733: Warriors in the Garden
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are unbearped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beeped version, you can find that at our website, thisamericanlife.org. From WBEZChicago, it's This American Life. I'm Emmanuel Berry, the show's executive editor. I'm in for Hourglass. This week's show is reported by a friend of mine, say ye, t john Thomas Jr. Last spring, he gave me a call. He wanted to talk about a show idea. This big pitch, a podcast series about activists. I was not into it. I had covered protest and Ferguson, the year Michael Brown was shot, spent late nights watching protesters stand off with police, weekends at marches, I know how this goes. It's always the same story, chanting, and passionate activists talking about why they came out, hopeful forward-looking statements. I watched as a story replicated in cities across the country with black death after black death. Sayid and I talked for an hour. I wasn't sold. He ignored me and made the show anyway. It's a podcast called Resistance, and I cannot bear how happy me saying the next few words will make Sayid, but it's good. Sayid didn't make the story you'd get by going to protest after protest, like I feared. Instead, he tells stories that unfold over time about people's lives being changed by the decision to protest. What happens with their personal relationships? Home life taking a backseat, exhaustion, egos, celebration, and arguments. Sayid made the story that's always been there, but no one ever tells. There's this perception of black lives matter, that it's this one thing, but of course the largest social movement of our time is really a loose collection of different groups, with different personalities, goals, and methods. And sayid made a series of stories about one of them, a group called Warriors in the Garden. It was started by about a dozen activists, mostly in their 20s, black and brown, a handful of women, but mostly men. Their students, marketing directors, waiters, and models. Derek Ingram, one of the founding members of the group, says a thing that unifies them is that each one of them is the loudest person they know. Think about this, like I saw 5,000 people marching and I thought, I can lead them. I need to get in front. How narcissistic do you have to be to jump in front of 5,000 people and just start screaming at them? Like, I mean, but I did it. All the Warriors in the Garden did it. And they found each other because they were all at the front of the marches. And very quickly, they became one of the best known groups in New York City organizing protest after the murder of George Floyd. The group is cool. They look cool, and they build a huge social media following. When people showed up to their protest, they made sure they had a good time, which meant a lot of chanting and dancing and music being played. They were explicitly a non-violent organization because they didn't want their events to feel
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