26 | Locked Up | Samuel L. Jackson Vs. Morehouse College
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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Black History for Real early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Conscious, what is something that would make you risk it all?

Man, I'm actually in therapy right now working on my traumatic responses. So I'm going to try not to give you one of those. Yes. But, you know, I don't play by my kids. You feel me? Don't play by my kids. Yeah. You know, and I take my ego. If I was being egotistical, I'd be like insulting my intelligence. I'd be ready to risk it all. But, you know, if I'm being more mindful and more grounded, I think that if I felt like I had to desperately take

fight for survival and or the livelihood of my kids. I'm risking it all. I'll knock all this off of your table. I don't have kids. So I would say my parents, uh,

I would go out on a limb to protect them. I feel like the roles have reversed where I was the kid and now I feel like the parent to them. I'm always trying to take care of them and I'm being like, you got to go to the doctor, you got to eat. Mom, you got to get your steps in. I'm always kind of coaching them. So I would probably, I'd be really ready to knock some heads if my parents were in danger. On my mama, I say it's always a question of what are you willing to lose?

Well, taking chances and risks, it ain't fair about it.

Sometimes when you risk it all, you run into complications. And Samuel L. Jackson, damn sure ran into a huge complication when he took the Morehouse Board of Trustees hostage. Absolutely. Taking the board hostage was risky business. However, Sam participated in the lockdown in order to confront an institution he saw as racist. Most of the board was white.

But taking one board member in particular could turn everyone against them. Insert Martin Luther King Sr. The Martin Luther King Sr. Man, this story just keep getting wilder and wilder. Let's get into some black history for real.

It's 1969, Morehouse College. Inside of a humid classroom, a young Samuel L. Jackson huddles with leaders of the concerned students. A group of white, angry-looking old men glare at them from the opposite side of the room. Morehouse is an HBCU, but its trustees are mostly white. The students have a list of demands, and addressing the board's lack of representation is one of them. The air is so thick with tension that Sam nearly chokes on it.

Earlier today, the students locked the building down with chains. They're angry at the state of their campus. They're angry at the state of the world. That's why they're holding the Morehouse College trustees hostage. The trustees responded to the students' demands with a weak compromise and more threats. Some of the students are beginning to get scared, but Sam convinces them to hold the line. They ain't going nowhere, and he's about to let the trustees know.

I'm not feeling too good. The man's face is pinched with pain. Sweat drips from his scruffy mustache. His square face is mad familiar. It's Martin Luther King Sr. One of the black trustees flagged down Sam. He feels sorry for the guy, but their fight honors his son's legacy. MLK Sr. grabs his chest in pain. He's having a hard time breathing.

Sam's determination wavers. The man might be faking it. The trustees will have an opportunity to run if the students open the door. And ain't no leverage without the trustees. But Sam knows acting. And this man ain't acting at all.

We've got a problem. It's the first time the stakes feel real. Buried exhaustion and fear creeps into the eyes of one student. Maybe we should take their offer. We do that, and we might as well give up and drop out. They've got nothing concrete from the board, no protections from disciplinary actions, and no guarantee that any of their demands will be implemented. Sam thinks about the brave students before him.

Some lost their lives or were sent to prison just because they protested on campuses across the country. The recent assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. is always on his mind. He never forgets about his cousin killed in Vietnam. There's so much to fight for, but MLK Sr. is not getting any better. Is this fight really worth risking his life?

Thank you.

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From Wondery, this is Black History For Real, where we chronicle the stories of movers and shakers from Black history all over the world. The stories will inspire you, educate you, and more often than not, leave you shaking your damn head. I'm Conscious Lee.

And I'm Francesca Ramsey. This is the final episode of our two-part series on Samuel L. Jackson vs. Morehouse College. Today, we're telling the story of the fateful year that led to Samuel L. Jackson's drastic actions and the aftermath that's as inspiring as it is cautionary.

And see, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Sam's determined to continue the civil rights leader's work. He falls for a student activist at Morehouse's sister school and starts organizing with the concerned students. There's finally an outlet for his anger and a chance to force the change he seeks. But the consequences are serious. This is episode two. Locked.

It's early April 1968. A 19-year-old Sam climbs the steps of a plane. It's filled with classmates from Morehouse and Spelman. The students were invited by a couple of Hollywood celebrities. They're headed to join a strike for sanitation workers in Memphis. Earlier in the year, malfunctioning machinery killed two garbage collectors. 1,300 people walk off the job 11 days later. They demand better working conditions and higher pay.

The strike becomes a focal point in the fight for financial justice for workers of color. It's the last stop on Martin Luther King Jr.'s itinerary. Workers' rights are becoming a central pillar of the civil rights movement. MLK leads a few protests there, even delivering his famous "I've been to the mountaintop" speech. Unfortunately, it's King's last. He's assassinated on his Memphis hotel balcony the next day, and Sam hasn't felt the same since.

He looks anxiously around the plane until he spots her, Latonya. She's a Spelman student who shares Sam's love of acting. Latonya's smart, talented, and beautiful. It's like she's got the sun bottled up inside. She's a student activist like Sam. And right now, activism is just as important to Sam as acting is. He takes a seat beside Latonya.

She blushes before turning away. Sam likes what he sees too, but he's got to focus on the task ahead. Supporting the sanitation worker. Is this or burn loot in the short of town? Everybody's still hurt. Mad as hell. The anger ain't going nowhere either. It still blankets everybody on the plane.

Some joined in on the riots. Their rage at such a cruel injustice played out in burning buildings and shattered windows. As he sits beside LaTanya in eerie silence, he worries. The National Guard's been called to Memphis. Maybe things will stay peaceful. But Martin preached and lived nonviolence. Look at how it ended for him.

Tapping student activists from Atlanta makes a lot of sense to Black leaders. Even before the 1969 hostage situation, Atlanta's schools had a long history of student activism. Back then, they had nine HBCUs in the state. In 1960, three Morehouse students, Lonnie King, Joseph Pierce, and Julian Bond, were inspired by the Woolworths' lunch counter protest against segregation. They created the Committee on Appeal for Human Rights.

This set the stage for other student activist groups like Morehouse's Concerned Students. See, a lot of folks be lost in the South thinking that the South is just backwards. But contrary to popular belief, a lot of the most impactful change has started in Black Southern communities and particularly by Black Southern youth. They start to erase this rich history that we got down South. You know what I'm saying? I feel like a lot of people can't really get past Blackness.

the pathology of putting black bodies next to the plantation. So when I think about black southerners, they just think about us in proximity to the plantation, not acknowledging that on one end, y'all always say drastic times call for drastic measures, but you don't think that the southerners down South, you feel me that we so pissed off enough for us to take drastic measures. And, you know, in this time right here, you think about it, Samuel Jackson down South, he from down South, right? He's still going against the grain.

Drastic times and drastic measures to be able to kind of, you know, give us the story that we have now. Yeah, I think it's, again, so important to highlight that student activism isn't anything new. And especially in this current moment, there's so many conversations about, oh, you know, students being so politically correct and being triggered. And, oh, my gosh, you guys are being so sensitive when the reality is kids.

young people have historically been on the forefront of progressive movements. And I would argue that that is a result of young people having more empathy and an open heart and that being in school is like the

perfect place for your mind to be exposed to these new ideas, but also to start questioning the status quo and pushing back against the dominant narratives that maybe you heard before you got into school, before you were exposed to these ideas in higher education. When Sam joins the concerned students, a lot of the students feel like the idea of nonviolence is used to block more direct action.

But that nonviolent organizing ain't got Morehouse no closer to funding the Black Studies program. It ain't stopped the Board of Trustees from being mostly white men. And it damn sure ain't improved the school's terrible relationship with black folks in the surrounding projects.

Samuel peeped. He peeped gang real early. Here he go talking about the school. Morehouse was breeding politically correct Negroes. They were creating the next Martin Luther Kings. They didn't say that because really, they didn't want you to be that active politically. And they were more proud of the fact that he was a preacher than that he was a civil rights leader. All respect to the rich legacy in history that Morehouse has, right?

This is not meant to be a slight at none of that at all. I don't think, though, however, you can divorce Morehouse's founding from this white man trying to be, you feel me, the great white savior in X, Y, Z and making it where we produce more palatable, consumable Negroes. That's for like white imagination and white consumption. And I think that that's what Samuel L. Jackson is getting at. And.

I don't think it's ironic that this probably the first time you hear this damn story about what Samuel L. Jackson did at Morehouse because there's enough influence for them to suppress and or marginalize exactly what had happened. Well, and I think there's also so many layers here because, you know, MLK talked about the dangers of the liberal white person. And I think this is a perfect example. It's like, well, we gave y'all a college. Now shut up. You niggas better be grateful.

Yeah, it's like this thing of too often and also go a step further to say that this is not exclusive to when it comes to talking about race. You see this in a lot of quote unquote progressive spaces where somebody is progressive on one subject and they think, well, I've done the work. I get it now. I understand what privilege means. I think, you know, gay marriage should be legal. And then they're not willing to investigate beyond that because they think that they've done all of the work.

And I think that Sam is bringing up a really great thing, that same feeling in this quote, that Morehouse was invested in having intelligent, educated black folks, but they weren't as invested in blackness.

teaching their students to question the status quo and buck against the system. It was like, well, we do want you to be educated and we do think you deserve equal rights, but don't do anything that questions our sensibilities or forces us to be critical of the powers that be because that's a bridge too far. And to be clear,

I don't think there's only just HBCUs. I think that most institutions of higher education want to make educated black people in so far that we are always already trying to save democracy and improve, you know what I'm saying, the status quo. Once we start trying to question democracy or questioning status quo, I think that you start to lose support and you start to have weird, wild conspiracy theories and propaganda start coming your way. Or people just never let you get that far, so they don't even need to use the proper

They try to make sure you never get further than where you started from. - This is the one-dimensional idea of activism and of Martin Luther King Jr. that Sam wrestles with on his way to Memphis. When Sam and the other students land in Memphis, most of his worries fade away. They're not alone. There are so many people committed to the cause, way more than before Martin Luther King Jr. was killed.

The march is like nothing Sam's ever seen. Change feels so close he might snatch it from the air. For the first time since Martin died, Sam feels alive again, like the hope Martin represented might still be possible. But hours later, that sense of dread fills Sam's heart. School feels so insignificant. Is he supposed to just go back and be a student?

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Sam doesn't just go back to being a student. He fills an honorable role at MLK Jr.'s funeral. On the morning of April 9th, 1968, all of Black America mourns. Any other time, Sam would have gagged about sharing a room with Sidney Poitier. Sam sees the brilliant actor as a role model for a dream that he feels so far away. There's Harry Belafonte holding back tears. And the elder Martin is a wreck.

Sam ushers esteemed guests to their seats in Ebenezer Baptist Church. Everything's so beautiful, but it still doesn't feel like enough. President Lyndon B. Johnson declared a national day of mourning, but it feels like a slap in the face. Martin Luther King Jr. spent years protesting the president's war, the very war that killed Sam's cousin. Black America deserves more than a damn day of mourning.

Underneath the surface, Sam's surfing a wave of anger big enough to fill the whole church. But his anger is directionless. He can't channel it. He can barely contain it. It's got nowhere to go. And his anger sits like a stone in his stomach. The walls of the church shake with grief.

And Sam's lost his own mind. What's he supposed to do now? He's pulled out his thoughts and into reality when the great gospel singer Mahalia Jackson takes the stage. Sam grew listening to her amazing records, but ain't no comparison to the magic of hearing her sing live.

It's definitely something like magic to Sam. Her voice smooths the stinging pain of grief. Mahalia holds that trembling starting note, and precious Lord, take my hand. In the rough edges, Sam's anger softened. A voice soars through the church. Through the storm, through the light, lead me on to the light.

Mahalia steps off the stage. There's not a dry eye in the church house. Sam wipes away his own tears. It almost feels like the Lord grabbed hold of his hand just to show him the fight ain't close to being over.

Sam's anger cools just enough to be useful. Mahalia's singing and the feeling it gives him helps him think. Martin might be gone, but there's still work to do. Sam knows just how to honor MLK's legacy.

Martin was killed, then a lot of unrest on college campuses. In 1966, a white man murdered a Tuskegee Institute student off campus. Students at the school felt ignored by the HBCU's administration. They wasn't taking their concerns about the racist violence seriously. Two years later,

Hundreds of students took the board of trustees hostage. They presented them with demands. These demands were supposed to make Tuskegee better represent a black university. The Alabama National Guard ended the students' protest and the school was temporarily closed afterwards. But the students were still able to claim significant concessions. They're not the only radical student protesters during that time either.

Worth noting that this is the same Tuskegee Institute where the site of the Tuskegee syphilis experiments happened. Just a site of racial violence, one could say. One year after Martin Luther King's funeral, a radical leftist student group forced their way into Harvard University building. They were called the Students for a Democratic Society. They ain't play no games either. The students evicted eight deans and other administrators and deputies.

They had four main demands. The first, they wanted divestment from the Vietnam War. Second, an end to campus ROTC programs. Third, greater investment into the communities surrounding the campus. And fourth, a more racially diverse student body and curriculum. See, the police violently cracked down on students. It only made the SDS protests grow. Eventually, the university changed its policies.

Sam and the concerned students don't point to these specific events as inspiration, but the group is well-read. They know about the lock-ins on other campuses, and they got plenty of examples for forcing change at Morehouse.

That fateful morning, Sam and the concerned students march to Harkness Hall. They'll take drastic actions if they've got to, but hope that can be avoided. The last thing they want is police showing up on campus, especially after what happened at Tuskegee and Harvard. A smart administration would have learned from those examples. It's hard to beat students that are determined. An HBCU that doesn't even have a Black Studies department?

and has a majority white board with no student involvement, it makes sense that the students are heated. The changes they're asking for are common sense. At the very least, they deserve discussion. One could say it's wild that these schools already didn't have them as a part of their fundamentals, but it's also traditional for white America to kind of treat black Americans like, you know, little fungible objects or disobedient, potentially enslaved people that always need to be kept at bay. So it kind of makes sense. What do you think, Frankie?

I mean, you, I think you said it perfectly. It's almost this undercurrent of we know what's best for you, where we're going to give you some education, but we're not going to let you be in charge. You know, we want you to further and better yourself. But in order to do that, you have to stay exactly where we tell you to. And you can't get too rowdy. And you have to do everything the way that we've determined it to be professional and respectable and palatable. Otherwise, we're

We're not even going to engage with it. And it's one of those things that makes me think of how often black folks and other marginalized people are policed when we talk about our oppression or we try to stand up for ourselves and demand better this idea like we have to say it nicely. And, you know, you can't yell and you can't be angry. You have to do it this the respectable way when in reality, sometimes anger is.

is the way that you, that it's communicated that this is important and that things need to change. Like anger is part of the education oftentimes. - When the students arrive at Harkness Hall, they're nervous, but determined.

They got four principal demands just like them students at Harvard and Tuskegee. And some of the demands are mad similar. Morehouse gotta launch a black studies program. Black people should be the majority on the board instead of them old white men.

The school got to do better by the folks in the nearby projects. And this one kind of new. They want the black colleges in the Atlanta area to consolidate as one larger institution with a focus on black studies. They even got the name picked out for it. Martin Luther King Junior University.

Sam's ready to get to negotiating when he opens the door. A custodian frowns as he looks Sam over. We're here to see the trustees. You can talk to them tomorrow. You ain't coming in here. Please, brother. We've got some important things they need to hear. The custodian ain't trying to listen to none of that. The door slams in his face. Phew!

It hurts even more because it's black. But it's a perfect representation of everything that's wrong with Morehouse. All skinfolk ain't kinfolk and every black institution ain't there to help. The students feel deflated, but then they notice something that changes everything.

Chains. Yeah, chains. The way things going on campuses around the country, these students might just die on their own college campus. But Sam knows they can't let fear stop them. They grab the chains, storm the building.

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The fear Sam struggles to overcome makes sense. It's written into American history. Militant student protests have been as effective as they've been deadly. In 1970, the National Guard arrived at Kent State. Students were protesting the Vietnam War. It took 11 days for violence to erupt. The National Guard fired into a crowd of students and killed four of them. Things weren't any better down in Mississippi.

At the HBCU Jackson State, students protested the murders at Kent State and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia. Police confronted students outside of a dorm. They opened fire and injured 12 students. They killed two others. One was only 17 years old. And looking at the violent crackdown on student protests this year puts it all into perspective.

In the midst of us talking about Morehouse, I can't help but to think of the recent controversy of Biden going and giving a graduation speech and how a lot of those Morehouse men was not going for the apologetic genocidal talk, you know what I'm saying, of the president. And it makes you ask the question, Mike, I wonder what did Morehouse learn from that whole engagement? I mean, we kind of touched on this earlier, but it is so frustrating seeing history repeat itself in this way.

that when students are advocating for what they believe is right, that they're demonized. And it's really interesting watching the narrative being spun about the pro-Palestinian protests that are happening on college campuses, especially the ones that are happening at Ivy League schools. I mean, there's this narrative that

These are young liberals who are just spoiled and haven't had any real challenges when the makeup of a lot of these students, some of them are coming from very affluent backgrounds. They're very diverse student populations. There are Jewish students on campus. There are students of

There are queer people. I mean, there are so many different walks of life being represented in these protests. And it's frustrating to see that.

But instead of learning from our past history and how students just standing up for what they believe in and saying, you know, we want a world in which everybody is treated fairly and we don't want our tuition dollars funding a war or in this case, a genocide is somehow demonized. And it's really...

I can't help but think that in a few years, the same way that we're looking back on what happened at Morehouse and what happened at Kent and realizing how devastating it was and what a failure it was for those students. I can't help but think five, 10, 20 years from now, the way that this moment on these college campuses is described is going to be very different from the way it's being described right now.

It's going to be that revisionist history. Oh, man. Beat me to it. Beat me to it. Telling about revisionist history so crazy that when I learned about Kent State and how students were going against Vietnam in school, it's being said in a way that to know the students were on the moral right side, were on the ethical right side. You feel me? But when you go back and see what the politicians were saying about those students, it's

echoes so similarly to how both Democrats and Republicans talked about those students taking up their First Amendment right, the right to protest freedom of speech. They literally demonized them. As a matter of fact, when them students got shot at Kent State, the president of

at that time and a whole bunch of other politicians basically called them communists and said they brought it on themselves. Sounds so familiar, man. Sounds so familiar. During the civil rights time, it was the war of Vietnam. Right now, it's this Palestinian genocide. And seeing how black folks' solidarity with these movements, that's really what got folks pissed off. You feel me? What I've known from talking about this issue for the past couple of months is

That the more we get into the specifics of black folks linking up with people in Palestine or the specifics of black folks way back then linking up with people in South Africa and Vietnam. That's what really starts to piss off the lobbyists, the interest groups. You feel me? Free Palestine. Listen, man, the last thing I'll say is a lot of students was mad in Vietnam when they figured out they was eating one too many ramen noodle packets and that money was being sent to Vietnam.

And the same students feel that same way right now. They got mold in their classrooms. They ain't got no free books. You know what I'm saying? Or they ain't got no good books. And they really still getting money sent over there. So people, they sick and tired of being sick and tired, man. The students still holding the boy hostage at Harkness Hall. They ain't doctors. And Martin Luther King Sr.'s heart pains ain't going away. Ain't no way these students about to really risk this man's life. He's already lost so much.

Sam reluctantly walks to a panting MLK senior. They're gonna let the minister go. Relief crosses MLK senior's face, but the other trustees smirk. Now's the chance. But then Sam grabs Aladdin. Their smirks fall like shattered chandeliers. The minister might be having heart problems, but his legs work fine.

It ain't the most dignified, but MLK Sr.'s climbing out that second story window alone. Ain't none of the other trustees going nowhere. MLK Sr. pauses at the window and gives Sam a look the kid can't quite make out. Sympathy? Gratitude? Was it disappointment? It's all so complicated. Always has been for black folks. The minister climbs out the window and disappears.

Sam turns back to the trustees and frowns. They refuse to negotiate further. But Sam's got something else up his sleeve. And that ladder's still right there. But Tanya is the first to climb through. Sam breaks into a smile. He knew she'd come. Whenever somebody's talking about revolution and change, she shows up for it.

Sam grins and turns back to the trustees, because Latonya ain't come alone. More Spelman students are outside the building. If they somehow ain't know before, they damn sure know now. These students mean big business. Their number's still growing. Their power keeps growing, too. The board is outnumbered, and the chairman finally gives up.

He signs an agreement giving in to some, but not all of their demands. The board also promises ain't nobody getting punished for participating in the protests. Sam wonders if the chairman really means what he says. It's a pretty big thing to not get punished for.

Right now, though, there's too much to celebrate. They actually did it. It feels nice to have some proof that principles and bravery matter. Sam found his voice some time ago. Now he finally knows what to do with it. Remember how Sam thought the board and their office were suspect? He was on to something. Right after the semester ends, Sam got some news. The dean of students sent registered letters to Sam and the other protesters.

They were summoned back to campus for it here. The dean knew exactly what he was doing, sending them letters in the middle of the summer. Most of the students were gone. They wasn't going to be around to push back. Eventually, Sam's charged and convicted of unlawful confinement. He's suspended for two whole years for his actions.

Sam thinks back on freshman orientation after the hearing. They told students to look to the left and then to the right. They warned them one in three wouldn't be here for graduation. Sam never forgot. Finally, I was that person who was not there the next year.

But there's no stopping Samuel L. Jackson. He stayed involved in radical activist circles, and he never lost his love for acting. Sam returned to Morehouse in 1971. He majored in drama. He seamlessly moves from the stage to the screen, making his feature film debut in 1972. His relationship with LaTanya Richardson blossoms beyond their shared activism. They fall in love and get married in 1980. They've been together ever since.

Sam's breakout role comes out in 1991. He plays Gator Parify as Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, and he never looks back. He goes on to become the highest grossing box office star of all time. Even with all his challenges, childhood poverty, a stutter, hell, even a felony, today, his voice is motherfucking undeniable.

If you like Black History for Real, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at wondery.com slash survey.

This is the final episode of our two-part series on Samuel L. Jackson vs. Morehouse College. We use multiple sources when researching our stories, but the Hollywood reporter, The Guardian, and the book Bad Motherfucker, The Life and Movies of Samuel L. Jackson, The Coolest Man in Hollywood by Gavin Edwards, were extremely helpful.

A note, our scenes contain reenactments and dramatized details for narrative cohesiveness. Black History for Real is hosted by me, Francesca Ramsey. And me, Contis Lee. Black History for Real is a production of Wondery. The episode was written by Hari Ziyad. Sound design by Greg Schweitzer.

The theme song is by Terrace Martin. For Wondery, Lindsay Gomez is the development producer. The production coordinator is Taylor Sniffen. Sophia Martins is our managing producer. Sonia May is our associate producer. Our senior producers are Matt Gant and Morgan Givens. The executive producers for Wondery are Marshall Louis, Aaron O'Flaherty, and Candice Mariquez-Wren.

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