility, to which Mandela replied, bore shit that.
How many people who feel that it is useless and free future for us to continue talking piece and non violence against the government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmored, defenseless people.
Now, I know for a lot of people seeing a young radical Mandela, that's a bit of a shock. Yeah, it's like finding out one of the care bears mould a hiker to death.
I mean, i'd expect that out.
Of tender Heart, but you funshine, But you see, Nelson Mandela believed that violence was necessary to fight to violent governments, and he paid a price for it. In nineteen sixty two, when Mandela was forty four years old, the Apartheide government arrested him and sentenced him to life in prison.
And what he said in the docks is legendary.
He said, I've cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society.
It is an ideal which I hope to live and to achieve.
But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. I mean, I'm prepared to die, but but.
I don't want to die. I'm saying I'm prepared. Don't make me die.
I'm just saying, like, prepared to die, not diag Nessaly, let's edit that part out.
Just live the.
So Mandela went on to spend almost thirty years in prison. Yeah, and the longer he stayed in prison, the more Mandela became a legend around the world. By the nineteen eighties, you had concerts around the globe to free Nelson Mandela. And you gotta admit, you gotta admit, it's probably good that that teacher changed his name, because it would have been a lot harder for white people around the world to protest his freedom when they couldn't pronounce his name if they were like.
Free, really miships free, free, you know, let's just go save the whales. Guys, let's just go save the whales. Now.
Nelson Mandela's story up to that point was impressive, but it's what he did after he came out of prison that transformed him from a leader to a legend, right because when he became South Africa's first black president, he reconciled the country and he insisted that white people be a part of it. And you realize this is a black country and he's the first black person. He could have easily just said, I'll give you white people a ten minute had started, you guys put me in prison for that ass.
I don't even know what a walkman is. I just hope I get to admit Alvis what five minutes had starts.
So so you see, this is just part of why people like Barack Obama look up to Nelson Mandela. This was a man who grew up in a country steeped in racism, spent decades in prison fighting it, and then dedicated his life.
To a world of racial progress.
And most impressively, when he was asked why he's not bitter, he had this to say, you.
End up coming out of prison and there is no bitterness how is there no bitterness?
Well, I hated oppressure, and when I think about the past, the type of things they did, I feel angry.
You have a limited time to stay on f you.
Must try and use that period for their purpose.
Of transformed in your country. And that's why he's eleven every.
One hundred third.
I did that.
You must remember because of so many of the struggle leaders in South Africa were either imprisoned or exiled. The movement in South Africa was held together in large part by women in the country.
And so it's weird for me because I understand.
You travel the world, you understand that everywhere feminism is different and the idea of women is different. But I grew up in a world it was very matriarchal and where women were the most dangerous freedom fighters that existed.
Is true.
You read up on you read up.
On Winni Mandela, like Nelson, Mandela was an icon. But the police in the country were afraid of Winni Mandela, you know they were. And we had a phrase in South Africa that was we still use it today, which was what tintabafazi, what tintimbo walko, which means you strike a woman, you strike a rock, and.
That's what I grew up learning.
That's it was kudos matter, it was fire, it was fire, and a lot of the time my mum would strike me with a rock.
And Welcome to c PE time, the only show that's for the culture. Today, we will be discussing the history of civil rights marches. They were how black people fought the system may change. It's also how your granddaddy got his steps in. Now, there are the famous marches that we all know about, the March on Washington, Birmingham, and the march in Selma, which I was getting ready to attend until I found out that march was on a bridge. I don't do bridge as well. I told doctor King, if God wanted the black men across rivers, we would have been born with those little floating things on our arm like white people. But there are many other marches and black history worth noting, such as the nineteen ninety five million man March in Washington, d C. Now, some people say the crowd size didn't actually reach a million men, But if that's true, it's only because it was the nineties and all those parachute pants took up too much space. But at least hundreds of thousands of men attended this march. They gathered to call attention to black issues like structural racism, unemployment, and most importantly, an end to the Jerry curl, or as I call it, the black mullet. That hairstyle is held more black men backed than bad credit. The Jerry curl is the only hairstyle that made black men look like Jewish mothers. Sadly, I did not attend the million Man March. I tried to, but I misheard the location. You see, they said it was at the National Mall, but what I thought they said was the Nashville Mall. And let's just say all those white people in Tennessee were as confused as I was when I was protesting in front of an orange Julius. Now you can't speak about marches without speaking about the big, bad, sexy, afro repping Black panthers. Look at them. Anyone wearing leather in the summertime means business. In nineteen sixty seven, the Black Panthers protested against California gun control by marching to the capitol with their grievances and some ak forty sevens. That's right, white people, I know you like to think that being out in public with the big gun was your idea, but that was some black ship first. And while bringing guns to a debate about gun control, it is not very logical, it is very effective. In fact, it gives you the upper hand in most situations. My uncle Biebo once walked into a chipope land forgot he had a loaded pistol in his hand. He got free guacamole for life. Bill done, Uncle Bevo. But before you criticize armed protests, remember it was a different time and you had to be there, which I was not. I wanted to join the Black Panthers, but the day before the protest, my barber cut my afro too low and I ended up with a buzz fade. I couldn't join the Black Panthers. Looking at Square, I looked like a Wesley Snipes who does pay his taxes. And finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the powerful black women who fought to unshackle the chains of oppression. One of those icons is Ida b Wells, who famously took over a nineteen thirteen march for women's suffrage. The white women said that she had to march the back but I'd refuse telling those white ladies either I go with you or not at all, which is basically a turn of the century way of saying I'm about to take my ear rings off. Hefer Now, I didn't attend this marchieza because I was not yet born. But my grandmother, Regina Wood Junior, was able to go. But she didn't go. She said she was going with her best friend, Susan, but the two got lost on the way and somehow they ended up in the Caribbean, where they've been living as roommates ever since. What that's all the time we have for today. I'm Royd Wood Junior. This has been ce feet time. And remember before.
The culture must have been lord of friends.
I guess they ain't got but one bed in their house.
It's the very first day of Black History, so I thought I hit the streets to as black and white people how they were celebrated.
As we enter yet another Black History Month.
We thought it was important to connect with people and to find out what their idea of black history was. And nothing says black history like Hollywood Boulevard.
Actually, it's the closest that the crew would come to. Martin Luther King Boulevard. So how are you.
I'm doing good.
It's Black History Month? Absolutely? What excites you the most about it?
I think it's an opportunity we can celebrate ourselves, our contributions as a people like it makes me feel good.
I love Black History Mond.
What do you love about it?
Our kids are getting more educated.
Not in Florida though, well, I don't know about Florida. Nobody does. What do you know about black history?
I'm turst soul. I don't know much about I respect everyone.
I like black bro everyone I know, but they already had their turn. It's our turnout. What is Black History Month?
Mean me? Celebration? Celebration?
Are there any black people you like to celebrate?
Martin Lawrence out of all the black people? I mean, I love the Black History Month?
Yes?
You excited?
It'll be my first?
Is your first Black History Month?
Yeah?
How long have you been black?
Home? But we don't do it.
It's South Africa. Oh you don't do it in South Africa. What's the blakest thing you've ever done?
I think when we have guests over, I don't want to share our food, so we just all go hungry until they leave.
That's the blackest thing you've ever done? Beat Chitling's.
Oh man, I put a cereal in the glad bad so I'm keeping for the roaches because if the roach ate it first, I'm damn sure I ain't gonna eat it.
That's so black. I'm embarrassed.
Every time I go to a new city, I like to go to the grocery store.
Right, I'll stop, I'll get some watermelon and some chicken, and I'll see if they'll say something to.
Me at the register.
Has anybody ever don't go to Mississippi?
Have you ever been denied alone?
Know what happened?
That's that's probably the whitest thing you've ever done. What is the whitest thing you ever done?
With Surphy?
You didn't set up? And how did that work out?
Not very good?
But it's the whitest thing you've ever done.
Improv Uh pay my taxi?
Can you name any of the members of the Wu Tang clan?
No?
I can't you know any of.
The words to the Black National Anthem.
That's messed up.
But I don't know you know any of the words of the Black National Anthem.
I'm going to stand up.
You know if you don't know the word be respectful, and you name any members of the Wu Tang clan.
No, have you ever been late somewhere?
Hack? No, I'm very punctual.
That's pretty well, I know.
Do you know any of the members of the Wu Tang clan that you're gonna take my car for me?
Right now?
Give it here?
Give it here?
You know any of the words to the Black National Anthem? No, you know any of the members of the Wu Tang clan. I do ghost face killer, ray Kwan, got.
Money, that's it.
What is the blackest thing you've ever done?
I went to Roscoe's Chicken and waffle.
Yeah.
What is the blackest thing you've ever done?
Oh?
Damn h, that's pretty black right there. Do you follow anybody on black Twitter?
I don't have a black Twitter.
Smoke weed.
I was in a hip hop group in high school.
You know you weren't. I was what was your name in the group?
Big and Tasty?
Big and Tasty. Give me some Look at me, Look at me, Look at me.
Bread chasing like a bakery like, I don't know.
I like that.
What is the blackest thing you've ever done? Let's racist question, of course, What is the blackest thing you've ever done talking to you.
This week mark a milestone in civil rights history, the fiftieth anniversary of Franklin's first appearance in the comics Peanuts.
Now, now it seems like a joke.
But the reason this was a landmark is that before Franklin appeared, newspaper comic strips were segregated, right, Black comic strips royce separate, separate from white comic strips. In fact, if you even tried to put the pages of the newspapers together, the policeman just break down your door. They'd be like wa, and they'd be like, well, well, well we got a troublemaker over here. So the character of Franklin was a pretty big deal. And what's really fascinating is his origin story.
April nineteen sixty eight, Martin Luther King had been shot and killed. American cities burned in rage in California. A forty two year old teacher and mother of three felt helpless.
And I remember sitting in suburbia saying, is there anything I can do?
Harriet Glickman wanted to reach someone with influence. She wrote to Charles Schultz. His Peanuts comic strip was read by nearly one hundred million people each week. Charlie Brown, Lucy Linus, they were all white. Glickman told Schultz he should integrate.
Okay, I was pretty dope of that, lady, but uh.
Yeah.
But at the same time, also kind of a weird reaction to a tragedy. I mean, Martin Luther King is dead, there's chaos in the streets, and her first reaction is maybe Charlie Brown can help.
For mom. The civil rights trailblazer. We turned out to a very own right would you?
Everybody?
Boy, no matter who you are, you gotta love Franklin?
Right?
Oh?
Man?
Love him?
Are you?
Kidd?
Man?
Franklin was a straight up g integrated the shit out of Peanuts and it must.
Have been a pretty big moment for you as a kid when he first appeared in the.
Strip first appeared. That was in nineteen sixty eight. How old do you think? I am.
Fifty forty sixteen.
I'm thirty nine, Trevor, thirty nine. Here's the thing. Newspaper Franklin was great. Newspaper Franklin was great. You can't argue that. But when they put them on TV, it was a different story. All of a sudden, they made them a stereotype.
You hear a hoky, you turn yourself around. That's my all about this boat, cause we're not gonna lose.
Why why couldn't Franklin just do the hoky poky trailer? You're telling me black kids can't put they left foot in and take they.
Left foot out.
It looked like Franklin was auditioning for house party too.
It's too cool to have him in there. Even if he had one dance break.
It was every time with this kid. Anytime you walk down the street in Peanutsville, you might run into Franklin. And when this homeboy pop walking, and even when he's hanging out with his friends, everyone else gets a normal handshake with No.
Not Franklin.
He got a slap skin. See what I mean.
All the other peanuts are just kids, But Franklin's running around Peanutville like a damn baby shaft. He's a tiny bad mother.
I'm talking about Franklin.
Look, I just don't want him to be the other kid all the time. Even at Thanksgiving. Yeah they invited him, but look where they didn't put him. He's find himself. Even the dog gets to sit with the kids.
Wash the dog.
Even at the damn table. It's cool though, Franklin.
Franklin. Look, man, Franklin, they did you a favor. You don't want none of that bland ass white people turkey anyway.
I'm like, today was a day when we got some really sad news that Aretha Franklin passed away. That was, yeah, that was It was rough for a lot of people, and not just because of the music, because of who she was. I remember I used to like, I used to sing the songs with my mom. So I grew up, you know, it was most of the time it was just me and my mom, and so I used to sing all the songs, not really knowing what they meant per se.
So as a little kid, I was like confident.
Like you make me feel like natural well Walmart. And then like I got I got older, and I was just like, whoa wait, what was I doing?
What was I was like, Mom, why didn't you stop me? And She's like, because you look like a natural woman. You were doing so well.
But what I loved is like, like Aretha Franklin, you know, you see everybody talking about this is it. It's one of those examples where you see an artist who uses their platform to go beyond just making money and doing what they do. Like you read these beautiful stories about how Aretha Franklin had in a contract that she wouldn't perform for segregated audiences, right, so you know, if audiences were segregated by ratio, was like, no, I'm not going to perform.
You know.
She was one of the first people who supported Angela Davis, you know, from the Black Panthers.
She fought for.
Martin Luther King. Like this is at a time when it wasn't cool to do that. It was risky to you and your livelihood. I mean, you saw what happened with Nina Simone, you know, and she was out there and she was doing it, and she was making songs that at the time were crazy when you think of how women were situated in society. I mean, you know, the metwo movement had shown that we still have a long way to go, but at that time, it was pretty much like women just keep quiet, and she was out there rispct.
Was I mean I remember that as well. Like my mom used to say that to me, as like like if I'd ever.
Like say something back chat or whatever in the moment, would be like ARISPCT and like play the song and I'll be like, yeah, our PSP s p T find out what and she was. You know what I loved about Aretha as well, like the stories that she was gangster like she hold on. She only performed when she had her money in cash before the gig. Always like that her whole life till like now, till she was like where's the money, like she was the original bitch, better have my money.
Money before the gig. Then I sing.
I think.
I sometimes think to myself, like the guy's back today, he's counting it and she's like doing it word by word and uh nonhi and.
Home.
Oh so yeah, man, she will she'll be missed. She will be everything we see today in so many ways in the music in like you know, music male and female. It is because of her, so Weatha Franklin Rest in peace, man, it's a beautiful, beautiful story.
Explore more shows from the Daily Show podcast universe by searching The Daily Show wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Daily Show week nights at eleven ten Central on Comedy Central, and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount
Plus Paramount Podcasts MHM
