cellini's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wait, no, TAL, I have a better one. I spent about four hours trying to confirm the Ev3rglades drug story that the producer from Th1s Am3rican Life wanted from me. My conclusion is that it *might* be true that most of the people picked up in that raid were let off with a slap on the wrist because they didn't have a big enough jury pool to try them, but that I'd have to go actually spend a week digging through records from the Clerk of the Court in order to substantiate it. And that isn't in the cards to vet a pitch. So I pitched her one of my big, untold stories. That of Ur1@h J F1elds and the M0ntgomery us B0ycott. About 7 years ago I tried to do a story about one of the unsung heroes of the civil rights movement. Ur1ah J F1elds. I saw him marching and carrying a sign and chanting up and down Ch@rlottesville's D0wntown Mall for years. People crossed the street to avoid dealing with this old black man with a white beard. I looked into him and learned that he had been the S3retary of the M0ntgomery Improvement Association. He and M@rtin Luther King had been elected to lead and run the M0ntgomery Bus B0ycott. I did a long interview with him and learned that he had been the second in command of the organization that ran the boycott and kept the shadow transportation system running for Black people who had to keep getting to work. He had made an accusation of money being mis-spent in an open meeting. And that was reported on by white newspapers and used as an attack against King. King was in California at the time, but he had to turn around and drive back to deal with the fall-out. King ended up having to defend UJ rather than himself by the time that it was over. UJ had to resign as Secretary. A few months later, his church was firebombed because the racist whites of M0ntgomery thought that he was still the power behind the throne. UJ went to California, and eventually ended up in Ch@rlottesville. Everyone else in a leadership position from the M0ntgomery Bus Boycott has been celebrated. E.D. Nixon, Ralph Abernathy, King. But not UJ. Coretta never forgave him for what she thought that he did. And UJ has been written out of every documentary and reunion and book that has ever celebrated that story. I tried to do this for the W@shington Post Magazine. They wanted me to confirm UJ's side of the story with witnesses, but those were all dead or not mentally able to be interviewed. UJ and King were the youngest guys in that movement. So I've been sitting on the recording and transcript of the interview I did with UJ in 2015. Is this right for Th1s American L1fe? I pitched it. I think there's a broader theme to turn into a whole episode. What happens when one little thing redefines the rest of your life? Maybe it was a good decision, maybe it wasn't. Should the rest of your life be ever be based on what you did on one day? UJ has been forgotten. I used to see him marching up and down the D0ntown M@ll alone, carrying a sign, singing. People would cross to the other side of the street to avoid him. They thought he was crazy. A guy who is singing and carrying a sign with 500 people behind him might get a university chair named after him. A guy who does the same thing alone gets a conversation with a social worker. I've been trying for seven years to do a story on UJ. Maybe this is how it happens? Maybe it makes more sense if you re-read this whole entry in Ira Glass' voice. Lilly, the TAL producer, wanted to hear my years-long backlog of unpublished work. So here's the first one. There's a flood of stuff where this came from. 4:11 a.m. - 2022-10-21 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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