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This is exactly right. Audible. Goodbye. Hello. And welcome to My Favorite Murder. Special bonus episode. This is a special bonus. You
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didn't do anything, but we're giving it to you anyway. You deserve it. It's presented by Hyundai.
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And it's because we like you so much and Hyundai likes you so much. So we're giving you this
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special content, guys. What's more exciting than more stories? It's more, more, more, more. Because
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it's presented by Hyundai, we're doing stories that kind of like revolve around a car or a vehicle
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being the hero of the story. So I think I've got a good one. I hope you do too. All right. Well,
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let's get into this bonus episode, shall we? Let's do it. Okay, I'm first. You're first on
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any bonus episode. Thank you. Okay. I'm gonna tell you a story today, Karen. It's about a pivotal
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role that cars played in none other than the Montgomery bus boycott. Okay. Well, yes, it's
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right there in the title. Right. Yeah. And the Montgomery bus boycott success was dependent on
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the action and dedication of many individuals, of course. Today, we're going to focus on the work of
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One of those people in particular, a woman in her 30s. Yes, I love her name. It's Georgia Gilmore.
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Oh, yes. Okay. So the main sources for the story are an interview with Georgia Gilmore from the 1987 documentary Eyes on the Prize,
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a book called Driving While Black by Gretchen Soren, and Georgia Gilmore's obituary in the New York Times, which was published decades after her death,
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as part of an effort to recognize important historical figures that were previously not acknowledged enough.
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And the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So let's begin in Montgomery, Alabama, December of 1955.
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What a time and place. As most of us know and should know, a 42-year-old seamstress named Rosa Parks refuses to give
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up her seat on a public bus for a white passenger. And Montgomery buses, of course, were racially segregated and Black patrons were required
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to stand if a white person wanted to take their seat. and Black people were also barred from becoming bus drivers.
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And all of this was in spite of the fact that Black people made up at least 75% of ridership on Montgomery's public buses.
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And so we've spoken about the Montgomery bus boycott at length before, especially in your story about Claudette Colvin,
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the teenager who refused to give up her seat. And that's episode number 402, if anyone wants to listen to it.
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It's incredible. Karen did a great job. Thank you. So when the bus boycott kicks off in 1955, this woman, Georgia Gilmore, is a 35-year-old mother of four.
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Ultimately, she'll have six kids, but she has four at the time. She's lived in Montgomery as a Black woman all her life, so she has experienced all the racism there.
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She's worked as a midwife on a railroad and a domestic worker. By 1955, Georgia is the head cook at a cafeteria called the National Cafe, which serves only white people.
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She lives with her mother and also helps take care of her youngest sister, as well as multiple nieces and nephews.
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And she's just generally known as a caring, motherly figure in her community. And because of that, she earns the affectionate nickname Big Mama.
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But above all of this, above her caring, above her nurturing, she is known for her outrageously delicious cooking.
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At all times, people are angling to get invited to Georgia's house for a meal. So during this time, Georgia has already been privately boycotting the Montgomery buses for months on her own.
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Because in October of 1955, Georgia had boarded a bus, put her coins in the fare box,
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and had probably been screamed at by the white bus driver that she needed to board from the back of the bus.
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And so she complies, because she has to. But when she gets off the bus to go around to the back, the bus driver shuts the doors and takes off,
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even though she had already paid. So she's just like over it already. So she just vows to never
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get back on the public bus in Montgomery. And then three months later, the official boycott
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actually begins. So again, as we know from the Claudette Colvin story, the boycott had been
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brewing over the course of months. On December 5th, 1955, right after Rosa Parks is arrested,
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and after a successful one-day boycott of the buses, a group called the Montgomery Improvement
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Association calls a meeting. And the group is an offshoot of two other groups, the NAACP's local
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chapter and a group called the Women's Political Council. About 5,000 people wind up showing up to
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this meeting. This famous meeting, it's held at the Holt Street Baptist Church. The entire sanctuary
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and the entire basement are both packed, and there are loudspeakers outside for the massive overflow
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of the crowd. And at this meeting, it is resolved that the then 26-year-old Martin Luther King Jr.
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is going to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association. His family is somewhat new in town,
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and he's the pastor of another church. And it's also resolved that there's going to be
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a long-term boycott of the Montgomery public buses. That is a very short summary of stuff
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that we should all study. Yes, that years and years of building up to that moment.
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But also what a brilliant move And it the kind of thing that people are now doing again today so effectively We just like you absolutely the boycotts and voting with your dollar and all those things
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Like, it's all we have. It's seemingly anymore. The money talks, you know. And this is pivotal to Georgia.
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At the meeting, it is also established that anyone who has access to a car will help shuttle people to and from their jobs so they don't have to ride the bus because they still need to get to their jobs and then get fired.
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Of course, Dr. King says, quote, we're putting cabs there at your service. Automobiles will be at your service.
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So among the thousands of people at this meeting is our own Georgia Gilmore, who hears Dr.
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King's words and immediately springs into action. She establishes a group that will sell baked goods to raise money for gas and to buy additional
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cars for this elaborate carpool system that will keep the boycott alive. The group is made up of women like Georgia who all cook for the cause.
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In order to avoid being targeted by angry white neighbors, Georgia avoids giving the group an identifiable name that could give an idea of their identity or location.
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So she simply calls the group the club from nowhere. Smart. Yeah, right. The club sells peach pies, pound cakes, and when people are very lucky, Georgia's fried chicken sandwiches.
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and they sell them at beauty parlors, at taxi stands, at laundromats, stores, churches,
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and cleverly outside whites only cafeterias like the one she works at. Every week, the club takes in about $150, which is close to $1,800 in today's money.
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Wow. Yeah. This can fill more than 30 cars with gas every week, or it can be put toward maintenance or the purchase of additional cars.
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And I guess I had never thought about how pivotal outside transportation would be during the bus boycott. You don't boycott the bus and stop going to work.
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No. You know, the Montgomery Improvement Association meets every Monday. And at each of these meetings, Georgia hands over the cash to a standing ovation from the crowd.
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At the same time, Black-owned taxis carry boycotters to work for 10 cents, which is the same cost as a bus ride.
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But then the city cracks down on this, forbidding them from charging anything less than 45 cents per ride, which the boycotters can't afford, which is the point, right?
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So activists from northern states donate 15 station wagons to black churches since cars donated to churches are harder for the state to seize than those donated to individuals.
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Wow. So these cars get nicknamed rolling churches. A Black Farmers Association donates land for parking all of these shared vehicles.
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And while white-owned insurance companies refuse to insure the cars, a Black insurance agent in Montgomery gets a policy set up with Lloyds of London.
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So everyone is just doing what they can to work around these racist institutions.
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So three months into the boycott, in January of 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. is arrested for the first time, ostensibly for driving 30 miles per hour in a 25 mile per hour zone, which, of course, that's not the reason.
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It's the old broken tail light of. Right. Yeah. The real reason he's arrested is because he was driving boycotters to work at the time.
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And during that week, Montgomery police had begun specifically targeting these carpools.
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When Dr. King is indicted, 80 people testify on his behalf, and Georgia is one of them.
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As a consequence of this, she gets fired from her job at the Whites Only Cafeteria.
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And Dr. King advises Georgia to go into business for herself, cooking for people out of her home.
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He and the Montgomery Improvement Association give her some money to equip her kitchen.
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So Georgia's home restaurant becomes wildly successful. people line up for lunch and dinner and they'll even eat standing up if there's no room to sit
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down because they just want her incredible food yeah the specialties are fried or baked chicken
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there's fried fish there's liver collard greens turnips you know beans potato salad candy yams
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and for a little extra you can also get a slice of sweet potato pie so just that classic southern
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cuisine that i freaking it's the best my favorite but in addition to providing for her georgia
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herself and her family, the restaurant serves another important purpose. It's a secure meeting
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location for Dr. King and other activists to gather and discuss plans without worries of being
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overheard by the wrong people, you know, like in a public place. This is important because as the
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boycott wears on, Montgomery's segregationists grow increasingly hostile. Georgia says they would
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often yell slurs at her when she walked around the city, but she says that she would yell right back
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at them. Yes. Yeah. But for those security reasons, and because Georgia's food is incomparable,
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Dr. King often brings visiting dignitaries to Georgia's house for dinner. So she feeds future
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presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. Wow. Yeah. In her home. While this is going on,
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the club from nowhere keeps chugging along selling food and baked goods around Montgomery,
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often to white people who have no idea that they're helping to fund the bus boycott.
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perfection. I love it. Because you cannot, like, at the end of the day, good food is undeniable.
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Right. So with the help of the club from nowhere, the Montgomery Improvement Association's fleet
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of cars winds up swelling to 300 vehicles, which sustains the boycott for over a year.
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Brilliant. I didn't know. I just always imagine people like boycotting and protesting,
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not continuing on with their lives in any way necessary, which was the need for vehicles and
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transportation. Yes. I mean, like that this took an entire very organized. Yes. Intricate plan.
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Totally. So good. Yeah. And so again, 75% of the city buses ridership had been black,
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and a huge portion of that had been black women who often had jobs of domestic workers in neighborhoods far from their own So Georgia says quote they were maids and cooks
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They were the ones that really and truly kept the bus running. After the maids and cooks stopped riding the bus, well, the bus didn't have any need to run, end quote.
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Yeah, you've got to show them with the money. It's the only thing they listen to.
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At the end of 1956, the city of Montgomery files a lawsuit against the Montgomery Improvement Association saying they've been illegally operating an unlicensed taxi business.
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But right around that very same time, the Supreme Court upholds a district court ruling that had found that the segregation of city buses was unconstitutional.
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And again, that story is covered by you, Karen, in episode 402. the boycott comes to an end in december of 1956 after 381 days and buses in montgomery and in
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other cities are desegregated wow two years later in 1957 george's family personally sues the city
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of montgomery after her son mark is beaten by police and arrested for being in a whites only
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public park this ultimately results in the desegregation of parks in montgomery and mark
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Her son goes on to serve in Montgomery's city government. Wow. Yeah. Georgia says that she probably wouldn't have learned how to drive if it weren't for the bus boycott.
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After it ends, she says, quote, I was able to save enough money to buy a car. And then I was really a big shot because I felt I'd come up in the world.
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There's no better feeling when you have your own car. Cars in general played a big role, as we're learning, in the greater civil rights movement.
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the author Gretchen Soren, whose book is one of the main sources for the story, says, quote,
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The automobile gave African Americans freedom from humiliation and the ability to go where they wanted to go when they wanted to go, end quote.
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In 1961, the Freedom Riders challenged segregation on interstate buses, and Georgia hosts many of them in her home,
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sheltering them from violent segregationists, and of course, feeding them as well.
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Georgia passes away at the age of 70 in 1990 while she's preparing food for a celebration
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to mark the 25th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery march. In her late 60s, Georgia had been featured in the 1987 civil rights documentary, Eyes
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on the Prize, which is the source of her quotes in this story. In her interview, she says, quote, you cannot be afraid if you want to accomplish anything.
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You've got to have the willing, the spirit, and above all, you've got to have the get
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up, end quote. and that is the story of Georgia Gilmore and the club from nowhere and the women who helped drive
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the Montgomery bus boycott hell yes right love it yes also it's so important to hear these stories
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of people who are just like you're being threatened people are screaming at you and still
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they just keep doing what they're doing they stick to the plan they clearly do it with some joy
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throw some good food in there. Like, I don't know, that's such a, what a beautiful recipe for actually affecting change.
00:15:01
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Goodbye. Goodbye. Okay, ready for my story? Yeah. It's a bit of a left turn. We're going to World War II.
00:15:59
Okay. The thing that I love to do. It's kind of interesting that, you know, to do a little theme and to be like, oh, the theme is cars.
00:16:07
And Maren found this story and it's about ambulances. I don't know if you knew that ambulances have been around for centuries.
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The earliest one operated in 1480s Spain. Spain. I've never considered that. Right. But that's so interesting. Yeah. Well,
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because you got to figure we've always had war. So they've always need ambulances. Yeah. Right.
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So in 1480s Spain, it was a simple two wheeled horse drawn cart used to evacuate the wounded
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from battlefields. During the American Civil War, sturdier four wheeled horse drawn wagons became
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the standard. And then around the same time in cities like Cincinnati and New York,
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They saw the very first hospital-affiliated ambulances. Again, pointing back to the Nick, remember the crooked ambulance driver?
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Yeah. They'd all fight each other. Totally. So within a few decades, horses gave way to engines, of course.
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And by World War I, motorized ambulances were the norm. Men and women stepped up to drive them, often as civilian volunteers unaffiliated with any military.
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and they would drive them into active war zones to evacuate wounded and deliver supplies.
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Wow. That's one of my favorite first date questions. Have you ever been in an ambulance
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before? Yes, I have. You have. I have too, but I was unconscious. You were not? What did you do?
00:17:30
I had a seizure. You probably have the same thing. It's the same exact reason. Yeah. So for women who
00:17:35
were not allowed to serve in combat roles, ambulance driving was the closest they could
00:17:39
get to seeing action in World War I. Huh. Interesting. Yeah. They weren't typically posted on the front lines. They certainly weren't integrated
00:17:47
into any official military division. Those are, of course, reserved for men. But today's
00:17:52
story is centered on a group of courageous women dedicated on taking down Hitler During World War II they banded together to form an all ambulance corps which became the first unit of its kind to join an official combat division on the Western Front
00:18:09
This is the story of the Rochambeau Group, best known by their nickname, the Rochambells.
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Oh my God. Right? Never heard of this. Never. So the main source used today is Ellen Hampton's book,
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Women of Valor, The Rocham Bells on the World War II Front, and the rest of the sources are in our
00:18:28
show notes. So this story starts in the late 1930s with a woman named Florence Conrad. She's a wealthy
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American widow in her early 50s, and she has basically moved to France and lived there for
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many, many years. She loves France. So when World War II breaks out in 1939, Florence is determined
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to help in any way she can. So she doesn't run back to the United States for safety. She actually
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ends up volunteering as an ambulance driver during Germany's brutal invasion. But as tensions
00:19:00
escalate and the U.S. joins the war, Florence is forced to basically leave France. She knows as an
00:19:07
American, she risks being arrested and detained by Germans. For sure. So she moves to New York City,
00:19:13
where she decides to use her wealth and connections to form an all-women's ambulance corps
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to basically launch back in Europe. Wow. Florence isn't the first wealthy woman to have this idea because back in World War I,
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many rich American and European benefactors, including several women, raised money to create and support volunteer ambulance corps.
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And many women drove those ambulances. The logic then was very simple. If women take over the driving duties, more men can be freed up for combat.
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But despite the brave service of female ambulance drivers in World War I, by the dawn of World War II, many men have convinced themselves women are too soft to serve in such violent, stressful environments.
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And various world militaries decide that ambulance drivers have to be men. In fact, in the World War II era, military bureaucracy and tighter control over access to combat zones make it much more difficult for civilian volunteers, especially women, to serve in these same roles.
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But Florence doesn't care. So Florence quickly raises enough money to purchase 19 ambulances.
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And then she also pulls in a partner, a French-American woman in her early 30s named Suzanne Torres, who goes by the nickname Toto.
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And Toto quickly becomes Florence's right-hand woman. Together, Florence and Toto start recruiting exclusively female ambulance drivers, eventually amassing a group of 12.
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Most of their recruits are young French nationals in their early 20s, desperately wanting to go home to France, stuck in the U.S. because of war.
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So the recruits take Florence's ambulances out to the old World's Fairgrounds in Flushing, Queens, and they practice driving them.
00:21:05
They also learn basic auto mechanic skills, and they volunteer at a local hospital to learn the medical basics and first aid.
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Meanwhile, Florence and Toto realized the group could benefit from some good old-fashioned branding.
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So they start mulling over a good name, hoping to land on something that celebrates their Frenchness, but also that's recognizable to Americans.
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They decide on the Rochambeau group, after the legendary general who led French troops to help the Americans during the American Revolution.
00:21:36
Huh. I didn't know that. I had no idea. I just know Rochambeau is rock, paper, scissors.
00:21:42
Yeah. Yeah. It's based on a guy. That makes sense now that you say that. I mean, everything is. I mean, this is why people think history is interesting. I wish someone had told me this is why history is interesting. Right. Anyhow, it's too late. All the while.
00:22:00
It's too late for us. It's too late to learn. All the while, Florence is working to overcome the restrictive military bureaucracy.
00:22:07
Unlike in World War I, for example, when volunteer ambulance corps operated more casually and with few bureaucratic hurdles, they still had to have the formal backing of an official military group before they could operate within war zones.
00:22:22
Obviously, you can't just pull up and be like, look, I'll take care of this. Hop in.
00:22:26
But kind of. I mean, it sounds like kind of because it was volunteer. you know yeah yeah but none of that's going to stop florence she makes it happen the rochambeau
00:22:34
group gets the endorsement of the dc outpost of the free french forces and that's france's
00:22:40
government in exile led by charles de gaulle is the french pronunciation like the airport just
00:22:47
like the airport the airport's a guy what a coincidence you know air o'hare airport we got
00:22:52
Rochambeau. We got the guy. We got the call. So the Rochambeau group and all of these vehicles
00:23:00
are sent to a free French outpost in Morocco. But shortly after arriving, they find themselves in
00:23:07
limbo yet again. Ambulance drivers are desperately needed. But the problem is that no unit is willing
00:23:13
to take these lady ambulance drivers in because the idea of women being integrated into an actual
00:23:21
military unit is like inconceivable to them. Only men serve in those capacities. So without
00:23:28
official assignment, the Rochambeau group can't deploy to the front. They're just stuck on the
00:23:33
sidelines. And obviously this is discouraging, but the women haven't come this far just to give up.
00:23:40
They live on a houseboat in Morocco waiting to join the fight. Where is that movie Elizabeth
00:23:46
Thanks. Take me there. Get it going. The outfits, the lipstick, the bathing suits, the fucking chit chat, the cigarettes.
00:23:55
The makeouts. The full makeouts. Oh, happy Pride Month, everybody. But speaking of, Florence, meanwhile, is on the phone nonstop.
00:24:05
She's pitching the Rochambeau group to military powers that be, hoping they will just take a chance on them.
00:24:11
This lady is the real deal. Going for it. Yeah. And it works. She does it. Oh, my God.
00:24:16
This time in a huge way. She manages to get a hold of General Philippe Leclerc. He's the leader of the French 2nd Armored Division, and he's a rising star in the Free French Forces.
00:24:28
After hearing Florence's pitch, Leclerc is skeptical. And as Ellen Hampton writes, quote,
00:24:35
women in an armored division, exclamation point. I should have said it like this. Women in
00:24:40
armored division. Yeah. That's how she wrote it. General Leclerc had never heard of such a thing.
00:24:46
He probably figured the women would cut and run at the first firefight. But ambulances driven by
00:24:51
women were better than no ambulances at all. He relented. End quote. Isn't that it's like those
00:24:57
are all the stories where it's like, oh, well, I guess we could do nothing or we could, I guess,
00:25:01
have women have a chance. God forbid. So General Leclerc agrees to take the Rochambeau group,
00:25:08
but only temporarily. They can serve through the push to Paris, after which he will keep
00:25:14
their ambulances and replace these women with male drivers. It's good enough for now. Florence
00:25:21
is like, fine. All the women ditch the Moroccan houseboat and they head to Algeria for advanced
00:25:26
training, joining an official French medical battalion in a massive allied camp that houses
00:25:32
around 30,000 men. But after recruiting 18 more drivers in Morocco, which brings the numbers of
00:25:39
the Rochambeau group up to 30, they are still a tiny group of women in this ocean of men.
00:25:45
They endure regular harassment, of course, tons of condescension and bullshit from military men
00:25:51
who just see them as a joke. It's here in this very masculine camp that they become known as the Rochambelles.
00:25:59
And over time, they come to embrace this nickname. And that is kind of what a lot of people know them as today.
00:26:05
In May of 1944, after weeks of intense training in Algeria, the women of the Rochambeau group
00:26:11
get their first marching orders. They'll be traveling with General Leclerc's division
00:26:16
to England to prepare for D-Day, the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. Inevitably, sexism follows the women onto the transport ship
00:26:27
where American officers refuse to let them board because in their minds and experience,
00:26:32
women don't serve in military divisions, so there must be some sort of mistake. General Leclerc eventually has to step in and tell them,
00:26:39
quote, they're not women, they're ambulance drivers. So two months after D-Day in August of 1944,
00:26:46
the Rochambeau Group arrives at Utah Beach and they begin to run their ambulances as the Allies push out of Normandy.
00:26:55
For many of the women, this is their first time back in France since fleeing the Nazis,
00:26:59
and they are overjoyed to be home. But the Battle of Normandy, as we know, is a particularly brutal one.
00:27:07
And they are now tasked with evacuating wounded soldiers, driving through bombed-out roads and through minefields,
00:27:14
typically without maps or navigation of any kind, all while under fire. During one run, Florence drives 60 miles off course while searching for a field hospital.
00:27:26
She's not some rich American lady that's just like, I'll buy you ambulances. She's doing it herself.
00:27:31
Love it. The chaos is relentless. One night, German bombers hit an apple orchard where the women's ambulances are parked, but they do not flinch.
00:27:40
Instead, they patch up their vehicles and get back to work, transporting the wounded, including one of their own.
00:27:46
During that airstrike a brand new recruit an american named polly word smith was crushed inside her ambulance She does survive but she lives with life injuries and she never regains the full use of her legs
00:27:59
Because the women of the Rochambeau group are officially serving with the Allied forces, they are not a civilian group.
00:28:05
They're considered enemies in the eyes of the Germans. So if they're captured, the threat of death, torture, or sexual violence are very real for them.
00:28:13
Several women narrowly escape being arrested. So Toto, Florence's second in command, is one morning she ends up face to face with a German tank covered with soldiers who are trying to flee Normandy.
00:28:26
The tank's commander stops and threatens to take Toto prisoner, but ultimately he has to move on because there's nowhere to put her on this overcrowded tank.
00:28:36
So that's just sheer luck. Another close call involves a woman named Edith Schaller, who's in her mid-30s at the time.
00:28:43
And in the final days of the Battle of Normandy, takes her ambulance to a garage for overnight repairs and becomes separated from her driving partner.
00:28:52
So there's always two of them in an ambulance together. Edith's partner is 26-year-old Micheline Grimpel, who before joining the Rochambeau group actually worked in the French resistance.
00:29:05
This makes her particularly vulnerable to a German arrest. so with all that in mind when adit returns the next day micheline has vanished as adit searches
00:29:17
nearby towns for her she accidentally crosses enemy lines a bullet bounces off her helmet
00:29:22
before a team of german soldiers stop her ambulance and try to take her prisoner but adit
00:29:28
lies and insists she's with the red cross and it works the nazis back off and she drives away
00:29:37
Oh my God. But sadly, she never finds Micheline. No one ever does. Oh my God. Even though search efforts for her continue into the 1960s.
00:29:48
Oh no. There are rumors that Micheline was taken into custody by Nazis while in Normandy,
00:29:54
ostensibly during the few hours where she and Adit were separated, and that she may have eventually ended up in a Soviet prison camp.
00:30:01
But there is no paper trail confirming or denying this. Oh my God. What a mystery.
00:30:06
As the women of Rochambeau group deal with all the loss and grief that comes with war, their work continues. Eventually, General Leclerc's division pushes all the way from Normandy to Paris, and Paris is liberated in August of 1944. The women of the Rochambeau group are right there when that happens.
00:30:24
It's a euphoric time in France. French citizens are amazed to see this all-female ambulance corps working alongside male soldiers.
00:30:33
And when they do see that, a tidal wave of women rush to join the Rochambeau group.
00:30:40
Newspapers report that as many as 500 women sign up each day. Florence and Toto are totally overwhelmed with applicants.
00:30:48
They have to turn most of them away. They can select only six new recruits to join their ranks.
00:30:54
Wow. Meanwhile, General Leclerc calls the Rochambeau group in for a meeting. From the beginning, Leclerc's plan was to swap them out for male drivers once they got to Paris.
00:31:05
Now he tells them, quote, You have carried out your mission with such brio and devotion, winning the admiration of your commanders and all in your unit, that I will keep you.
00:31:15
Oh my gosh. End quote. Amazing. The women are over the moon, but according to Ellen Hampton, Toto is so concerned that they'll break decorum.
00:31:24
and begins celebrating when they're told this news that she keeps them at attention.
00:31:29
She does not let them like celebrate or do anything. Because of course when you are the minority you have to be better not the same as the men or the white people or whatever it is You have to be better all the time So they have to wait to celebrate like when they get somewhere else I don know So from here the allies continue marching toward
00:31:51
the French-German border. The Rochambeau group splits up and the women are now serving with
00:31:56
different medical battalions within General Leclerc's division. This eastward push is a huge
00:32:02
slog. A very rainy autumn becomes a brutally cold winter when the women aren't having to dig their
00:32:08
ambulances out of the mud, they're being forced to navigate them through sleet and snow. During
00:32:14
this part of the war, the women of the group are responding to some of the worst violence they've
00:32:19
seen so far, but they always rise to the occasion. By the time they arrive in Strasbourg near the
00:32:25
German border, they've clearly changed the minds of their male naysayers. In one mission, two of
00:32:31
the women pull up beside a tank whose commander has been hit and is now seriously wounded. As they
00:32:36
do that, their windshield gets blown out and they're hit with shards of glass. But they still
00:32:42
manage to successfully pull the man out of the tank and back to the ambulance. And they pull it
00:32:47
off so quickly and so well that the soldiers taking cover nearby burst into applause. Wow.
00:32:55
They have glass shards in their face, basically, and they get it done. Love it. In another high
00:33:02
moment, one of the women rescues an American officer after he's struck down by enemy fire.
00:33:07
As bombs continue dropping, she hops out of her ambulance, crawls over to him, and using her necktie, manages to drag this six-foot body to safety. A newspaper article
00:33:19
reports, quote, three seconds later, there was a direct hit on the spot where he had been.
00:33:25
The officer survives. So by February of 1945, France has been liberated and General Leclerc's division with the Rochambeau group in tow has helped reclaim important French
00:33:37
cities from the Nazis. From here, Americans push into Germany while General Leclerc's troops are
00:33:43
given time to rest. But a few weeks later, in April of 1945, they're dispatched to Austria.
00:33:51
And while they're in Austria, Toto somehow happens to find Hitler's personal stationery.
00:33:57
so for the next several weeks she uses it to write letters to her friends and family
00:34:02
i thought i thought you're gonna say she like says that she's him and like a spy and pretends
00:34:09
oh my god such a victory of like this is mine now yeah then on may 7th 1945 the news breaks
00:34:16
germany has surrendered again it's a euphoric moment this war is finally going to end and in
00:34:23
the coming months and years, the Rochambeau group receives awards and decorations for their
00:34:28
incredible service and the women get full military pensions. Wow. Right. But when the celebrations
00:34:35
fade, they have no idea what's next for them. Even though the war was brutal, it gave these women
00:34:40
a kind of freedom and a purpose that they have never had and would really never have as civilians.
00:34:47
Totally. At the time, French women aren't exactly empowered. They can't open a bank account or get
00:34:53
a job without their husband's permission. And French women don't have the right to vote until
00:34:58
1944. Several members of the Rochambeau group returned to their old lives. They don't have,
00:35:05
you know, they basically have secretarial work or raising kids as the options available to them.
00:35:11
Several merry men that they served alongside during the war, which wonderful B plot C plot
00:35:17
to this movie. A few find ways to keep pushing boundaries like Toto, who stays in the military
00:35:24
and eventually commands her own medical battalion. Damn. Toto again whose full name is Suzanne Torres passes away in 1977 at the age of 69 So she just lived it I mean just got in there Such a badass So in total 51 women serve as ambulance drivers with the Rochambeau group during World War II
00:35:45
Six are wounded during their tenures and survive, with another 28-year-old Lenora Linsley
00:35:51
dying from a horrible head injury. And of course, 26-year-old Micheline Gimprell,
00:35:57
who disappears and is never seen or heard from again. Like most women of their time and culture,
00:36:03
the ladies of the Rochambeau group are very modest about their war experiences. Despite living these unbelievable stories
00:36:10
of bravery and grit, only three of them write memoirs, all of them in French. Over time, their historic service
00:36:17
becomes increasingly obscure, particularly outside of France. But then several decades after the war,
00:36:24
an American journalist living in France named Ellen Hampton attends an event where a few members of the Rochambeau group speak about their service.
00:36:33
Ellen leaves inspired and eventually writes a book about the group entitled Women of Valor.
00:36:39
It has since been published in French and English, making the story accessible to an international
00:36:45
audience. Women of Valor is written after the passing of Florence Conrad, who dies in France
00:36:51
in 1966 at the age of 80. She's on the front lines at 55. That's unbelievable. Yeah.
00:36:58
And then gets to have 30 more years of like, well, I guess, guess what I did. Definitely smoking those six.
00:37:03
Hell yes. This book drives home Florence's unparalleled determination to get her historic ambulance
00:37:10
project off the ground. The book includes a snippet of an obituary Toto wrote for Florence, which lovingly says,
00:37:17
When I met Florence Conrad in New York, she already had the glow, in many American circles and above all in the French community, of a veritable legend, a legend that did not surpass reality.
00:37:30
Florence is no doubt a very worthy captain, but Toto's words specifically of her being a veritable legend could easily describe any of the so-called Rochambelles.
00:37:41
And that's the story of the incredibly courageous fleet of female ambulance drivers in World War II, the Rochambeau Group.
00:37:48
Damn. Come on. Look at the bonus episode coming in hot. It's bonus. It's bonus information.
00:37:56
It's empowering. It's like, get out there. Do your thing. Don't take no for an answer.
00:38:01
Make it happen. Yeah. Even if you're middle-aged. Especially if you're middle-aged.
00:38:06
Sincerely, though, like, we don't have to say this, but they kind of let us do whatever we wanted.
00:38:10
Yes. And that is really cool. And we really appreciate that. It's pretty cool. It's pretty cool.
00:38:15
And we like their car. We're both driving. What do we like? So thank you, Hyundai.
00:38:21
Thank you for listening to this bonus episode. We hope you liked it. And stay sexy.
00:38:26
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
00:38:40
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
00:38:45
This episode was mixed by Liana Squalacci. Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com.
00:38:50
And follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder. Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:38:57
And now you can watch us on Exactly Right's YouTube page. And while you're there, please like and subscribe.
00:39:02
Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.