Remembering the Orangeburg Massacre Anniversary and Strife Within NY Leadership

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning. Like every Sunday, Governor David Patterson is with us to give us his pulse on New York City, New York State, the country. Well, Governor, what’s up tonight.

0:12 Speaker 2 Well, it’s very interesting, John. It’s Sunday, February eighth. And I’m going to come back to why February eighth is an important date in American history and we don’t know anything about it. But first I want to say that once again, at the prayer breakfast on Thursday, President Trump offered the idea that we moved the statue of Christopher

0:32 Columbus to the White House lawn. And once again he thinks of things before other people do. But getting back to this particular date, it’s very interesting. Orangeburg, South Carolina. This is after the nineteen sixty four Civil Rights Act and after the ninety sixty five Voting Rights Act. There was one bowling alley in that county that refused black men,

0:57 women or children to come in and bowl. So on the night of February fifth, three days before, they had a rally outside of the bowling alley. It was nonviolent, it was just a protest. But then on February eighth, they came back and they had another rally. In the middle of the rally, police came out from the bowling alley.

1:21 They fired guns. They hit twenty seven people. They killed three males and injured seriously thirteen other people. It was shocking. But what the people in the county did was they went as far as they could to cut off this story from the national media so they wouldn’t be exposed, and were able to bring the other elements of the

1:46 community together, and eventually the bowling alley was converted and it became accessible to all people who wanted to bowl. But the serious aspect of this situation, of the many incidents in history that we celebrate in black history, monk, but I’ve always said that Black history is American history understood.

2:12 Speaker 1 I didn’t realize that, and I don’t think too many people know about it.

2:15 Speaker 2 I didn’t know about it until a few years ago, and then I forgot because you know, John, I’m getting on in years, but I know. But I thought about it the other day and thought i’d share it with the listeners.

2:25 Speaker 1 Well, thank you for sharing it, and tell us what else are you thinking about this Sunday morning.

2:31 Speaker 2 Well, we’re in an interesting period right now where I’m not exactly sure how the mayor was unable to recover from saying that he wasn’t going to close down the homeless encampments and then was advising the police not to do it and other city workers not to do it.

2:57 And now here we are, John, this is two weeks after that snowfall, and if you went outside and looked around, you’d think it happened.

3:06 Speaker 1 Yesterday, And there’s a lot of snow on the ground still, and it’s gone to be solid, and it has that. You know, you’ve been around as long as I have in New York, have you ever seen that before.

3:22 Speaker 2 I’ve never seen a snowfall. I’ve seen some major snowfalls and you know, three or four days and then there’s a rain and it goes away. But I’ve never seen a snowfall where two weeks later, the if you took pictures, it looks exactly the same as it did on the Sunday, the twenty fifth of January when the snowfall came.

3:41 Speaker 1 You can’t access some of the streets at all. You know, you have to get to the corner. I actually went me and Morgan went to get blood tests the other day and we were at one of the hospitals. You get to blood tested, and the street was with solid ice and snow. Get to the sidewalk.

4:02 Speaker 2 I know the day that we had the celebration of sid Rosenberg’s ten years here at w ABC. When I was leaving, I had to go over this snowbank. When I came down, I tried to turn and fell flat, you know, on my stomach. And you know that was that was a minor inconvenience.

4:20 Speaker 1 Wow, well my niece still hurts from falling, you know. And well, tell us what else? Who you know you’d like to talk about us? Send you what the heck is going on. I understand that Kathy Hockel has picked the new lieutenant governor. And I understand that, Uh oh you tell.

4:41 Speaker 2 Us John, I can’t believe you asked me that question. I thought I could get through this interview without it. Kathy Okle picked her new lieutenant governor. She was the Speaker of the New York City Council Adrian Adams. She represents the district in Queen’s She’s a very affable person.

4:59 She fights for her issues, but she’s a great person to know. And for some reason, the entire Brooklyn delegation wrote appressly saying they aren’t accepting Adrian Adams as a lieutenant governor candidate, and they’re not accepting Kathy Hochel as the gubernatorial candidate. Oh my god, Now this is ridiculous.

5:22 Speaker 1 This is now.

5:22 Speaker 2 First of all, I grew up in Brooklyn. One thing you got to know about people in Brooklyn, they always feel like they’re being played. They always feel when I live there, like someone’s doing something that us. But this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of. And I understand that a number of the delegates who were

5:42 pronounced to be part of this secession from supporting Governor Hokeel, a number of them have said that they did not actually vote on it. So hopefully for Kathy Hockel they’ll turn it around. But it’s one of the most embarrassing things I’ve ever seen happen.

6:00 Speaker 1 Well, I hope the city comes together and I just worry about it. You know, the traditional is give the new mayor one hundred days and I hope he see I hope he does a good job because I love our city.

6:18 Speaker 2 Well, you know, one of the sad things about leadership, John is if you don’t jump on an issue in time and it gets ahead of you. You spend the rest of your time trying to catch up. He’s trying to catch up now, perhaps he can, but that initial decision put him in a hole that’s hard to dig

6:37 out of, no matter how high.

6:38 Speaker 1 This knows. Well, seventeen people died. Yeah, I mean, and I understand it, unless I’m wrong. You tell me that the police commissioners said we should move these people off the streets, and I thought somebody I thought I have read that he told her not to. Well, is that true or not true? I don’t know.

7:03 Speaker 2 I’m not exactly sure what their conversation was about. But not just that the people die, but the way they died, and lying in the street and moaning right before their death, and other people heard them. It’s a lugubrious situation to happen in the city at a time when we thought we could come together with new leadership.

7:26 Speaker 1 Well, Governor, thank you for coming on this Sunday morning, and God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you. John