0:00

Hey there, One Year listeners. Before we start the show,

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ready and stick around

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to hear how AI can future-proof your

0:27

business. I'm

0:33

a school teacher. I taught

0:35

elementary school for 34 and

0:37

a half years. I've been living

0:40

in Chicago all my life. Gwen Jones

0:42

grew up in Woodlawn, a black

0:44

community on Chicago's South Side. In

0:47

the 1980s, she met a man who'd been raised

0:49

in the same part of town, but

0:51

they didn't find each other in Chicago. I was

0:54

on a skiing trip. Can

0:56

I tell you about that? Sure.

0:58

Okay. I went on a skiing

1:00

trip. Gwen had signed up

1:03

for a vacation for black skiers. And

1:05

when she got to the mountain, she caught

1:07

sight of something that commanded her attention. I

1:10

was down at the bottom and

1:13

I looked up at the top and

1:15

I saw this handsome man going

1:18

down the slopes. He had on

1:20

a wide brim hat, a

1:23

double-breasted suit and a duster.

1:26

It was long duster coats. It

1:28

was flying all in the wind.

1:31

I've never seen anybody ski down the slopes

1:33

like that. It was

1:36

awesome to me. You were like,

1:38

this is a guy I want to get to know. Yes,

1:41

totally. And plus,

1:43

like I said, he was a good looking man. Like

1:46

Gwen, this man was a black skier and

1:49

he was on her trip, which meant they'd

1:51

both be going back to Chicago. We

1:54

got on the bus together and then

1:56

we started our conversation. That

1:58

man's name was Henry Brown. And once

2:01

Gwen and Henry started talking, they

2:03

never really stopped. He had

2:05

a gift of words. He was very smart,

2:08

very intelligent, and

2:10

very charismatic. How

2:12

long did it take for you guys to kind

2:14

of get into a relationship? Not long. Gwen,

2:19

who was around 40 years old at the time, was

2:22

quiet and laid back. Henry

2:24

was a decade older and had enough

2:26

energy for both of them. We would

2:29

go out dancing, and he'd get out there

2:31

and twirl me around. Always

2:33

debonair. He always had

2:35

that air about him. Yeah,

2:39

that he looked good. Okay. Gwen

2:43

and Henry had a lot of memorable days

2:45

together, but one afternoon

2:47

still stands out. We were

2:49

taking our parents, his mother and my

2:51

mother out, to a

2:54

Mother's Day luncheon. Jerry Lane Theater

2:56

on 95th and Western. It's

2:59

not the luncheon itself that stuck in Gwen's

3:01

mind. It's the drive

3:03

back home through Chicago's South Side. I

3:06

was sitting in the front with Henry and

3:08

our parents, they were sitting in the back. And

3:11

as we were driving down

3:13

the street, we were all like, wow,

3:16

look at that. What

3:18

caught their attention were billboards. They

3:21

were everywhere, on empty

3:23

lots and on the sides of buildings. And

3:26

they were all advertising the same

3:28

thing. Smoking. And

3:32

they had all these beautiful young people

3:34

smiling and laughing and looking like they were

3:37

dancing and having a good time. And

3:39

they were smoking these cigarettes. And

3:42

they were all black. Henry

3:44

felt like those beautiful young people

3:46

were blowing smoke right into his

3:48

face. He was

3:51

definitely against cigarette smoking. And

3:53

he picked up on it. He

3:56

started noticing. He started counting. He started looking on

3:58

the South Side, all these billboards. In

4:00

the black neighborhoods they drove through, there

4:03

were billboards around every corner. But

4:05

as they got closer to Chicago's

4:07

predominantly white North Side, the scenery

4:10

changed. You didn't see

4:12

hardly any billboards. It

4:14

was obvious what was happening. They

4:17

were targeting the black community,

4:19

pushing the smoking. And

4:21

Henry was like, this is not

4:23

right, it's not fair. In

4:26

that moment, something awakened in Henry. He

4:29

found the cause he wanted to devote his

4:31

life to. It was like it was

4:33

burying in him. He really

4:35

wanted to do something about it. Henry

4:41

Brown would do something so powerful that

4:43

it would inspire a national movement. This

4:47

middle-aged man from Chicago would

4:49

transform into an anti-smoking vigilante.

4:54

In 1990, he'd be celebrated as a

4:56

superhero and become a public

4:58

enemy of the tobacco industry. And

5:01

he'd accomplish all of that under a

5:03

secret identity. Cigarettes

5:06

are the biggest killers of America's black people.

5:08

More than half of the billboards you're likely to

5:10

see are selling this single product. We

5:13

are now becoming directly into crosshairs

5:15

and they are proud enough to

5:18

announce it. You shouldn't have the

5:20

right to sell cigarettes to children. And

5:23

he thought, I'm going to do something about it.

5:30

This is one year, 1990. Mandrake

5:34

the Magician. This

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7:18

There was a part of Henry Brown that loved

7:20

to stand out. To roar down

7:23

a mountain in a double breasted suit or

7:25

twirl his girlfriend on the dance floor. But

7:28

Henry also had a way of receding into

7:31

the background. He worked

7:33

his whole life as a court reporter,

7:35

sitting silently and taking down what other

7:37

people said. And when he

7:39

wasn't in the courtroom, he was usually home with

7:41

his daughter, who he raised mostly on his own.

7:44

When my parents split up, he was

7:46

in charge of getting me out

7:49

of the house every day. That's

7:51

Henry's daughter, Michelleene Russell Brown. I

7:54

remember him learning how to braid

7:56

hair, sitting on top of the

7:58

washing machine in my maternal home. grandmother's

8:00

house, braiding the mop. He

8:03

told me every day that I was loved and that he loved

8:05

me. Micheline is

8:08

biracial, and after her

8:10

parents separated, she and her dad lived

8:12

in a majority-white neighborhood on Chicago's north

8:14

side. He would warn me

8:17

that people might not like me because of

8:19

the color of my skin or because of who

8:21

I was or who he was, and

8:24

he was always making sure that I had

8:26

black role models, and I did. When

8:29

Micheline was young, her father took

8:32

her to campaign rallies for Harold

8:34

Washington, Chicago's first black mayor. Henry

8:37

also made sure she stayed connected to the

8:39

predominantly black parts of the city where he'd

8:41

grown up. Just because we

8:43

didn't live on the south side didn't mean that

8:46

the black folks that lived in the neighborhood weren't

8:48

our community. One day in

8:50

the late 1980s, when they were driving

8:53

back from the south side, Henry gave

8:55

his daughter an assignment. My

8:57

father asked me to count the

8:59

number of billboards that we saw on

9:02

the way home. Micheline

9:04

took that task very seriously.

9:07

She pulled out a notebook and pen and

9:10

tallied every tobacco ad she

9:12

saw. Tick, tick, tick, tick,

9:14

slash for five. And

9:18

it was so clear, even

9:20

as a pre-teen, that, oh,

9:22

all these billboards, they're in the black

9:24

neighborhoods. A public

9:27

health survey backed up Micheline's findings.

9:30

Chicago's minority wards had, on

9:32

average, three times more tobacco

9:34

billboards than white ones did.

9:37

Most of them weren't huge, six feet

9:39

high by 12 feet wide, but

9:41

they were impossible to overlook. And

9:44

this wasn't just a Chicago thing. All

9:46

across America, black children

9:49

were besieged with pro-smoking messages, while

9:51

white kids were largely insulated from

9:53

them. Henry Brown

9:55

felt certain that wasn't an accident. And

9:58

he was right. Come

10:02

up to the coolest

10:04

taste, the coolest taste

10:06

in any cigarette. Tobacco

10:09

companies always invested a huge amount in

10:11

marketing. Their ideal customer

10:13

was someone who could get hooked for

10:15

life. Someone young. Smoke

10:18

cool. Youth markets

10:20

have always been the growth

10:23

market. Keith Weilu is the

10:25

author of Pushing Cool, Big

10:27

Tobacco, Racial Marketing, and the Untold

10:29

Story of the Mintz All Cigarette.

10:32

People don't quite remember this, but

10:34

the central focus of

10:37

tobacco advertising was college

10:39

campuses. Cigarette

10:41

makers pushed their products on college kids

10:43

of all races. But

10:45

then something dramatic happened that made them

10:48

change their approach. In

10:50

1964, the U.S. Surgeon

10:52

General issued a report linking tobacco use

10:55

with lung cancer, heart disease,

10:57

and overall mortality. My

10:59

advice to the smoker would be to stop.

11:02

My advice to the person who has

11:04

not started smoking is don't start. That

11:07

stark warning put big tobacco on the

11:09

defensive. There was a threat

11:11

of real regulation, and there was

11:14

a lot of pressure on the industry

11:16

to stop advertising to kids. Feeling

11:20

that pressure, the tobacco companies

11:22

ditched their strategy of marketing on

11:24

college campuses. That

11:27

technique of targeting young people was just

11:29

too obvious to regulators. Going

11:32

forward, they would try to capture the youth

11:34

market in a different way. One

11:36

the government would be less likely to restrict.

11:39

That's when they moved aggressively for

11:42

the first time into urban advertising.

11:45

And black youth markets were the

11:47

place to go as far as

11:49

they were concerned. In

11:52

1964, advertisements for cool

11:54

menthol cigarettes started showing up

11:56

in black newspapers. the

12:00

lie that menthols were healthier than

12:02

other cigarettes. But also

12:04

with that distinctive cool sensation

12:07

when you inhaled. When

12:10

menthol sales ticked up in black communities,

12:12

everyone in the industry took notice. And

12:15

what you had then is a massive

12:18

kind of momentum

12:20

swing. Other brands began

12:22

to emulate the strategy.

12:25

The tobacco companies flooded black

12:27

audiences with menthol messages. After

12:30

Congress banned radio and TV ads for cigarettes

12:32

in 1971, still images popped up everywhere.

12:37

Photographs of young, cigarette-loving black people

12:39

that ran in magazines like Jet

12:42

and Ebony, on the sides

12:44

of public buses, and on

12:46

billboards. Those

12:48

advertisements were tailored

12:51

to my community with

12:53

expert precision shaped by

12:55

social science, but

12:57

also an understanding of how those

13:00

advertisements translated into brand

13:02

preferences and sales. You

13:05

can't go anywhere in a black

13:07

community without being the target. Offensive

13:09

ads glamorizing smoking. The result, $2.4

13:12

billion a year blacks spend on the

13:14

cigarettes that kill them. By

13:17

1990, it was common knowledge that

13:19

black Americans smoked at higher rates

13:21

than white ones and suffered disproportionately

13:23

from lung cancer. But

13:26

the tobacco companies said they weren't doing anything

13:28

wrong. They were just selling their

13:30

products to the people who wanted to buy

13:32

them. You advertise to the area,

13:35

the community, the

13:37

geographic and demographic group that

13:39

uses the product. It

13:41

was a cold-hearted calculation, and

13:43

it made Henry Brown incredibly

13:46

angry. In his

13:48

hometown of Chicago, he saw

13:50

billboards full of smiling black faces

13:52

luring young people to their deaths.

13:55

Henry was a middle-aged court reporter and

13:57

a single dad, a guy with no no

14:00

official power. But he

14:02

felt a responsibility to protect all those

14:04

children. Kids like his

14:07

own daughter, Micheline. Nobody else

14:09

was talking about this. And I think

14:11

it's something that he saw as something

14:13

a key could do. He could achieve it. His

14:16

first idea was to reach out to the

14:18

billboard companies and just straight up ask them

14:20

to take down their tobacco ads. The

14:23

responses he got were polite but firm.

14:26

No, we're not going to do that. Those

14:30

rejections only strengthened Henry's resolve.

14:33

He decided to take his message directly to

14:35

his community, to the people he felt most

14:37

needed to hear it. And he

14:39

knew exactly how he wanted to reach them. WVON,

14:42

the talk of Chicago, 1450 AM, five men

14:44

one, five men, nine

14:47

zero. When I come back, we jump back on this agenda. For

14:50

black Chicagoans, WVON was more than

14:53

just a radio station. It

14:55

was a place to find connection. Your

14:57

own dialogues. Do

15:00

you know this, Joe? Yeah. Hello,

15:02

Joe. What you know? Remember

15:04

that? Yeah. All kinds of

15:07

people called into WVON to spread the word

15:09

about the issues they cared about, including

15:12

Henry Brown. Good morning, Professor.

15:14

Good morning to the WVON audience. I want

15:16

to thank WVON for allowing me to come

15:18

on the air again and talk about this

15:21

particular matter. That's

15:23

a recording of Henry that his girlfriend, Gwen

15:25

Jones, taped off her stereo 30 years ago.

15:29

On the WVON radio station,

15:32

he was on there talking almost daily

15:34

about the billboards and the negative effect

15:36

that they were having on the community. And

15:39

we can see how many of these billboards were

15:41

in our neighborhood. And so the

15:43

matter of the fact is, we have

15:45

a broad collective community

15:48

to fight this problem. Henry

15:51

railed against racial inequality and

15:53

pushed for legislative reform. He

15:55

was relentless. He would call in. It

15:58

felt like all the time. As soon

16:00

as one person hung up, he knew immediately

16:02

to dial in. And when he would come

16:04

on there, everybody knew he was going to

16:06

talk about those billboards. What is

16:08

it that we as a community

16:11

can do to find some kind of a solution

16:13

to a problem and then implement that solution? In

16:16

his calls to WVON, Henry

16:18

never revealed his real name. First

16:21

of all, he didn't want people to know who he

16:23

was, that he was

16:25

a professional guy working in the court system

16:28

and all of that. Once

16:30

we get something started, we're

16:33

going to finish it. And this is

16:35

a struggle that's all across America that

16:37

we intend to finish. He

16:41

was trying to win the billboard struggle with the

16:43

power of his arguments. But in

16:45

1990, it didn't feel like he was

16:47

making a real difference. On

16:50

the South Side, the cigarette billboards

16:52

were all still standing. He

16:54

wanted to make the billboards

16:57

go away. So he decided

16:59

he wanted to do something else. We

17:01

have to take action because new

17:04

action has taken place. In

17:08

January 1990, he told Gwen that he had a new plan.

17:12

And he said he was going to do something about it.

17:15

And he said, let's go get the paint.

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18:45

Okay. Earlier this year, Gwen

18:47

Jones took our senior producer to the

18:49

south side of Chicago to see

18:52

the neighborhood where Henry Brown grew up.

18:55

We are around where he lives.

18:59

When Gwen and Henry used to visit this

19:01

spot together, they were dismayed by what they

19:03

saw. There was nothing here. A

19:06

lot of vacant land. Over to

19:08

your right there were billboards over there. They

19:11

weren't tall, they were low. And then

19:13

there were on some of the abandoned buildings down here.

19:16

This is where it all began. In

19:20

January 1990, Henry

19:22

told Gwen that he needed her help.

19:25

She had a very important mission, and he

19:27

wanted her to come along. He

19:29

asked me if I would drive him down a

19:32

paint store. He got his paint, white

19:35

paint. He got his paint brush, his bucket.

19:38

And that's where it started. That

19:41

same night, they headed to that spot full

19:43

of vacant lots. They

19:46

found a billboard there that Henry could reach

19:48

with a small ladder. It

19:50

showed young black people having the time

19:52

of their lives smoking cigarettes.

19:56

And he got out of the car with his equipment. I got out

19:58

of the car and then he went to the car. up there looking

20:00

at it, and he

20:02

started painting. This was

20:04

Henry's plan. He was going

20:06

to make the billboards go away by

20:09

whitewashing them. He was

20:11

so excited about it. He

20:15

had the biggest smile on

20:17

his face. He was like

20:20

so happy that, you know,

20:22

it had started for him. It

20:24

went exactly as Henry hoped. He

20:27

climbed up to the sign, slapped on some

20:29

paint, and made that tobacco

20:31

ad disappear. Henry

20:34

felt emboldened and ready to make

20:36

a larger statement. Gwen

20:39

wasn't so sure that was a good idea. He

20:41

had discussed it with me the night before,

20:44

and I said, oh, no, I don't

20:46

want to do that. But

20:48

Henry wasn't going to change his mind, and

20:50

Gwen didn't want him out there alone. So

20:53

early on a Saturday morning, they

20:55

got in her car and drove to a

20:57

busy intersection. 79th and

20:59

Stoney Island Avenue. It

21:01

was a big, big billboard

21:04

up there. That

21:06

big billboard advertised Crown Royal

21:08

Whiskey. Henry hated liquor

21:10

ads almost as much as tobacco ones,

21:13

and this sign was looming over the

21:15

neighborhood next to a major bus

21:17

stop with traffic day and night. For

21:20

Henry, that visibility was the point. He

21:23

wanted everyone in Chicago to see what he'd

21:25

done. But as soon as

21:27

they parked, Henry realized he

21:29

couldn't reach the sign. So what

21:32

he did was he had to stand on top of

21:34

my car to reach up

21:36

to get on the ledge where the

21:38

billboard was. And

21:40

so he goes, lifting himself up,

21:42

laid flat out. His legs were

21:45

dangling, not knowing there

21:47

was a lot of jagged edges

21:49

up there. His

21:51

zipper got caught. He couldn't move. I'm

21:54

looking around like people were at the bus

21:56

stop looking at us. I was like, oh

21:58

my God. And here comes

22:01

a police car. She thought that

22:03

was it, that they were about to get arrested.

22:06

But the Chicago police didn't pay them much

22:08

attention. They looked up and they

22:10

kept going. And eventually he was

22:12

able to hoist himself up and

22:15

he painted that sucker. Had

22:17

some paint on my car, but that was okay. And

22:20

they got down and we went out and had breakfast. For

22:24

Gwen and Henry, this became a regular

22:26

routine. He'd whitewashed the billboards

22:28

and she'd look out for trouble. Henry

22:31

knew he was putting himself in danger. So

22:34

he kept his vigilante act hidden from

22:36

his teenage daughter, Micheline. And

22:38

when she did eventually find out, he

22:40

didn't want her involved. He was doing

22:42

something that was illegal, potentially

22:44

dangerous. And he

22:47

would never have wanted to put me in

22:49

harm's way at all. Did

22:52

you ever go after the fact and

22:54

see some of the billboards that he

22:56

had painted? Yes. I

22:58

remember sort of being surprised that the

23:00

whole thing wasn't covered up. And

23:03

then understanding later that you still want people

23:05

to know that you're covering it

23:07

up. So you have to leave part of the ad there. That's

23:10

what Henry wanted. For his

23:12

paint to be just as eye-catching as the

23:14

images he'd covered over. I

23:16

think he knew this was going to be a big

23:18

deal. You know, maybe he would get the

23:20

attention needed to have people realize

23:23

what was happening and how it was

23:25

affecting our children. That

23:28

prediction was exactly right. People

23:30

in Chicago immediately noticed what he was

23:32

up to. Within a

23:35

few days, he claimed credit for the whitewashing

23:37

in a couple of newspaper interviews. Only,

23:40

he didn't do it as Henry

23:42

Brown. Instead, he used

23:44

another name, an alter ego.

23:48

He said that the man who painted those billboards

23:51

was Mandrake. Mandrake

23:53

came from a comic

23:55

from when he was a kid. Mandrake

23:57

was a magician. Made things disappear. The

24:01

Mandrake comic strip dated back to the 1930s. He

24:05

was one of America's first superheroes, a

24:07

dashing crime fighter with a top hat and a

24:10

cape. Beware this man

24:12

if you deal in evil. For

24:16

here comes Mandrake, Mandrake

24:19

the magician. It

24:23

really did produce a mystique about what

24:25

he was doing, being so mysterious,

24:28

making most billboards disappear from

24:30

the community. As

24:33

Mandrake, he told reporters that Black

24:35

and Hispanic communities were overrun with

24:37

tobacco and liquor ads. He

24:40

explained that he had a moral obligation to

24:42

stand up and fight back. In

24:44

one interview, he said, if Dr.

24:46

King were alive today, he'd

24:49

be doing exactly what I'm doing. On

24:52

Chicago's WVON radio, Mandrake was

24:54

celebrated as a folk hero.

24:57

Mandrake been talking about this for

24:59

months and centuries. Give him the credit

25:01

because he did the work. Mandrake,

25:03

I know that you are rid

25:06

in our community of these billboards. And

25:09

it's very important to me that

25:13

we are about trying to

25:16

liberate ourselves. Mandrake

25:18

was making a name for himself outside

25:21

Chicago, too. A writer

25:23

in California called him a gallant black

25:25

Don Quixote, a syndicated

25:27

columnist compared him to Harriet Tubman.

25:30

And a national magazine put him next to Colton

25:33

Powell and Condoleezza Wright on a list of people

25:35

who define what it is to be black in

25:37

the 90s. Mandrake

25:40

had his detractors, too. A

25:42

Chicago Sun-Times editorial said that no one

25:44

had the right to be a vigilante

25:46

or a vandal. That

25:49

story ended with a brush-off. You

25:51

don't need Mandrake. I

25:53

remember some of those comments, but

25:58

he didn't pay any attention to those. at

26:00

all. He may have been disappointed

26:02

about it, but he didn't take

26:04

that to heart. Mandrake

26:06

had wanted his voice to be heard. Now

26:10

he'd started a national conversation. To

26:13

my dying day, Fred, I will see to it

26:15

that every obtrusive billboard

26:17

that has a negative impact

26:19

upon my children is removed.

26:22

That's Mandrake on PBS's NewsHour.

26:25

The camera shows him from behind and

26:27

never reveals his face. As

26:30

he speaks, he's standing under a cigarette

26:32

billboard. The young black woman

26:34

on that sign has been covered with paint.

26:36

You take a look at these ads that surround

26:39

this community, these ads are directed toward our young,

26:41

our youth. You don't see the ads of

26:43

older people, people 40, 60 years old, drinking

26:45

smoking on this billboard. On

26:47

the other side of this debate, unsurprisingly,

26:49

were people from the billboard industry. They

26:53

argued that tobacco was legal and

26:55

censoring cigarette ads violated the First Amendment.

26:57

It makes it awfully easy to take

27:00

that next product and censor

27:02

it or ban it. It might be oatmeal the

27:04

next time. It might be grits, and that really

27:06

would be a shame. The

27:09

cigarette companies themselves made a different

27:11

argument, one that turned the

27:13

tables on their black critics. They

27:16

said that any suggestion that black

27:18

people needed special protection from advertising

27:21

was paternalistic. A

27:23

company spokesman wouldn't comment on camera,

27:25

but a statement said RJR believes

27:27

all adults are capable of making

27:29

informed decisions about smoking and to

27:31

imply blacks are less capable is

27:34

bigoted. It wasn't just

27:36

tobacco executives saying that. The

27:38

executive director of the NAACP, Benjamin

27:41

Hooks, said that black Americans didn't

27:43

need guardian angels to protect their

27:45

best interests. But

27:47

Hooks and the NAACP weren't

27:50

exactly objective observers. And

27:52

now I'm standing here tonight holding a

27:54

check for $100,000 from the Philip Morris companies

27:59

to help us put on this

28:01

affair. That's Benjamin Hooks

28:03

in 1990 at the NAACP's

28:05

annual convention. We are not for sale,

28:07

but if the tobacco companies want to

28:09

give us the money to help us

28:11

move black people forward in the name

28:13

of God, give it, and we're going

28:15

to pray over it and accept it

28:17

and receive it and use it to

28:19

build a stronger America. Mandrake

28:22

publicly called out black leaders like

28:25

Hooks, who took tobacco money and

28:27

echoed the industry's line. But

28:29

he wasn't fighting the cigarette makers totally on

28:31

his own. All over

28:34

the country, inner city residents are taking dead

28:36

aim on billboards that sell alcohol and tobacco.

28:39

We must take a stand against this. We

28:42

want to live a long time too. Mandrake

28:46

may have been the only one whitewashing

28:48

billboards, but there were people all over

28:51

America who thought the same way he

28:53

did. Alberta Tinsley Williams is a county

28:55

commissioner from Detroit's east side. She's led

28:57

a fight to rid her city of

29:00

all alcohol and tobacco billboards. They

29:02

have one objective, and it matters how much

29:04

money can we draw in. But everything's okay

29:07

in billboard heaven, but yet down

29:09

below our people are suffering. In

29:12

1990, that activism felt especially

29:14

urgent. That's

29:16

because the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company

29:18

had just announced a plan to

29:20

target black communities even more aggressively.

29:23

Developing a new cigarette, especially

29:26

for blacks and admitting it,

29:28

is revolutionary. The brand

29:30

is called Uptown, a menthol cigarette

29:32

RJR plans to start test marketing

29:35

in Philadelphia. Now

29:37

of course in my mind, that was

29:39

ludicrous. That's Reverend Jesse

29:41

Brown. In 1990, he

29:43

was a Lutheran minister in Philadelphia.

29:46

And when R.J. Reynolds announced its

29:48

new explicitly black-focused cigarette brand, he

29:50

was outraged. They had particularly decided

29:52

that they don't have to hide

29:54

anymore. They can just openly come

29:56

out and say they're going to

29:58

come and hurt you. and

30:01

hurt your children and hurt your future

30:03

and not have anybody react to it.

30:06

But not this time. Not this time.

30:09

Reverend Brown helped build a coalition

30:11

in Philadelphia, a group of

30:14

clergy members and public health advocates who

30:16

spoke out to the media and rallied

30:18

neighborhood support. We would use

30:20

our clout as a community, as a

30:22

culture, as a people to

30:24

stop the industry from targeting us. That's

30:27

more powerful than anything that they can

30:29

come up with. Within

30:32

a matter of weeks, R.J. Reynolds

30:34

admitted defeat. In response

30:36

to all the criticism, the R.J. Reynolds company

30:38

has announced it has

30:40

canceled its plans to test market the cigarette

30:42

here. So we

30:44

had a watershed event, but

30:47

we didn't stop too long to celebrate. The

30:49

industry doesn't stop, so we don't stop.

30:53

Speaking out had worked against sub-town cigarettes, but

30:55

it might not work again. So Reverend

30:58

Brown started asking around to see what else

31:00

he might want to try. One

31:02

of the persons we had heard about was

31:04

a man called Mandrake. Matter of fact, didn't

31:06

know who Mandrake was except for that name,

31:09

but I know what he did, and

31:11

that was whitewashing some of the advertising

31:13

that was going on in the Chicago

31:15

area. Mandrake wasn't

31:17

just talking. He was taking

31:20

direct action. And soon, Reverend

31:22

Brown would be too. We

31:24

actually black-washed the billboards in Philadelphia

31:27

using black paint instead of white paint. The

31:29

reality is it was free

31:31

paint that the hardware store wanted to

31:34

get rid of. So we took it.

31:37

It just happened to be black. You

31:39

would have been up for doing blue washing if the blue paint

31:41

was free? It would have been

31:43

just fine with us. Yeah. After

31:46

just a few months, Mandrake had

31:48

imitators all across the country. This

31:52

Baptist minister is giving a whole new

31:54

meaning to the term Holy Roller. in

32:00

New York City, Baltimore, and Dallas,

32:02

dozens at a time. And

32:05

back in Chicago, the man who'd

32:07

started it all kept on painting with

32:09

his closest ally by his side. And

32:12

I have to give credit to people who have

32:14

played a very integral part in this struggle who

32:16

do not go out and try to seek personal

32:18

grandisement or give them credit to themselves. Those people

32:21

need to be recognized because you never hear about

32:23

my girlfriend, Gwen Jones. I

32:27

wasn't out there whitewashing. I was just holding the

32:29

ladder for him, making sure

32:31

he had the brushes and the rollers. That's

32:34

how it always was, with Henry out

32:36

front and Gwen supporting him. But

32:38

one night he suggested that they try something

32:40

different, that this time she

32:43

should take the lead. I got out

32:45

of the car. I got the

32:47

paintbrush and the roller, and

32:49

I started painting one of the

32:51

billboards. And

32:53

it was amazing. The

32:58

energy that I felt around

33:00

us, it

33:02

was like spirits. You could actually feel

33:04

it. The energy was thick, it was heavy. I

33:08

was like, wow, this

33:10

is truly, truly amazing.

33:13

And when I got back in the car, I

33:15

said, Henry, is this what it's like? And

33:18

he looked at me, he said, yes. He

33:21

said, I feel that all the time. We'll

33:26

be back in a minute. design

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So sign up now at slate.com/Podcast

35:12

Plus. In

35:21

1990, Mandrake the magician took the law

35:23

and a paint roller into his own

35:25

hands and became kind of a

35:27

celebrity. Mandrake was on

35:29

the national news and got name checked

35:31

in Congress. And all

35:34

the while, his true identity, the

35:36

court reporter Henry Brown, remained a

35:38

secret, even when

35:40

this happened. So as

35:43

I was scanning the party last night, I

35:45

was talking to Henry B, Henry B. Henry

35:49

Brown, come right up here. That's

35:52

right. This man who was

35:54

living a hidden life as a vigilante, he

35:57

went on the Oprah Winfrey Show. All

36:00

I know is that my father found out about this party

36:02

that Oprah was going to be at and

36:04

had jumped on the chance. Henry's

36:07

daughter, Michelleene Russell Brown. He wanted

36:09

to get her ear so we

36:11

could talk to her about Billboard

36:13

stuff. Michelleene isn't sure

36:15

what exactly her dad said to

36:17

Oprah, but he must have made a

36:20

pretty good impression. Because after

36:22

they met, Oprah decided to put him on

36:24

camera. And she started talking Henry

36:26

up. You seem like a pretty nice guy

36:28

to me. I try to be. Try to be.

36:31

Try to be my best. And he has

36:33

his own job. Respectable court reporter. Yes, I

36:35

am. And up for a nice time. Of

36:38

course. Nice time. Oh

36:40

yes. Henry is on center stage,

36:42

in full view of the cameras. But

36:44

he isn't alone for long. Okay, please meet

36:46

Gayle's mom and my second mom, Peggy King.

36:49

Peggy! Oprah

36:52

hadn't invited Henry Brown on TV

36:54

to talk about billboards. She'd

36:57

invited him so she could set him up

36:59

with her best friend Gayle King's mom. It

37:02

was a dating show. By

37:05

the way, Gwen Jones told me she

37:08

was okay with this TV matchmaking thing,

37:10

because she and Henry weren't

37:12

exactly exclusive. Meanwhile

37:15

Oprah is all in. She

37:17

screams and pumps her arms and jumps

37:19

up and down. It's

37:22

got the same energy as Tom Cruise

37:24

jumping on Oprah's couch. Except

37:27

this time Oprah is Tom Cruise. I've

37:32

got a set. Both Henry Brown

37:34

and Peggy King look pretty dapper. And

37:37

extremely nervous. They're actually

37:40

holding hands, awkwardly and pretty much

37:42

silently. Okay, you'll become more talkative

37:44

over lunch. Michelleene

37:48

says that sparks didn't really fly

37:50

between her dad and Gayle King's

37:52

mom. But they did develop

37:54

a very nice friendship. And

37:57

Gwen says that going on Oprah didn't blow

37:59

Henry's cover. He was clouded

38:01

with mystery. He loved that. Yeah,

38:04

he was all about being, you know,

38:06

mysterious man-traked. As

38:09

the months went on, the line between

38:11

Mandrake and Henry did get a little

38:13

blurrier. In the summer of 1990, Henry

38:17

testified under his own name at a

38:19

Chicago City Council hearing. He

38:22

argued that billboard companies weren't totally

38:24

protected by the First Amendment, creating

38:26

Supreme Court precedent. When

38:29

an alderman asked him what he knew

38:31

about Mandrake, Henry gave a coy response.

38:34

He said, well, rumors have been

38:36

greatly exaggerated as far as him

38:39

whitewashing billboards. You

38:41

know, I can't say how they found

38:43

out about who he was, but

38:46

he was arrested. The

38:49

Chicago police had left Mandrake alone for

38:51

months. That changed in July 1990.

38:53

He was

38:55

on the platform of an L train

38:58

station on the South Side when a

39:00

security guard saw him whitewashing billboards in

39:02

broad daylight. The arrest

39:04

report identifies him as Henry

39:06

M. Brown, occupation painter. It

39:10

says he was advised of his rights, taken to jail,

39:12

and released on bond that

39:14

same day. He took care of

39:16

that. He would always carry a

39:18

little extra money in his pocket in

39:20

case he was arrested. So

39:23

he came prepared, always.

39:27

Henry had been worried that his activism could put

39:29

his career as a court reporter at risk. But

39:32

becoming an anti-tobacco vigilante didn't cost

39:35

him his livelihood. And

39:37

eventually, Henry decided that Mandrake didn't

39:39

have to be a secret anymore. Oh,

39:43

look. Oh, boy. That's

39:45

a good picture of him doing

39:48

what he loved to do. In

39:50

1992, Henry posed for a photograph

39:52

holding a paint roller. He's

39:55

in the middle of whitewashing a malt liquor sign,

39:57

but he's looking at the camera. got

40:00

on a black top hat and a duster coat,

40:02

the kind he liked to wear skiing. And the

40:05

white mask he's got with him isn't

40:07

covering his face. And

40:09

he's standing there with his big, beautiful,

40:11

beautiful smile. And he's so

40:13

happy, happy doing his job.

40:17

Henry Brown was owning what he'd done.

40:20

But going public didn't end up

40:22

amplifying his voice. Because

40:24

in the early 90s, a

40:26

flamboyant white priest started commanding

40:28

all the attention I

40:31

think that's one of the problems we have right

40:33

now. People feel like they got this. No, you

40:35

don't have it. Sit down and listen and talk.

40:37

We can tell you in the ground level what

40:39

we need and then see what you can do.

40:42

Father Michael Flager presided over a

40:45

black Catholic parish on the South

40:47

Side. She started painting over tobacco

40:49

signs too, after Mandrake

40:51

did. Gwen remembers the

40:53

spotlight shifting as soon as a white

40:55

man got involved. The

40:58

newspapers and the news media,

41:00

they were all focusing in

41:02

on what Father Flager was

41:04

doing. You wouldn't even know that

41:06

Mandrake had anything to do with the billboards.

41:09

That really bothered Henry.

41:12

It saddened him. I want to

41:14

talk a little bit about the Father Flager

41:16

involvement in the struggle. This is

41:19

Henry on WVON Radio in 1993,

41:21

trying to set the record straight

41:23

about the white priest. And it's

41:25

not because I'm coming from any

41:27

emotional resentment, feeling, but it's a

41:29

matter of recording history. If

41:31

we don't record our history, we record

41:34

it properly, it will go by the board, precisely.

41:36

And the children will grow up just like I

41:38

grew up thinking about it, that it had to

41:40

be someone outside of our image to

41:43

be our favorite. Gwen says that

41:45

last part is what mattered the most

41:47

to Henry. That he wanted kids who

41:49

look like him to know that people

41:51

in their own communities were fighting on

41:53

their behalf. Mandrake

41:55

loved children, and

41:57

he was very adamant. about

42:00

making sure our children know that

42:02

this is somebody black.

42:06

I'm an African-American male, and I

42:08

love you. And I want

42:10

you to recognize that it

42:13

doesn't always take a person of

42:15

a different color to

42:17

stand up for you. In

42:20

1996, Henry's activism was still

42:22

going strong. But at age

42:24

61, he'd mostly put away his

42:26

paintbrushes and rollers. He

42:28

had a somewhat of a low-key

42:31

nature, but with power. Somebody

42:33

who knows, you don't have to say carry a

42:35

big stick, because he knows he's got one already.

42:38

Reverend Jesse Brown of Philadelphia partnered

42:40

up with Henry to build a

42:43

national anti-tobacco network. They

42:45

pressured billboard companies to take down ads

42:47

close to churches and schools, and

42:50

used local zoning laws to get hundreds

42:52

of illegal signs removed. And

42:54

Henry was always thinking about his next

42:56

move. I go over to

42:58

his house. He had papers that we had

43:00

been researching laid out, and always

43:03

talking about where he was going, how

43:05

he was going to help our community.

43:08

Gwen says that at this point, she and

43:10

Henry were no longer dating, but they

43:12

were still extremely close. We

43:15

were always in communication, always.

43:18

Henry wanted to keep his daughter, Michelleene,

43:20

close too. In 1996,

43:23

she was in Brooklyn, taking time off

43:25

from college. She says

43:27

her dad bribed her to come back to Chicago

43:29

over the summer by offering the buyer a computer.

43:32

I was like, okay, fine. Which was, like, in

43:35

retrospect, one of the best things that I ever did,

43:37

because I got to spend the summer hanging

43:40

out with him. Michelleene and

43:42

her dad played Scrabble and went for

43:44

walks. A lot of the

43:46

time, they would just talk. In

43:49

the fall, Michelleene went back to school. On

43:52

Monday, September 23, 1996, she had a dance class. And

43:58

when class was over... Somebody

44:00

told me that I called my mom and

44:04

she told him that my dad's body had

44:06

been found in the river, the Chicago River. Henry

44:10

Brown didn't know how to swim and

44:13

his body was found fully clothed. The

44:16

medical examiner's report says he died

44:18

by drowning, but that the

44:20

events leading up to his death were undetermined.

44:24

You don't go swimming in the Chicago River. You're

44:26

either murdered or you commit

44:29

suicide. And he wasn't suicidal.

44:33

Gwen Jones also says there's no way

44:35

that Henry would have taken his own

44:37

life. It was foul play.

44:39

I believe that to my heart. And

44:44

it just wasn't investigated in my

44:46

mind enough or even at all.

44:50

In 1996, the Chicago police

44:52

said they were following up on every

44:54

lead about Henry Brown's death. But

44:57

when I asked the police department for files connected

44:59

to the drowning, they told me they couldn't

45:01

find any. His death

45:03

wasn't high profile. He was

45:05

a public figure, but not

45:08

hugely so. So I

45:10

think it was easy for them to ignore. Micheline

45:14

and Gwen both feel absolutely

45:16

certain that Henry's death had

45:18

nothing to do with his

45:20

anti-tobacco activism. They

45:22

think it might be connected to his job as

45:24

a court reporter, but they can't be sure about

45:26

that. And they blame

45:29

the Chicago police for that lack of certainty. For

45:32

not dedicating the resources to find out

45:34

why a devoted father and community leader

45:36

ended up dead in the Chicago River.

45:40

It's so unfortunate too, because he had so

45:42

much more to give and so much more

45:44

he wanted to do. He

45:47

was really full of love. He

45:50

talked about adopting another kid. That's

45:53

something that we talked about the summer before he died. You

45:56

know, it's kind of his next step. And he was like, maybe I

45:58

should do that. He

46:02

was really like a kind

46:04

hearted, genuine,

46:07

like good guy. I mean,

46:09

it's cheesy, but he did, I mean, he really did want

46:11

the world to be a better place, a happier place. In

46:16

1998, two years after Henry

46:18

Brown died, the four

46:21

largest American tobacco companies settled

46:23

lawsuits with 46 U.S. states,

46:26

Washington, D.C., and five U.S.

46:28

territories. The master settlement

46:30

agreement required big tobacco to pay more

46:32

than $200 billion to

46:35

offset the cost of treating

46:37

smoking-related illnesses. It

46:39

also imposed severe restrictions on

46:41

tobacco advertising. That included

46:44

a total ban on billboards. Mandrake

46:47

had won. Having

46:49

written this book about the history of

46:51

the menthol cigarette in America, Mandrake

46:54

is unquestionably the most admirable character in

46:56

that history. As far as I'm concerned.

47:00

Keith Weilu, the author of Pushing Cool.

47:03

He is someone who acted on

47:06

his convictions knowing

47:08

that what he was doing was

47:10

controversial. He was

47:12

a really thoughtful critic of a

47:15

set of practices that a

47:17

lot of people in communities across

47:19

America saw as deeply, deeply harmful.

47:22

But he was willing to take like

47:25

one extra step that I don't

47:27

think many people in his time period were

47:29

willing to do. This

47:37

is cottage road right here at the corner.

47:40

All this is new, but it's wonderful

47:42

to see, isn't it? It really

47:45

is. Gwen Jones

47:47

likes to walk through the South Side

47:49

neighborhood where Mandrake worked his magic. 39th

47:53

and Oakwood. This

47:55

is the location where he started

47:57

his part washing of billboards. Now,

48:01

thanks to Mandrake, this neighborhood and

48:03

cities all over America look very

48:06

different. He's looking down

48:08

now smiling because you don't

48:10

see any billboards out here. None

48:12

whatsoever. So he's smiling. In

48:16

this spot today, there's a city park.

48:19

A third of them that came by, the guys

48:21

were out playing basketball. Over

48:23

here you had children out on the swings with

48:25

their family. That park

48:27

is named for a man who cared about this

48:30

neighborhood and the people who lived there. They

48:33

got a big sign that says Mandrake

48:35

Park. So I'm thrilled

48:37

about that. A

48:39

park named after him. Isn't

48:42

that beautiful? Next

48:52

time on One Year 1990, when

48:56

George H.W. Bush tells the world

48:58

he's never eating broccoli again, the

49:00

produce industry bites back. Suddenly

49:03

we had a call from the White

49:05

House saying, we hear that there is

49:07

a truckload of broccoli destined for the

49:09

president, and we need to know what

49:11

your intentions are. If

49:23

you want to hear all of our One

49:25

Year episodes without any ads, you should subscribe

49:27

to Slate Plus. As

49:29

a member, you'll hear every Slate podcast

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without ads and never hit the paywall

49:34

on Slate's website. And

49:36

at the end of the season, you'll be able

49:38

to hear a special behind the scenes conversation with

49:40

our team about how we put together our 1990

49:42

story. If

49:45

you'd like to sign up for Slate Plus, go

49:47

to slate.com/One Year Plus.

49:49

Again, at slate.com/One Year

49:52

Plus. Our

50:01

Senior Producer is Evan Chee. This

50:03

episode was produced by Kelly Jones, Olivia

50:05

Bryley, and Evan Chee. It

50:08

was edited by Joel Meyer and

50:10

Derek John, place executive producer of

50:12

Narrative Podcasts. Our

50:14

Senior Technical Director is Mary Jacob, and

50:16

we had mixing help from Kevin Bendis.

50:19

Holly Allen created the artwork for this season.

50:22

Keith Weilu's book is pushing cool,

50:25

big tobacco, racial marketing, and the

50:27

untold story of the menthol figure

50:29

act. You can send

50:31

us feedback and ideas and memories from 1990

50:33

at oneyearatslate.com. You

50:36

can call us on the one year hotline at

50:38

203-343-0777. We'd

50:43

love to hear from you. Special

50:45

thanks to John Wiley Price,

50:48

Alberta Tinsley Williams, Alan Blom,

50:50

Lewis Sullivan, David R. Marshall,

50:53

Art Clay, Bob Starks, Lucia

50:55

Swilly, Paul Ellithick, Peggy Wiedemann,

50:58

30 Davenport, Kim Bellware,

51:00

Bart Pappas, Dania Abdelhamid,

51:03

Jake Bone, Sophie Somergrais,

51:05

Susan Matthews, Katie Raipert,

51:07

Ben Richmond, Caitlin Schneider,

51:09

Cleo Levin, Seth Brown,

51:11

Rachel Strong, and Alicia

51:13

Montgomery, place VP of Audience.

51:17

Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week

51:19

with more from 1990. Hey

51:28

everybody, it's Tim Heidecker. You know me,

51:30

Tim and Eric, bridesmaids, and Fantastic Four.

51:33

I'd like to personally invite you to listen to

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Office Hours Live with me and my co-hosts DJ,

51:38

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51:40

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51:42

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51:44

It's live. We take your Zoom calls. We

51:46

love having fun. Excuse me? Song.

51:49

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51:52

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