Neural Newscast

[00:00] Maya Kim: From Neural Newscast, this is Deep Dive, exploring the moments that shape today.
[00:10] Maya Kim: Welcome back.
[00:11] Maya Kim: I am Maya Kim, and we're looking at a date that stands as a crossroads for some of the most powerful voices of the last century.
[00:20] Daniel Brooks: And I'm Daniel Brooks.
[00:22] Daniel Brooks: Today on Deep Dive, we're exploring February 21st.
[00:25] Daniel Brooks: It's a date defined by a monumental tragedy in the American civil rights struggle,
[00:30] Daniel Brooks: but remarkably, it's also the birthdate of several figures who reshaped how we think about power, art, and identity.
[00:37] Maya Kim: We have to start with 1965.
[00:40] Maya Kim: It was a Sunday afternoon at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem.
[00:44] Maya Kim: Malcolm X, who had recently founded the Organization of Afro-American Unity, was preparing to speak.
[00:50] Maya Kim: He was only 39 years old, yet he had already lived several lifetimes of radical transformation.
[00:57] Daniel Brooks: The atmosphere was incredibly tense, Maya.
[01:00] Daniel Brooks: Just days before his home had been firebombed while he and his family were sleeping inside.
[01:05] Daniel Brooks: As he stood on that stage to address the crowd, three gunmen rushed forward.
[01:10] Daniel Brooks: He was shot multiple times right in front of his pregnant wife, Betty Shabazz, and their four daughters.
[01:15] Maya Kim: That's remarkable to think about the courage it took to stand on that stage.
[01:21] Maya Kim: For decades, the narrative of his assassination was tied to three men from the nation of Islam,
[01:27] Maya Kim: Mujahid, Abdul Halim, Muhammad Aziz, and Khalil Islam.
[01:32] Maya Kim: But the story took a significant turn recently, didn't it?
[01:36] Daniel Brooks: Exactly.
[01:37] Daniel Brooks: While Halim confessed, he always maintained that Aziz and Islam were innocent.
[01:42] Daniel Brooks: It actually took until 2021 for an investigation to uncover that the FBI and the NYPD had withheld key documents that could have exonerated them.
[01:53] Daniel Brooks: Aziz was 83 when he was finally cleared.
[01:56] Daniel Brooks: Khalil Islam had already passed away in 2009 without ever seeing justice.
[02:01] Maya Kim: It really highlights the complexities of his later life, Daniel.
[02:05] Maya Kim: By 1965, he had moved away from the racial separatism of the nation of Islam after his pilgrimage to Mecca.
[02:12] Maya Kim: He returned as El-Hajm Malik El Shabazz, advocating for a global human rights perspective rather than a strictly nationalist one.
[02:20] Daniel Brooks: Absolutely. He began to see systemic racism rather than white people themselves as the primary enemy.
[02:27] Daniel Brooks: That shift made him a powerful bridge between different factions of the movement,
[02:32] Daniel Brooks: which is perhaps why his loss was felt so deeply across the entire political spectrum.
[02:38] Maya Kim: Smoothing that transition, while we reflect on that loss, February 21st is also the birthday of another Titan of the Civil Rights era, though in a very different arena.
[02:49] Maya Kim: Barbara Jordan was born on this day in 1936.
[02:52] Daniel Brooks: Right. And her career was a series of incredible firsts.
[02:55] Daniel Brooks: She was the first African-American woman from the Deep South ever elected to Congress.
[03:00] Daniel Brooks: but many people remember her most vividly for her role on the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate scandal.
[03:08] Maya Kim: Her voice was unmistakable, Daniel.
[03:11] Maya Kim: When she gave her opening statement during those impeachment hearings,
[03:14] Maya Kim: she spoke about the Constitution with such precision and moral authority.
[03:19] Maya Kim: She famously said her faith in the Constitution was whole,
[03:22] Maya Kim: even if it hadn't originally included people like her.
[03:26] Daniel Brooks: Indeed.
[03:26] Daniel Brooks: She was a master of the keynote address as well.
[03:30] Daniel Brooks: Her 1976 speech at the Democratic National Convention is still studied by orators today for its rhythmic power.
[03:38] Daniel Brooks: It's fascinating how this specific date connects these two very different paths toward justice.
[03:44] Maya Kim: Moving from the halls of Congress to the world of literature and music, we also celebrate the birth of W. H. Auden in 1907.
[03:53] Maya Kim: He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who captured the profound anxieties of the 20th century.
[03:59] Daniel Brooks: Precisely. I often think of his poem, Funeral Blues, or The Age of Anxiety, Maya.
[04:05] Daniel Brooks: He had this incredible range, moving from deeply intellectual political commentary to the most
[04:12] Daniel Brooks: intimate expressions of grief and love.
[04:14] Maya Kim: And we can't forget the musical revolutionary born on this day in 1893, Andres Segovia.
[04:21] Maya Kim: Before him, the guitar was largely seen as a folk instrument, something that didn't belong in a concert hall.
[04:28] Maya Kim: Segovia changed that entirely.
[04:31] Daniel Brooks: He really did, Maya.
[04:32] Daniel Brooks: He spent his life proving that the classical guitar deserved a place on the world's most prestigious stages.
[04:39] Daniel Brooks: He transcribed works by Bach and other masters, forever elevating the status of the instrument for future generations.
[04:46] Maya Kim: It is a day of profound voices, whether through speech, poetry, or strings.
[04:52] Maya Kim: And that brings us to our effect of the day, which is a global observance, international audience.
[04:57] Maya Kim: Mother Language Day.
[04:59] Daniel Brooks: That's right.
[05:00] Daniel Brooks: This was established by UNESCO in 1999, but the origins go back to a specific and tragic
[05:06] Daniel Brooks: event on February 21, 1952.
[05:10] Daniel Brooks: Students in Dhaka, in what was then East Pakistan, were protesting for the right to use Bengali
[05:16] Daniel Brooks: as an official language.
[05:18] Maya Kim: Mm-hmm, Daniel.
[05:20] Maya Kim: The police opened fire on the demonstrators, and several people were killed.
[05:26] Maya Kim: These language martyrs became a symbol of the struggle for cultural and linguistic identity.
[05:32] Maya Kim: Their sacrifice eventually led to Bengali being recognized as an official language in 1956.
[05:39] Daniel Brooks: Today, it serves as a reminder of how closely language is tied to our sense of self and our fundamental human rights.
[05:47] Daniel Brooks: Whether it's the words of Malcolm X or the native tongue of a student in Dhaka,
[05:52] Daniel Brooks: the power of the voice is the recurring theme for February 21st.
[05:56] Maya Kim: It certainly is.
[05:58] Maya Kim: Thank you for joining us for this look at the legacies that shape our world.
[06:03] Maya Kim: For more episodes and historical insights, visit deepdive.neuralnewscast.com.
[06:09] Daniel Brooks: We will see you next time.
[06:10] Daniel Brooks: Deep dive is AI-assisted, human-reviewed.
[06:14] Daniel Brooks: Explore history every day on Neural Newscast.
[06:17] Daniel Brooks: This has been Deep Dive on Neural Newscast.
[06:19] Daniel Brooks: Exploring the moments that shape today.