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- [00:01]
Capital One Bank Guy
Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One Bank Guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Oh really? Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capital1.com Bank Capital One NA Member FDIC.
- [00:34]
Erin Menke
Welcome to Erin Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio and Grim and Mild.
- [00:43]
Aaron Manke
Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all of these amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
- [01:07]
Erin Menke
By the time she had boarded the bus home In October of 1955, Georgia had already had a very long day. Tired from work, she dropped her fare in the till and went to go sit in the segregated back of the bus. She stopped short when the bus driver began to yell at her. He ordered her not to walk through the white section at the front of the bus. She would need to get off and re enter at the back of the bus. Georgia couldn't believe it. She was already on the bus, wasn't she? But seeing as he wasn't going to budge and deciding that she would rather get home than fight with a power tripping driver, Georgia sighed and got off the bus. But the moment she stepped foot on the sidewalk, the bus sped off with her fare still on board. And it wasn't the first time the Montgomery, Alabama bus system had discriminated against black writers. And it certainly wouldn't be the last. Two months later, Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white writer. And when Georgia Gilmour heard that local leaders were planning a bus boycott, she knew she had to be involved. On December 5th of 1955, Georgia watched as the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. Spoke before a crowd of thousands at the Holt Street Baptist Church. He proposed that the black community should put together their own form of transportation in protest, using donated cars and personal vehicles to ferry black people to work in schools across Montgomery. His idea was met with thunderous applause, Georgia included. But she was already thinking ahead. Even if dozens of community members donated cars, it would still cost money to keep up the boycott. Cars needed gas and oil and drivers needed wages. But Georgia needed had just the idea to fund the boycott. She was a cook by trade, working for the National Lunch Company, so she decided to put her skills to use. She started selling food at protest meetings and black owned businesses showing up with baskets full of fried fish, pork chops, sweet potato pies and pound cakes. And soon enough, Georgia had organized dozens of women across the city to do the same. Many black people in Montgomery worked for white families and were afraid that being a visible part of the protest might cost them their jobs. But cooking and selling food was a quiet way to support the cause. Georgia dubbed her network the club from Nowhere. If people asked where the food had come from, the cooks could truthfully say it came from nowhere. Georgia became a welcome sight at every weekly boycott meeting where she would sing and dance down the church aisle and report each week's fundraising numbers. The Club from Nowhere typically raised the equivalent of $1,500 a week, and Georgia herself probably raised most of the money of any person in Montgomery. For 381 days, Georgia's cooking kept the boycotters fed and funded. When Dr. King and other leaders were arrested for conspiring against the bus System's business in 1956, Georgia testified at the trial, telling her story of the white bus driver driving off with her fare. The testimony made Georgia even more of a celebrity among Montgomery's black community, but also made her visible to the white opposition. The national Lunch Company fired her shortly after. Now, Georgia was a clever and resilient woman, but this was a setback. She had six children to feed on top of managing the Club from nowhere, and she was having trouble finding another cooking job. When she brought these concerns to Martin Luther King, Jr. He told her he had a solution. Why not work for yourself? With some capital from Dr. King, Georgia opened a restaurant in her home from which she could continue to feed the revolution. Dr. King began to use it as a meeting house, and he brought Robert Kennedy and president Lyndon B. Johnson to meet Georgia and eat her food. Finally, on November 13th of 1956, the Supreme Court ruled Montgomery's segregated bus lines were unconstitutional. A month later, the bus boycott ended for good. Georgia Gilmour continued to be a civil rights activist and beloved chef. In fact, the day she died on March 9 of 1990, she had been up early cooking meals for the 25th anniversary celebration of the Selma to Montgomery march. Her family instead served the food to the hundreds who came to mourn her. Dead or alive. Georgia was still feeding the fire. Foreign.
- [05:26]
Capital One Bank Guy
Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast too. Oh really? Thanks. Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank Capital One NA Member.
- [05:54]
Erin Menke
FDIC this show is sponsored by American Public University. American Public University understands the challenges of balancing education with a busy, ever changing life. Whether you're part of a military family managing PCs moves or a working professional juggling career and family, APU offers the flexibility you need to succeed. Delivered online, APU's programs make it possible to learn wherever life takes and courses are offered in 8 and 16 week formats with monthly start dates so you can begin when it's convenient and progress at a pace that's comfortable for you. APU is committed to making education affordable for everyone. For active duty military and their families, the preferred military rate is just $250 per credit hour. Veterans and their families can benefit from the Veteran Grant, which provides 10% off undergrad and master's level tuition. And for everyone else, the Opportunity Grant offers the same 10% tuition savings, but making higher education within reach for all. Visit APU APUS Edumilitary to learn more American Public University Education that moves with you the Korean War was part of the larger Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. As such, it contained layers of legitimate disagreement between the actual people of Korea, as well as layers of propaganda and interference from the larger superpowers on opposite sides. While the war ended in a truce in 1953, that didn't mean the ideological war between the Americans and the Soviets had come to an end. Not even close. Korea was divided into north and south, with the north becoming Communist and the south becoming a capitalist republic. However, the north quickly became a dictatorship with a stagnant economy due in part to U.S. embargo, and the south became a major military installation for the US to keep tabs on the Soviets. And it was amidst this clash between titanic forces that one man sought to carve out a life for himself against all odds. No Kumsuk was born during the Japanese occupation of Korea, only to grow up and see his hometown change hands from Japanese rule to North Korean dictatorship. His parents always resented the anti American propaganda fed to them for decades by both regimes. They wanted a chance to make up their own minds. As Kumsuk got older, he just wanted to eat. Food was scarce under the dictatorship and American embargo. When he heard that North Korean Air Force pilots were well fed, he enlisted. During the war he flew over a hundred missions and rose to the rank of Lieutenant. Kumsuk claims that he never actually shot down any enemy planes. He says that he made a point to shoot past them again. He had been raised to not believe everything that he heard about Americans and South Koreans. Now, that being said, it is hard to believe that he was able to fly so many missions without ever killing an enemy pilot, and that his superiors would never notice this. But if true, it only makes his determination more impressive. And it also maybe explains why eventually Kumsuk realized that he had to flee the country. He couldn't continue to fight for a regime he didn't believe in. And he saw no future in his destitute homeland. And he knew his chances of escaping were pretty slim. In fact, he gave himself a 20% chance of success. But he was willing to take those odds if it meant a better future. He was only 21, after all. In September of 1953, Kumsuk took his Soviet built MiG 15 fighter jet off the Runway in North Korea under the guise of running a mission. Instead, he flew south, boldly crossing into enemy territory. He located an American Air Force base. Skidding to a stop on the Runway, nearly colliding with a departing jet. The confused personnel scrambled to the site, assuming that he was an American pilot. But when they got a good look at his plane and watched in astonishment as he stepped out of the cockpit, they saw him throw a picture of North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung to the ground. And if Kumsuk was worried about a frosty reception, he shouldn't have been. Because as the Americans examined his jet, they soon realized that it was a MiG15. An American general had recently put a bounty on this model. It had a unique engine that made it more advanced than American aircraft. Comsuk was awarded $100,000, or about a million dollars in today's currency. With this money, he was able to set up a trust and eventually move himself to the United States so that he could see for himself what Americans were like. Once in the US he excelled, earning a degree in engineering from the University of Delaware. He changed his name to Kenneth Rowe, married a fellow Korean immigrant, and in 1962 finally became a US citizen. Kenneth eventually settled in Daytona Beach, Florida, where he became a professor of aerospace engineering. In many ways, it was the American's greatest dream. A former Communist citizen defecting, coming to America and living his best life. But more than that, it was one man taking his destiny into his own hands and finding himself a home.
- [11:00]
Aaron Manke
I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts or learn more about the show by visiting curiositiespodcast.com the show was created by me, Aaron Manke, in partnership with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series and television show and you can learn all about it over@theworldoflore.com and until next time, stay curious.