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states and situations. Hey,

0:45

Nodge. What's up, E? Remember a few

0:47

months ago we found out we were

0:50

finalists for the National Magazine Award? Yes,

0:52

but we didn't actually win. We were

0:54

curious who did. That's what led us

0:56

to the podcast, You Didn't See Nothin'.

0:59

And it is so good, Erlon. So

1:02

while we're between seasons, hard at work on

1:04

our necks, we wanted to introduce

1:06

you to the show. It's

1:08

hosted by formerly incarcerated writer,

1:10

Johan Slickor. And made by

1:12

USG Audio and the Invisible Institute

1:14

in Chicago. We're going to

1:16

play the first episode of the podcast, which

1:19

just won the Pulitzer and

1:21

the Peabody. Ooh-wee. Johan

1:23

Slickor looks back at a racist crime that

1:25

took place in his hometown of Chicago in

1:27

1997. And

1:29

he explores the long aftermath of

1:31

the crime and this unlikely, maybe

1:34

actually unbelievable web of alliances that

1:36

formed because of it. The

1:38

podcast is half investigation,

1:40

half memoir, and really

1:42

unlike anything I've heard before. Here's

1:44

the first episode of You Didn't See

1:46

Nothin'. Hello Chicago!

2:00

When Obama won, I was in a county

2:02

jail out in the boonies, waiting

2:05

to be sentenced. They

2:07

called me Chi-town more.

2:09

If there is anyone out there

2:12

who still doubts that

2:14

America is a place where all

2:16

things are possible, who

2:19

still wonders? So

2:21

that night, we were drinking hooch, sitting

2:24

at the tables, and we're watching the

2:26

TV, moving back and forth to the

2:28

corner of the room where we got

2:31

the hooch hidden, gathering around the TV

2:33

like it's a fire or something, people

2:35

betting macros and betting noodles on

2:37

whether Obama will win or not. Is he going

2:40

to win? No, he ain't going to win. I

2:42

think he's going to win back and forth. And

2:45

once we realized he was in there, it

2:48

was a party. Getting

2:53

drunk, talking shit, partying, and

2:57

yielding hope. It

3:01

was bittersweet. It was more bitter than

3:03

sweet. Yes, we can. I'm seeing faces

3:05

I know in that crowd, and

3:07

I'm feeling like, damn, I'm supposed to be out

3:09

there. But tonight, I mean, the fact that I'm

3:12

facing 10 to life while the

3:14

first black president is getting elected

3:16

at this defining moment is really

3:19

fucking me up. Change has come

3:21

to America. But

3:28

that night, we were celebrating in the hooch work.

3:31

We partied till it was time to be locked down.

3:35

Then we went to our

3:37

sales. Thank

3:40

you. God bless you. And

3:42

may God bless the United States of America.

3:49

I'm Johan Slickour. And

3:52

to tell you the story I'm really here to tell you, we got

3:54

to press rewind. Back to 1997.

4:00

The Bulls were reigning champs. Biggie

4:05

had just been murdered like six months

4:07

after 2-pot. ...and

4:09

a drive-by shooting occurred. And

4:12

I was a college student slash weed

4:14

dealer, living with my dad

4:16

on the south side of Chicago, selling

4:19

$10 bags of weed to the homies

4:21

and going to class on the side.

4:25

That's when I learned about what happened to

4:27

a little black boy named Lenard Clark. In

4:31

Chicago tonight, a group of teenagers is

4:33

charged with beating a black boy to

4:35

a pulp and then boasting that they

4:37

kept their neighborhood white. Lenard Clark is

4:39

still in a coma. Police

4:41

say he was attacked by a group

4:43

of white teenagers who used racial epithets

4:45

as they beat him unconscious. Lenard

4:50

was a 13-year-old baby-faced little boy

4:52

who lived in the projects. He

4:55

rode his bike across the expressway

4:58

into this white neighborhood, Bridgeport, in

5:00

order to put air in his

5:02

tires. Air cost

5:04

25 cents in his neighborhood,

5:07

but in Bridgeport, the air was free.

5:11

When Lenard got there, he was

5:14

attacked by a gang of white guys. They

5:17

bashed his head into the ground and left

5:19

him for dead. A

5:21

disturbing story out of Chicago, the

5:23

brutal beating of a black teenager.

5:26

The story made national news. 13-year-old

5:28

Lenard Clark cannot speak, does not

5:30

react to his mother, and is

5:33

in serious danger of dying. And

5:35

the vicious act that has gone

5:37

to the heart of Chicago's deep

5:39

racial divide. This kind of

5:41

savage, senseless assault strikes at the

5:43

very heart of America's ideals. Then,

5:49

almost overnight, the news

5:51

stories turn to racial

5:53

reconciliation and forgiveness. This

5:57

is a podcast about how that happened. and

6:01

how it changed my life. So

6:03

brace yourself, because this shit

6:06

is bananas. One

6:08

witness was murdered. Another key witness is

6:10

missing. Witnesses are gonna disappear.

6:13

You think he was killed by keeping him from testifying? In my

6:15

heart, I believe that, yeah. Black leaders

6:17

are gonna run out to help white

6:19

attack him. Repentance

6:21

begs forgiveness, and it is

6:24

in that light that I would recommend leading him to

6:26

sit for him. And the

6:28

black community is gonna

6:31

become deeply divided. Most

6:33

people just think that people are being paid

6:35

off. I mean, that's what the consensus of

6:37

the community is. Now, let me finish answer.

6:40

I'm actually... Fellows said you should be in

6:42

jail 100 years for selling drugs. Cliff, hold

6:44

on a minute. This

6:47

is You Didn't See Nothing. I'm

6:58

not gonna do that. All

7:15

right, say your name and spell it one more

7:18

time. We'll record this time. My

7:20

name is Earl Harrington, Jr. E-A-R-L.

7:24

I've been looking back, talking to

7:26

my friends, trying to understand more

7:29

about who I was when all this went down. Um,

7:32

tell me what you remember about

7:35

me in 97. You're

7:39

a writer. I always been a writer. Earl

7:41

and I used to write plays together. The

7:45

day before the Nara Clark was attacked,

7:47

we were probably working on our first

7:49

play, Wolfen. It

7:51

was about a werewolf who terrorizes the south

7:54

side. It was kind of dope because we

7:56

had two wolves. We had two wolves? Yeah,

7:58

we came out one side. One

8:00

came out of the other side and just

8:02

killed everything. Holy shit. You know what I

8:04

mean? Back then, I was

8:06

going to class every now and

8:09

then, running around, dropping off weed

8:11

and writing. Hey,

8:13

hey, Si, how come you're getting a brother's up on a

8:15

wall here? You want brothers on a wall? Get your own

8:17

place. You can do what you want. Ever since I seen

8:20

Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, I

8:22

knew I wanted to tell stories like that about

8:25

real black people, real black

8:27

lives. Rarely do I see

8:29

any American Italians eating in here. All I see is

8:31

black folks. So since

8:33

we spent much money in here... I was rapping a

8:35

little bit back then, too. Fuck

8:40

you, baby. And it wasn't bad

8:42

for real. Had I put as

8:44

much time into rapping as I had

8:46

into theater, or

8:48

especially into selling drugs, I'd probably

8:50

be a rapper. Well, you know,

8:53

like every other real hip-hop type

8:55

of guy, you know,

8:57

like more like militant, more for

8:59

the people, more black as black.

9:02

And regardless, light skin, dark skin,

9:04

whatever, you're going to finally treat

9:06

us right. That was just your

9:09

mentality. But that's who you were,

9:11

very militant. Earl's right.

9:14

At that point, I'd become the guy who says

9:16

something. Like when all

9:18

this happened back in 97, I was going to UIC,

9:23

the University of Illinois at Chicago. I'd

9:26

already been like 75 colleges at this point.

9:28

Look around you,

9:30

man. They

9:32

own this shit. You

9:35

ever seen Higher Learning? One of

9:37

the first movies Ice Cube was in. It was dope. It

9:41

was about some black kids on a white college campus. They

9:43

on this couch you sitting on,

9:46

them shoes you got on your feet, this

9:49

building, this school, this country,

9:51

you. We're behind enemy

9:55

lines, dog. UIC

10:00

reminded me of that. I

10:07

remember it was some sort of huge history

10:09

class. I'd never been in a class

10:11

so big. Hundreds of students in

10:13

a lecture hall. This white

10:16

kid, another student, he stands

10:18

up in front of everybody and

10:20

he's like, if Europeans took over

10:22

Africa and its resources, then

10:24

that's just too bad because that's how land

10:26

is acquired. And

10:29

if Africans were enslaved and

10:31

brought to America as slaves,

10:33

that's just tough luck because that's how

10:36

labor is acquired. I

10:41

remember looking around. I remember a woman,

10:44

a black female student, she

10:46

looked at me and I just felt her look. Halfway

10:49

like, can you believe this shit?

10:52

And the other half like, are you going to

10:54

say something? Because that's who

10:57

I'd become on that campus. The

10:59

guy who says something. So

11:03

I stand up and I'm like, well,

11:08

if I follow you to your car and I put

11:10

you in your trunk and take your car, is

11:13

it just too bad? Because that's how

11:15

transportation is acquired. After

11:20

class, I followed him to his car.

11:24

And I didn't do anything, but I got tears

11:26

in my eyes. I'm so angry and I'm just

11:28

like, you see how

11:30

easy it could be? Anyway,

11:38

that was the last day I was

11:40

in anybody's college. Okay.

11:50

Tell me your name and spell your name.

11:53

Sure. Kenesha Broadwater. I

11:56

met Kenesha while I was still at UIC. We

11:59

were both involved. in this

12:01

black student union organization called

12:03

The Foundation. Who

12:06

would you say I was? You got any

12:08

memories that they might speak to? Who

12:11

you are then? Let

12:13

me pause. Okay.

12:22

Okay, so after further review, we've

12:25

decided that there's no other way for her to

12:27

tell how

12:31

she know me than to tell how she know me. So

12:36

when we met, you

12:38

were like, I think you were asking me my name or

12:40

something, I don't really remember. And I was

12:43

like, well, why? You're like, well, I'm

12:45

trying to wake up with you. And I was like, yeah,

12:48

that about does it. So

12:50

that ain't all I was though.

12:55

No, of course not all you were, but I'm just

12:57

saying that's definitely one side of you. But I definitely

12:59

also think you're one of the smartest people that I

13:01

know, so. I

13:05

remember Kenisha was a little surprised when

13:08

she found out I wasn't just a

13:10

student. If you're thinking the

13:12

90s and

13:14

what your average drug dealer

13:17

is portrayed, it's

13:20

rarely a story

13:22

about someone who is not

13:25

only street smart, but book

13:27

smart. So when we

13:29

met and I got to know

13:31

that all of these things comprised

13:33

you, I was like, well, I

13:35

didn't really know that

13:37

was a thing that could happen. It

13:40

was an interesting dichotomy. From

13:43

as early as I can remember, I've always had

13:45

a foot in a couple of different worlds. I

13:49

grew up in Chicago, a neighborhood

13:51

called Hyde Park. It's

13:53

in the middle of the South side, but

13:55

it's different. Almost

13:58

like a suburb in the end. inner

14:00

city, like gang banging

14:02

meets Ivy League-ish academia.

14:05

It's something else. Both

14:08

of my grandfathers were lawyers during Jim

14:10

Crow. Several of

14:12

my uncles were Black Panthers at one

14:14

time or another. My

14:17

mom kept our walls full of

14:19

African art, bookshelves full

14:21

of Black authors. She

14:24

insisted I had an African name. Johann's,

14:28

gift from God. She

14:30

made me read Native Son when I was 11. So

14:35

being riot or die for Black folks has been

14:38

in me for as long as I can remember.

14:47

In Chicago tonight, the brutal beating of

14:49

a Black teenager allegedly by a gang

14:52

of whites. Yeah, so I

14:54

believe that I probably heard about it on

14:56

the news. My friend, Rasan,

14:58

we call him Roe, is the

15:00

one who told me about what happened to the

15:02

little boy, Lenard Clark. Yeah, I

15:04

think that was probably one of my very

15:06

first thoughts was to reach out. It

15:09

was somewhere around noon when the phone

15:11

rang. I definitely wanna say it was a

15:13

Saturday. I often drank through the

15:15

wee hours of the night back then, so it probably

15:17

woke me up. Roe's

15:20

like a brother. I mean, as

15:22

an only child, your best friends become

15:24

like your siblings. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And

15:26

I knew we felt the same way

15:28

about this type of shit. So I

15:30

heard that a child

15:33

had gotten attacked in Bridgeport. It

15:38

was a no-brainer that it seemed to be a

15:40

racial attack. It was a

15:42

no-brainer because of the neighborhood where

15:44

it took place, Bridgeport.

15:48

It's always been tough territory. The

15:50

neighborhood of Chicago's vast slaughterhouses

15:52

scored by the Chicago River,

15:54

roadways, elevated tracks and railroad

15:56

lines. That was NPR,

15:59

but this my little homie. me Pee Wee.

16:01

Pee Wee's talking about the

16:03

Dailies, Mayor Daley and his

16:06

son Mayor Daley. The

16:10

Dailies ran

16:24

Chicago for 60 years. When

16:28

you hear people talk about Chicago's

16:30

political machine, that's them. They

16:37

from Bridgeport, a

16:39

neighborhood with deep ties to police

16:41

and the mob. And

16:43

Bridgeport has always been white.

16:46

Bridgeport is one Chicago neighborhood that

16:48

time missed. A working-class bungalow belt

16:50

that used its political clout to

16:52

isolate itself from the growing black

16:54

population. An island of blue collar

16:57

ethnic whites for the history of

16:59

racial strife. Bridgeport had

17:01

Chicago's first race riot in 1919. When

17:04

he was just a teenager, old

17:06

man Daley was part of an Irish

17:08

gang that fanned the flames of those

17:10

riots. I suppose sir, we

17:13

were taught how to use our fists when we were young.

17:15

You had to do that. And

17:17

later when he was mayor, he did

17:19

everything he could to make Chicago among

17:22

the most racially segregated cities in

17:24

the United States. Including

17:27

building an expressway aboard a

17:29

wall like 10 lanes

17:31

deep between the white people

17:34

in Bridgeport and what we called

17:36

the low end, which was all black. And

17:39

on the black side with these housing

17:41

projects, high rises, stateway

17:44

to Robert Taylor's, the Ida

17:46

B's, the Ickes, the Hilliard

17:49

Homes, the Dearborns. Most

17:52

of those high rises are destroyed now,

17:55

but in the late 90s they were

17:57

four miles of vertical ghetto right next to

17:59

these streets. In

18:01

the shadow of Chicago's majestic skyline,

18:03

isolated islands of crime, poverty, 11

18:06

of the nation's forces. One

18:08

project alone was 28 buildings,

18:10

16 stories each,

18:13

the longest stretch of public housing in

18:15

the whole country. White

18:18

people didn't set foot on the black side of the

18:20

highway. And all I

18:22

knew about the white side, Bridgeport, is

18:25

you don't go there. Who

18:27

told me? It was like

18:30

the locking of that monster. It was like the

18:32

bomb, even the triangle going up. You're going to

18:34

Bridgeport, you might not come out. And

18:38

Roanew firsthand. As a

18:40

child, I had gone to elementary school

18:42

in Bridgeport. I was bussed into a

18:44

magnet school, and so I had had

18:46

some experience with some of the hostilities

18:48

that Bridgeport could offer to a young

18:51

black child. And

18:53

here it is, a cat born

18:55

the same year I'm born, having

18:57

the same experiences that I associate

18:59

with my grandparents' generation. Brickstone at

19:01

our bus, folks tried to stop

19:03

the bus to get on. But

19:07

yeah, we were threatened, nigga this, nigga that, go

19:09

back to Africa, all that type of stuff. So

19:12

when Ro saw what happened to this kid on

19:14

the news, it hit home for him.

19:17

Yeah, definitely Shulker Court based on

19:19

my own experience and I think

19:23

I wanted to do something.

19:25

It was like, man, let me call your house. Let

19:28

me call your house. He'll

19:31

understand. The

19:38

same way I'd rally troops if one of the

19:40

guys got attacked, I was rallying

19:42

the troops to avenge this kid's beating. Fuck

19:46

that shit. We got to get

19:48

as many people as we can. What's a

19:50

proper response to something like this that's happening

19:52

in our city? I couldn't think of anything

19:55

other than, like, we got

19:57

to go over there. You know, sometimes

19:59

you got to go. of war to get peace. I

20:03

hung up the phone with Rowan called Pee Wee. Pee

20:06

Wee has been a baby-faced boy since he

20:08

was a baby. He's like

20:10

every South Side neighborhood's little brother.

20:13

And I ain't gonna lie, I never wanted to go

20:15

at Bridgeport. Listen, if

20:17

you're late for that, me hanging from a tree.

20:20

You know what I mean? Hanging

20:23

from a tree, that's

20:25

the image we associated with Bridgeport.

20:28

But Pee Wee still rolled out with us. I

20:33

called Jimez. Jimez was

20:35

just a real smooth dude. But

20:37

he was a gangster. And he was

20:39

a weedhead. We all were, but

20:41

he stayed high. He was

20:43

ready to go. He about that action. He

20:46

died some years ago, though, from

20:48

MS. May you rest in peace. I

20:53

called Will. Will is

20:55

like Blade, the Black vampire

20:57

superhero. He wears sunglasses

20:59

at night. Who does

21:01

that? My

21:03

son was about five years

21:05

old at that time. And

21:08

it was just a sense of could that ever

21:10

happen to him, you know? I

21:12

called Lil Man. Lil Man

21:14

was the one I thought would be most ready. But

21:17

he was like, that ain't your cousin. Lil

21:20

Man didn't ride. Last

21:23

but not least, I called Earl, the guy

21:25

I wrote plays with. And

21:28

y'all called me. Like, basically, the

21:31

revolution is here. For

21:39

whatever reason, we rode

21:41

in Jimez's car. His little

21:43

ass two-door Sebring. I mean,

21:45

we were deep loaded

21:47

in like sardines. Yeah,

21:50

I remember us being packed in. We obviously

21:52

smaller at that time. So just riding. It

21:54

was daylight. I don't even know why we

21:56

went in just broad daylight. But this is

21:59

what we doing. We

22:04

were definitely going to outnumber somebody, somebody

22:06

closer to our age and make them

22:08

feel what that little boy felt. We

22:11

were really salty, we were

22:13

hyped up. It was completely

22:15

emotional. Relatively

22:18

quiet. You know the quiet before the

22:20

storm? It was almost like what

22:22

it always was. Bridgeport

22:27

is nicer than the ghetto, but

22:29

it's still super blue collar. The

22:32

first thing you see is Socks Park and

22:35

the fact that they ain't missing those city services. I

22:38

do remember that we did have some

22:41

bottles and pipes and we was ready

22:43

for that action. It's not sweet like

22:45

that in Chicago to beat

22:48

the shit out of little black boys simply

22:51

because they're black. Like, no, no, no, no,

22:53

they can't just do that. You know what

22:55

I'm saying? That's what y'all doing? Y'all over

22:57

here putting black people into commas, huh? So,

23:00

yeah, put us in one, too. With

23:08

Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny, it's face jam. The

23:12

ladies diamond rings, bridal. Until 1998. All

23:15

you've got to do is... Make a

23:17

positive attitude. Inside

23:24

the Horizon restaurant on Halstead, we were

23:26

called over by white diners who preferred

23:28

not to be identified but wanted to

23:30

speak up in defense of their neighborhood.

23:33

Were they making such a big stink about this anyhow?

23:35

I mean, every time it's on the news, they

23:38

have to mention the Bridgeport. Is

23:40

that necessary? Is that necessary?

23:43

I'm not a racist, but why can't they be

23:45

called a racist as well as we are? In

23:48

their feelings. Are you recording this?

23:52

Holy God. Well, you said come on over and talk. Well, sure,

23:54

why not? So I'm talking. But

23:56

I get riled up. One incident... doesn't

24:00

make everybody a racist. Thank

24:02

you. They've been rather more than one incident over the

24:04

past 20 years. So there's been

24:06

more than one in their area too. Why

24:10

don't they take care of their own? Just

24:12

because you're white, I guess you don't belong. I

24:15

mean, we're getting to be a minority. I

24:18

don't want to be prejudiced. I

24:20

like black people. I've known a lot

24:22

of, I mean, black people. I

24:25

haven't had everything in my lifetime. I had to

24:27

work for it. And

24:29

that's what I resent. I don't resent

24:31

the black man. I

24:34

resent their attitude as a black man.

24:52

We saw some guys that kind

24:55

of fit the description. You

24:58

know, fit as being our

25:00

counterparts. Two

25:02

or three white dudes who looked about our age.

25:05

I think we rolled around maybe once or twice after we spotted

25:07

them. And then we parked.

25:10

And I think we might even pop the trunk. And... Oh

25:14

shit. I

25:16

remember being sorely severely outnumbered.

25:19

It was about to be the whole opposite

25:23

situation that I had in mind

25:25

coming over here. They

25:29

were coming out from like this big field

25:31

house building in the park. Just swarming. They

25:34

looked like a football team running onto the

25:36

field, but in regular street clothes. This

25:38

is not what's up. You

25:41

know, white teens, early 20s, they had bats

25:43

and pipes. You know, these little poles and

25:45

stuff we got in this, this is not

25:48

going to get it done. And we was

25:50

realizing like, nah, this ain't it. It's

25:52

time to regroup. It's time to

25:54

retreat. So

25:58

we got in the car and we... I

26:05

remember feeling not defeated,

26:08

but disappointed. Like damn.

26:10

But also finding

26:14

or trying to find solace in like, God

26:16

damn it, I got a few good men.

26:18

Yeah, that's definitely a feeling

26:20

that I had too. What was, I

26:23

felt like it was the first time where

26:25

I was prepared to go to battle for

26:28

somebody I had never met. I

26:31

didn't necessarily feel like it was the right way,

26:33

but I felt the heart was in the right

26:36

place. Even

26:39

though like we tried to make ourselves feel

26:42

better, I still felt

26:44

a little disappointed. I still felt

26:46

a little defeated in a certain kind of way,

26:49

but also we was hungry. Once

26:53

we got out of there, we

26:55

was, you know, kind of heated. And

26:58

then we went to Pepe's, Pepe's

27:00

Taco spot. The reason I

27:02

remember it, because I like that little spicy

27:04

carrots. And we just sitting around the round

27:06

table talking about, yeah, well we might have

27:08

to go back over there and check some

27:10

motherfuckers out. And then the dude just happened

27:13

to say, Bridgeport, I'm from

27:15

Bridgeport. Somebody

27:18

here turned like, what? Will

27:24

was also in Lock the Door. That

27:27

was the real part. Ain't

27:29

nobody leaving. I was like, uh

27:31

oh, here we go. Are

27:34

you off from Bridgeport? Yeah. Well,

27:36

he didn't enjoy his lunch. I

27:39

mean, he got every taco or every

27:41

salsa sauce thrown up against him till

27:44

the lady at the front door. Like,

27:46

just let him out. The lady at the counter.

27:48

I was like, but it was all human. I

27:50

told Will to leave the guy beat. And

27:53

poor dude had clearly been off more than he could shoot.

27:56

And I think deep down, Will knew this ain't who

27:58

we were looking for. Dude, just was

28:00

like, I love that area. None

28:03

of us were smiling at the time, but we can laugh at

28:05

this shit now. No, no,

28:07

no, the funniest part about that whole

28:09

situation is the way we

28:11

walked out that place. Anybody else

28:13

from the upper bridge board? Everybody shook their head

28:15

like, no. He

28:17

was like, hell yeah. Like Tom and

28:20

Jerry, like, doink, doink, doink, doink. We

28:24

just walked out like, yeah. Whatever

28:30

little high we got from fucking up dude's

28:32

lunch wore off pretty quick for

28:35

us all. Lenard Clark was

28:37

still laid up in the hospital, fighting

28:40

for his life. This morning, a

28:42

13-year-old boy is in a coma after a

28:44

brutal beating in Chicago. That

28:47

night, Lenard was all over the news. His

28:50

mom was being interviewed by reporters. I've

28:52

been praying and talking

28:54

to him in his ear, letting him know

28:57

that mom is here. And

28:59

while his mom sat by his hospital bed, three

29:02

white dudes were arrested. 19-year-old Michael

29:04

Kudzinski, 18-year-old Frank Caruso, and

29:06

17-year-old Victor Jessis are charged

29:08

with attempted murder. The

29:10

white boy's was released on bond over the next

29:13

couple of days. That infuriates the

29:15

victim's family. He's upstairs fighting

29:17

for his freedom in his life to

29:20

be out free. Meanwhile,

29:23

the families of the accused were

29:25

lawyering up. Under

29:28

the circumstances they had to charge somebody and

29:30

these people, these boys are from the

29:32

neighborhood and they kind of caught

29:34

the wrath. My client did not do this,

29:36

and he's not responsible for this. My client

29:39

is innocent. In

29:44

the next few days, in the

29:46

newspapers, we saw pictures of Lenard in

29:49

a coma, laid up

29:51

in that hospital bed with tubes coming

29:53

out of his nose, raw

29:55

skin from where his head had

29:57

been stomped and scraped against concrete.

30:00

hooked up to breathing machines. They

30:03

fucked him up bad. He

30:06

had what we call a pumpkin head because

30:09

that's how the swelling and all the lumps makes

30:11

your face look. I'd

30:14

never seen one on someone so young.

30:17

This image of this little child's face

30:20

disfigured and deformed from the

30:22

hands of white men. It

30:25

reminded me of Emmett Till. Here

30:27

this little boy was fighting for life

30:30

itself, fighting not to go

30:32

out like Emmett. Growing

30:42

up, I'd always had an

30:44

internal kind of struggle between the

30:47

peaceful Martin Luther King approach or

30:49

that eye for an eye Malcolm X

30:51

route. Being

30:54

young and from Chicago, I

30:56

leaned into fighting fire with

30:58

fire, meeting violence with violence.

31:01

In this case, Malcolm X

31:04

wasn't working, but

31:06

I knew I had to do something. I'm

31:12

closing in on 50 years old and

31:15

I still see a lot of the world through

31:17

the lens of this story. And

31:20

after 10 years in the joint, I'm figuring

31:22

out who I am, how I

31:24

got here, and where I'm going. So I

31:28

want to take you back in time. We're

31:30

going to talk to people who are central

31:32

to the Lenard Clark story and to my

31:34

life. We're going to

31:36

talk about race and poverty, police

31:39

and the press, politics

31:41

and gangsterism, and

31:43

how they all came together at this

31:45

one moment in Chicago history. The

31:50

beating changed Lenard's life, but

31:53

it was everything that happened afterwards that

31:55

changed mine. You

32:05

Didn't See Nothing is a production

32:07

of the Invisible Institute and USG

32:09

Audio. This podcast

32:12

is written and reported by

32:14

yours truly, Johan Slickour, with

32:16

Bill Healy, Dana

32:18

Brozost Kelleher, Erissa

32:20

Apantaku, and Sarah Geist.

32:24

Well-designed mixing and music

32:26

supervision by Stephen Jackson

32:28

and Phil Dummahuske at

32:30

the Audio Non-Visual Company.

32:33

Original music by Taka Yasuzawa.

32:36

Our executive producers are Allison

32:38

Flowers and Jamie Calvin for

32:40

the Invisible Institute and Josh

32:42

Block for USG Audio. Production

32:46

support by Jennifer Sears. Fact

32:48

checking by Angelie Mercado. Our key

32:50

artist by Kenneth L. Copeland Jr.

32:54

Special thanks to Michael Clark. Archival

32:57

audio used in this episode

32:59

is from C-SPAN CBS Evening

33:01

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33:05

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33:07

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33:10

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33:21

more information, go to our show notes

33:23

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33:52

to P.R. X.