- John Pemberton put the coca and the kola together.
It was wine with cocaine in it,
which was super fucking fun.
- Martin Luther King says, I have a dream.
J. Edgar Hoover says, this is total communist stuff.
J. Edgar Hoover is pretty weird.
- Stetson Kennedy came up with this crazy scheme
to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan,
learn their secrets, and expose them.
Bless you.
Thank you.
- Thank you for having Drunk History here in Atlanta!
Atlanta! Atlanta!
- Well, you know what we love? - What do you love?
- Do you know what we love? We love drop it and cross it.
- What's drop it and cross it?
- Drop it and cross it is the A-town.
You know you're down with it.
- We have nothing but coke.
The word for soda in Atlanta is "coke."
- "Coke."
- And the strip clubs here
are, like, fall-of-Rome shit, man.
Mwah!
That was my first kiss with a girl.
- Hello.
Today, we're going to talk
about the invention of Coca-Cola,
America's favorite soft drink.
So, like, in the 1800s,
John Pemberton was trying to make patent medicines.
Basically, they were fake medicines,
and most of them were just, like, herbal whosiwhats.
Who even cares?
He was just trying to make anything that would sell.
He was like, I want to make a fake medicine
that made women think that they'll never be nervous
or have farts...
and make men think that they can be smarter.
So he decided to use a new ingredient, coca.
Coca is from a plant.
The South Americans would chew it
and be like, we had so much energy,
and we weren't even hungry, and we hiked the whole Andes.
But really, they were just on cocaine.
John Pemberton was like, oh, I should put this
into my new potion that I'm making.
And basically, he copied someone else's recipe,
called, like, "Vin Mariani."
He was like, well, I have wine.
I put coca in there, a little of this kola in.
The kola nut released a little bit of caffeine.
And he... he basically was like,
what I give you is wine with cocaine...
caffeine.
Then people in Atlanta were like,
no, nobody can sell alcohol because of temperance.
He was like, okay, well, fine,
I'll just make a temperance beverage.
He went back into his laboratory,
and he decided to just put the coca and the kola together,
but they were super bitter without the wine,
so he added a ton of sugar,
and then, he made it into, like, a drink.
You know, he thought,
oh, well, people will love this.
It wasn't like he was like, I made a soda, pbbt!
'Cause nobody even had that yet.
He had a friend named Frank... Robinson...
who was like, okay, well,
I'll help you to sell your, um, medicine soda drink thingy.
First of all, you should, um,
change the K in the "kola" to a C,
and just call it what it is, "Coca-Cola,"
and the two Cs will look really nice next to each other,
and who wouldn't love that?
So they would just advertise Coca-Cola
as a medicine for your brain.
They would say,
it's invigorating and stimulating
and healthy for your nervous system.
Using the exotic extract
of the coca and kola nut...
to make you super alive
and ready to face your day.
The first year...
he only sold 25 gallons.
- 25,000 or 25... - 25 gallons...
- Okay. - In a year.
He gave it to pharmacies.
They had, like, soda fountains and fun things,
and people did like it, a lot.
Oh, this is, like, a great drink.
They thought that it made them, like, invigorated and aware.
People are basically drinking little cocaine soda.
Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me!
I need more.
I wish I was alive then to drink the coke... coke... Coca-Cola.
- Oh!
God, I missed so much from not being in the olden times.
The next year, he sold 200 gallons a month!
That's so much more!
12 months.
Reggie, stop it.
Twel...
Reggie, God damn it.
Hold on.
Okay, I got him.
12 months out of the year, we sold 2,000 gallons a month.
No... yes? God damn it.
He's on his deathbed dying of stomach cancer,
and he's like, out of all of the patent medicines
that I've tried to make,
I've finally made a successful patent medicine.
But what he never knew was that he actually made
the most successful drink
that humans will ever drink ever.
God, he was so successful, and he doesn't know,
and he'll never know ever.
They still use coca leaves
in modern-day Coca-Cola,
so do the math on that one.
Even if they don't have cocaine in them,
they still use the leaves, and they took the cocaine out.
They're putting it somewhere else.
- This mysterious package showed up.
It was like a mixtape of every sex act
that Martin Luther King had ever done.
- The great thing about Atlanta is that
if you walk a mile in one direction,
you can go see MLK's birthplace, you can see his church,
you can see where it all began.
If you walk a mile in the other direction,
you can get a moo shu pork burrito
at 4:00 A.M. or get stabbed.
- This is how much is left,
and I bought it today.
Like, a human being should be in a body bag
if this is how much is left.
Hello.
Today, we're gonna talk
about the FBI versus Martin Luther King, Jr.
During the 1960s,
J. Edgar Hoover was the head of the FBI.
He's an old man, and he thought,
communists are gonna take over America,
and I gotta get ready for it.
Meanwhile, Martin Luther King,
a non-violent Christian minister,
gives the greatest speech of the entire 20th century.
I have a dream that we will live in a fair society,
where, you know, it doesn't matter what race you are,
you can achieve anything you believe in.
And, like, ten other beautiful things.
And J. Edgar Hoover sees the speech and says,
"I have a dream"?
This is total communist stuff.
It all makes so much sense
when you think about it like a crazy person.
J. Edgar Hoover called a press conference,
and Hoover tells these reporters that he's invited...
Who are all women for some reason...
Martin Luther King is the most dishonest man
in America.
One of Hoover's underlings is saying,
maybe you shouldn't
talk shit about Martin Luther King.
Maybe you should be nice.
And Hoover's like, fuck you, I'm gonna tell the truth.
They meet in J. Edgar Hoover's office.
Martin Luther King says, hey, J. Edgar Hoover,
I love everything you've ever done.
Maybe we could just be better teammates
so we can achieve peace throughout America.
After those first two minutes, J. Edgar Hoover decided,
dude, now it's my turn.
It's my turn to say what's on my mind.
The FBI does this. The FBI does that.
The FBI is helping you here. The FBI is helping you there.
And he just goes on and on and on and on
about how awesome the FBI is.
And afterwards, one of Martin Luther King's friends
calls him and says,
what was that like, meeting with Martin Luther King?
I'm sorry.
That's how drunk I am. Okay.
What was it like
meeting with J. Edgar Hoover?
And Martin Luther King was like, dude, I'll tell you.
J. Edgar Hoover, he's just a old man who talks too much.
He's crazy.
J. Edgar Hoover was listening to everything that he said.
He was like, what the fuck?
He's talking shit about me
even though I just talked with him?
Oh, man, it's on now.
These boss... these guys...
These guys...
try to harass Martin Luther King.
This FBI agent, William Sullivan,
his entire job is, like, mind-effing,
so he decides, like, I gotta... I gotta write a letter.
Dear Martin Luther King, I'm a black person,
just like you.
I'm not a white guy.
I think that you are a bad person.
You better kill yourself.
Uh, see the attachment.
The attachment is a recording
of you having sex with lots of people.
The end. I'm black.
Send.
When this mysterious package showed up,
Martin Luther King's wife, Coretta Scott King,
listened to it.
It was, like, a mixtape
that the FBI had specially made...
Every sex act, every embarrassing thing
that Martin Luther King had ever done.
And Martin Luther King's like, this is crazy.
The FBI is trying to destroy my life.
They try to give up...
They try to make him give up his core beliefs.
Martin Luther King decides,
like, I'm gonna stick to what I believe.
I don't care what you guys do to me.
And Martin Luther King continues to fight
for what he believes in.
Hoover never retired from the FBI.
He just sort of slowed down.
I think that he was just very upset
at anybody who had sex.
He thought it was a real bad idea.
He didn't like it.
I'm gonna die now.
Good-bye.
Oh, man, this is the most nauseous
I've ever been in my life.
- Can we do the handshake? Do you want to do the handshake?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Okay.
This is... this is the handshake of the Ku Klux Klan.
Like this.
- Then we both know we hate...
- We both know we hate black people.
- Why is that chant still used? Like, how...
- Because everyone in Atlanta's fucking racist.
Oh.
- That whole, like, "red skin" thing.
- That's like saying only white people
can celebrate St. Patrick's Day.
- Your black ass celebrates St. Patrick's Day?
- Yeah. - Yeah, no.
There shouldn't be any holiday
that's just, like, for one race, right?
- Yeah, no, not at all. - Well, yeah, Kwanzaa.
Yeah, Kwanzaa, yeah.
- You fuckers cannot celebrate Kwanzaa.
- Hello!
Hello.
Today, we're gonna talk about the KKK
and the guy who took them down, Superman.
Stetson Kennedy, he's just a regular Southern guy
who's working as a door-to-door salesman
in Georgia, and he thinks to himself,
how can one guy make a difference?
Stetson Kennedy made the decision,
I am going to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan,
learn their secrets, and expose them.
So he goes to a bar that he knew was populated with Klansmen,
and this guy walks up to him, and he says, hey, how you doing?
I'm Slim.
And Stetson Kennedy... He's playing coy at this time...
He's like, oh, hi.
You know, they chat at the bar, and then eventually,
it comes around to talk of the KKK,
and Slim says, well, you know,
I'm a member of the Ku Klux Klan.
And Stetson's like, oh, really?
And the guy says, yeah.
If you're like-minded,
then we might have a place for you in our organization.
And so Stetson Kennedy's like, all right,
I'm gonna go do this.
They pick him up one night,
they drag him out to his final swearing-in ceremony.
So the Klan was all like... The Klan's all like,
ooh, this is all super-secret, and if you do this,
then you hold your hand up like this,
and then you put your hand over your heart,
and then you hold your hand out like this,
and then you wave twice, and then you say,
"I believe in the tenets of the Klan."
He becomes a full-fledged member of the Klan.
Stetson Kennedy discovered the childish, dumb shit
that these guys would do.
They were dumb secrets,
like, we're meeting at the Klavern at midnight.
It was secrets that little kids would have if they had a fort.
It was like, no girls allowed in the "Klan-klave."
Like, the "Klan-klave"?
This is the "Klan-klave," and...
Can we do the handshake? Do you want to do the handshake?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Okay.
This is... this is the handshake of the Ku Klux Klan.
It's a left-handed, limp-wristed...
- Limp, okay. - Limp-wristed, like this.
- Then we both know we hate...
- We both know we hate black people.
So...
I'm gonna lay on the floor,
but I'm gonna be focused, I promise.
Can you hear me? - Mm-hmm.
- Do you mind if I lay right here?
Stetson Kennedy, he's walking down the street one day
and sees a couple of kids playing spy, and he thinks,
oh, my god, these spy games
that these little kids are playing
look remarkably similar to the way that the Ku Klux Klan
actually deals with life and the world around them.
Stetson Kennedy found
the people that were in charge of the Superman radio show,
and he said, I know the secrets
of the Ku Klux Klan.
What do you guys think about a series of episodes
where Superman takes down the Klan?
I'm your guy.
And the people at Superman said...
sure.
Careful, Jimmy, don't touch that fiery cross.
Ah, shucks, Mr. Kent, whatever you say.
I don't fucking know.
- How 'bout a little bit of fruit, Mark?
- Uh-huh.
- Hey, this is... This is cantaloupe.
You want to put that in your mouth?
- Uh-huh. - Or...
- What did I just put in my mouth?
- That was cantaloupe. - I like cantaloupe.
- Okay. This is pineapple.
Do you like pineapple?
- I like pineapple.
For ten episodes of the Superman radio show,
Superman fought the KKK.
Up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane.
No, it's Superman!
Superman, battling valiantly
against the Clan of the Fiery Cross.
Jimmy Olsen, protected by the power of Superman
and his mighty might.
I don't fucking know.
- Careful, Jimmy, don't touch that fiery cross.
Ah, shucks, Mr. Kent, whatever you say.
There was no YouTube, there was no podcasts.
Everybody listened to the radio.
As this was happening,
Stetson Kennedy would call them and say,
here are the new passwords that the KKK are using this week.
The codeword was "Anglo."
The password was "American."
The next week on the Superman show,
Superman would show up and say, "Anglo."
And one of the bad guys would respond with, "American."
The kids of the Klansmen were playing Superman
against the KKK.
Following the broadcast of the Superman episodes,
one of the heads of the Klavern said to the leader,
sir, I cannot, in good conscience,
continue as a member of this Klavern
when my own children are poking fun
at the Clan of the Fiery Cross.
- Bless you. - Thank you.
When Stetson Kennedy had taken the secrets of the KKK
and made them public knowledge...
- Bless you. - Thank you.
- Thanks to Stetson Kennedy, the Klan was defeated.
And, in so many words,
fucking stupid.
- 12 months.
- I can't... I'm so sorry. Let's go again.
I can't look at him. I just can't look at him.
I'm sorry.