Everyone’s Gone to the Moon Podcast
Episode 1: Independence Day
[Kennedy – Moon Speech, droning music in b/g]
I believe that this nation should commit itself…
[Neil Armstrong / Walter Cronkite first step on moon]
Google July 1969 and what comes up? Over 7 million entries, most of which are related to the first landing on the moon by the crew of Apollo 11.
[Apollo 11 sound]
On July 20th, 1969, Neil Armstrong completed President John F. Kennedy’s dream of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth.
In that fleeting moment, billions of people on Earth stopped and became one, one people standing in awe at what humans could do if they put their minds to it. But beneath the headline, beneath the technical wizardry that made the event a reality, the Earth seemed to be spinning off its axis…
[War sfx]
Wars raged on…
[Protester sfx]
…protesters filled the streets, standing in unison demanding equal rights, protection of the environment, ending the war in Vietnam.
[Midnight Cowboy / Zager and Evans]
It was a month when pop-culture was dramatically changing who we were then and who we are now.
[Everyone’s Gone to the Moon instrumental]
July 1969, the month when everyone had gone to the moon. I’m Joe Cuhaj.
Episode 1: Independence Day.
[Music fade]
My new book, Everyone’s Gone to the Moon, is a week by week journey through the historic month of July 1969. The book goes beyond the headlines of Apollo 11 to tell of events that went under the radar – little remembered, obscure, and offbeat stories of the day as well as the major headlines that made us who we were then and who we are now. It tells about the pop culture that was changing the face art, music, theater, and movies, and paints a picture of what everyday life was like on Earth during that historic month with little known stories of the Apollo 11 flight mixed in. In this series, we will bring some of those stories to life with audio clips as well add supplemental material to the story that doesn’t appear in the book. And we begin with the 4th of July, 1969.
[Children playing – in fire hydrant if possible]
Independence Day in America. A day set aside to celebrate the birth of the nation. It was a hot but not unpleasant day. In major cities across America, children played in fire hydrants that were intentionally left open to allow them to cool down.
[Family at beach sfx]
Families who could afford it escaped their suburban homes and flocked to lakes and oceanside beaches for a much needed holiday and respite from the heat …
For most, in towns big and small across the country, it was a time of celebration with fireworks, barbecues, parades,
[Apollo control]
While at the same time on the beaches of Cape Kennedy, Florida, a mighty rocket stood poised in the morning sun ready to take humankind to another world for the first time. But on July 4th, 1969, America was at a crossroads. It seemed the fabric that held the country together was being stretched and strained and the meaning of the word “Independence” was being redefined.
In black communities across the country, Independence Day meant something quite different.
[Blacks commenting on the holiday]
The man who broke the color barrier in baseball in 1947, told a reporter for the NY Times, quote: “I wouldn’t fly the flag on the Fourth of July or any other day. When I see a car with a flag pasted on it, I figure the guy behind the wheel isn’t my friend.”
In Harlem and in urban centers across the country, the red, green, and black flag of the Flag for All African People hung from windows. An African American speaker at a gathering in New York City told that same New York Times reporter that the colors of the flag had specific meaning saying that the red was for the blood Blacks had shed, black was for their blackness, and green was for their homeland.
These feelings were the basis for the mission statement of the Black Panther Party or BPP, an organization with an ideology of Black nationalism, socialism, aiding Black communities that were struggling, but when needed, use armed self-defense against police.
[Panther’s mission]
In 1969, the Panthers were under the watchful eye of FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover.
During his early career, Hoover popularized the image that F.B.I. agents, or G Men, were gun toting avengers taking down communist labor agitators, kidnappers, mobsters, and bank robbers. That image was buttressed with infamous shoot outs between agents and the likes of John Dillinger and Lester Gillis (aka “Baby Face” Nelson) in 1934.
In the 1960s, Hoover turned his men on many Americans – politicians, celebrities, and average citizens –
who he believed were radicals and communists, a carryover from the 1950s and McCarthyism.
Hoover would often direct his agents to infiltrate and dismantle “leftist” union and political organizations by unique and often dubious methods including burglary, inciting criminal activity, secret wiretaps, and planting false evidence.
As July 1969 rolled around, the agency was determined to use those same tactics to dismantle the Black Panthers.
[Hoover clip ]
That’s actor Bruce Moody portraying Hoover in a 2007 film workshop production of an opera based on the Black Panther Party produced by the Oakland Opera Theater. That quote, that the BPP was the greatest internal threat faced by the United States, came from the agency’s annual report that was penned by Hoover and released in July 1969.
The FBI began bugging the Panther’s telephone communications, had agents infiltrate Black Panther meetings, and disseminated material throughout communities smearing the Panthers. And while there was a radical side to the Black Panthers, there was also another side, one that provided much needed social programs to Black communities such as legal aid, adult education classes, and screening for Sickle Cell Anemia.
In January 1969, a new program was initiated by the Panthers in Oakland, California – the Free Breakfast for School Children program.
[School Breakfast Clip]
Party leaders and volunteers would solicit donations from local grocery stores of nutritious breakfast foods including eggs, cereal, milk, and fruit then prepare the meals and serve them for free to school children in the community.
[Clip of kids]
The program was a huge success. The children’s alertness, willingness to learn, and ability to absorb the material being taught to them was measurable and the program quickly spread to other major cities across America.
To Hoover, the free breakfast program was a breeding ground for radicalism and was a means of grooming students into becoming new members of the Panthers. Hoover directed his men to put an end to the program.
The agency began to send anonymous literature throughout the communities where the Free Breakfast program was being established that denounced the program and the BPP.
Similar counterintelligence methods were used to try and thwart the establishment of the program in NYC where the Panthers were set to use the All Saints Roman Catholic Church as a site for the city’s first children’s breakfast program.
Anti-panther literature was circulated stressing the “true feelings and attitudes of the BPP.” Agents made personal contact with members of Harlem’s NOI Mosque #7 church which was located near the All Saints church warning the congregation that there may be violence once the Catholic church “takes exception to their facilities being used to dispense the ‘White Man’s food’ to Black children. They also made it a point to mention that the food donated for the breakfast program may have been obtained through extortion.
But it was too late. The success of the Black Panther Party to feed impoverished children was so successful that it overwhelmed efforts by Hoover and the FBI and the agency was forced to back down. So successful was the program that state and local governments picked up and ran with the program. One high ranking U.S. government official admitted that “the Panthers are feeding more kids than we are.”
Cities like Chicago began diverting federal funding for other projects to their own local version of the Breakfast for Children program, and before long, the federal government’s Child Nutrition Act was expanded to include free breakfasts and lunches to poor school children across the country.
[NASA clip of Apollo 11 preps]
Meanwhile at Cape Kennedy, the crew and equipment that would land Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon was being readied for launch. The once sleepy fishing village of Cocoa Beach, Florida, was beginning to buzz with excitement as store owners began stocking shelves with souvenir trinkets for the upcoming launch and prepping for the estimated one million visitors who would be piling into town.
[Crowd interviews]
Pressure on the astronaut office to give the press more access to the crew of Apollo 11 increased as launch day approached. Office manager and former Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton asked NASA officials if they really believed they had to “hard sell” the first landing on the moon to the public.
Eventually, Slayton relented and allowed more opportunities for the press to interact with the astronauts as long as it didn’t jeopardize crew training.
On July 5th, the crew of Apollo 11 met the press on a stage inside of a plastic box to protect them from germs and illness that could cancel the flight. Neil Armstrong was a very quiet, reserved man who would rather not be grilled by the press.
[Comment]
The press got the message and a chuckle from the insinuation.
[Hello Dolly! Instrumental up and under]
And now, a Footnote to History:
On July 4th, 1969, 20th Century Fox producer Darryl Zanuck was pacing the floor. The reason? The release of his $24 million, wide screen, Technicolor musical extravaganza, “Hello, Dolly!”, was put on hold. The movie, which starred Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau, was the screen version of the incredibly successful Broadway play that starred Carol Channing which opened on Broadway in 1964.
The reason Zanuck was pacing the floor was a clause in the contract that gave the studio rights to produce the film, a clause that was first introduced by famed mystery writer, Agatha Christie.
Following the success of her play, “Witness for the Prosecution,”, Christie penned another mystery drama, “The Mousetrap.” The play opened on November 25th, 1952, in London’s Ambassador Theater. The play was a smash hit and only weeks after its premiere, film producer Edward Small arrived and inked a deal to make the play into a movie, hoping to have it hit the big screen the following year.
Well, the astute Christie, knowing that her play would have a long run, wrote in the contract a clause that the film version could not be made until the original play had run its course. Unfortunately for Small, the play ran for 17 years. As July 1969 began, the curtain had opened on the play 8,000 times and was showing no signs of ever closing. The bill from the interest due on the loan Small had taken out to produce the movie was growing exponentially by the minute.
The movie version of “Hello, Dolly!” faced the same situation with that same clause written into the contract. Fortunately for Zanuck, it didn’t take 17 years and in December 1969, the movie hit the big screen eventually winning 3 Academy Awards.
[Ending-Theme up and under]
I’m Joe Cuhaj and thank you for joining me for this edition of Everyone’s Gone to the Moon. Thank you to Life Live Inspire Fight, CBS News, NASA, the Oakland Opera Theater, and the National Archives for clips heard in today’s episode.
You can learn more about the events and pop-culture that shaped our world in my new book published by Prometheus Books, Everyone’s Gone to the Moon: July 1969, Life on Earth, and the Epic Voyage of Apollo 11. It’s available now at your favorite local bookstore or online retailer.
If you liked this episode, then please share it with a friend. You can view clips from today’s episode, learn more about the book, my other titles, and drop me a line by visiting my website, JOE-CUHAJ.COM, that’s spelled C-U-H-A-J. We’ll see you next time.