December 28, 2025 • 27 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, every Sunday, Our American Stories host Lee Habeeb speaks with Mitchel "Big Mitch" Rutledge, who has spent more than forty years serving a life sentence in Alabama. Each call traces the shape of faith, regret, and forgiveness inside a place built for punishment.
This time, Mitch revisits the uncertain two weeks between his sentencing hearing and the judge's final decision. That stretch of time pulled a lot into focus, and eventually led him to write "A World Within a World," a poem about growing up locked away from the life most people take for granted. He also talks about death row: the silence, the rituals, and the men who disappeared one by one. The episode closes with "Disdain," a piece about resisting the slow pull toward bitterness when hope feels out of reach.
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.
This next story is about a friend of mine. We're
close in age, but have little else in common. Mitchell
Rutledge aka Big Mitch, was born black and poor in Georgia.
I was born kind of brown and middle class in
New Jersey. He never met his father. I still talk
(00:33):
to my ninety four year old father every week. He
dropped out of high school in his early teens and
was illiterate into his early twenties. I was surrounded by
books growing up and finished graduate school in my early thirties.
Big Mitch spent the last forty four years of his
life in Alabama prisons for killing a man. But this
(00:55):
is not a story about an innocent man sentenced to
prison for a crime he didn't commit. Big Mitch never
denied the crime or made excuses for it. This is
the story of my friend's spiritual transformation while serving his
life sentence. It's also about a friendship. Only God could
(01:15):
have engineered a friendship that began with a single Sunday
morning call. Through these weekly conversations, I hope you come
to know and love him as much as I do.
Here's episode ten. Our conversation on March seventeenth, twenty twenty four,
where Mitch begins by describing his final chance at getting
off death row, illustrating what it was like to sit
(01:39):
and wait as the fate of his life hung in
the balance.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
This is a free call from an.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Incarcerated individual at Alabama Department of Corrections.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
To accept this pre call.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Press one to refuse this pre call, press too.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Thank you for using securis. Start the conversation. Now, I
was going back to be sentenced the third time.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
The first two.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Times I was the sentence to death. The third time
I go back, My lord, you tell me, said we'll Mitchell.
The district Attorney's now gonna make any mistakes this time.
It's the last time. He said, they put you back
on death row. This time said, well it's over with.
He was just being honest with me. So I went
in with that understanding, and if I went back on
(02:31):
death row this time, that I was down on death
rod because I had been on death road. He sentenced
me to death and eighty one. Then I get a
new sentence in here in in eighty five and doing
the closing arguments, the district attorney made him proper statement,
and the Alabama Supreme Court gave me another sentence in
(02:52):
the here and decided whether I should receive the death
penaty of life for that parole. And during that particular trial,
the jury came back and recommended life with that parole. However,
the judge explained to me, and my lawyer said, well,
(03:13):
the jury recommended life with that parole, but I had
a final sense though, so I'm gonna make my decision
in two weeks.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
So what they did.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
They took me in, put me in a four man
seve block. I stayed in there two weeks, and the
only thing I could hear now the whole two weeks
was shower dripping, you know, And so I had my
Bible with me, didn't have anything else. I was trying
to get a TV, you know, something occupy the time.
(03:44):
They give me something to think about while waiting to
be resenting. So anyway, while I sitting in there, I
sitting there one day and I'm just looking out the
window because I have nothing to do. I shot down
and I said, wow. I said, I'm I'm in this world,
(04:05):
but in actuality, you know, I never really.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Lived in this world.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It sounds crazy, but It's true in the sense that
I never really had any experience outside of just being
in you know, in prison, the neighborhood. That's it, job,
go whatever. So I really don't know. So I said, well,
(04:35):
I'm in prison within a world. In this world. It's
a whole different world right here. So I said, I'm
in prison within the world, within the world.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
So what I did.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I sat down and I wrote this poem, and here
it go. As I sit within my world watching life
go on, I see life as it really is. How
because time has stood still for me. As I sit
(05:06):
in my window within my world watching life. Life is
not unkind, noring, is it kind? Life is what man
have made of it. Man have changed life into a game,
or they cruel and other game man have created. As
(05:26):
I sit and watch it, my heart becomes sad, my
mind confused. My eyes cried because of what they see.
My ears ache because of the pain they hear. My
voice years i've stop, stop, but no one hears me.
(05:46):
My hands reach out to all, but no one cares
to take them. My leg and feet walk the trouble
rows with you, but you refuse to acknowledge me. My
body hungers for your love, or no love I'll received.
It could be said it is I who sits and
(06:09):
waits within your world, but within your prism, within your world,
because I were completed by man's game. Now I sit
and wait, waiting for the game to end, so that
each one of us can live as life was meant
to be lived for those who come from end, get
(06:32):
it be seend. I sit and wait.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And you've been listening to Big Mitch Rutledge, and my goodness,
what insights, what profound insights. I'm in this world, he said,
But in actuality, you know, I've never really lived in
this world. And that sounds crazy, but it's true. I
never really had an experience outside of just being in prison.
(06:57):
And then of course that remarkable poem. There's so much
much remarkable poetry coming from this man, and hearing him
read it is just special. Having listened to it many
many months later, when we come back more of Sunday
Mornings with Big Mitch here on our American Stories, Lee
(07:29):
Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe
to our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed
or want to hear again can be found there daily again.
Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts,
(07:50):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming and we
continue with our American Stories in episode ten of Sunday
(08:13):
Mornings with Big Mitch. Getting by on death Row wasn't easy,
but it was even harder to see someone Mitch new
and someone Mitch grew close to, finally faced the consequences
of their actions. Here, Mitch Schaer is a bit about
the first man he would see executed during his time
on Death Row.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
John. I got to know him who they executed him.
He was one of the guys that we needed someone
out there on the hallway to represent us, you know,
if a guy seeking to say, uh, if a guy
needed this and needed it, because the officers really didn't
have the time to just you know, to come on
(08:56):
the tears and do the things that need to be done.
So we had to really he's like, you know, protest
to get someone out there. So, uh, John, he agreed
to come out there, and Uh, I really didn't know him.
I knew that he lived downstairs, and I knew of him,
but I never really got to know him until he
got out there and started working outside on the hallways
(09:20):
for us.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
And uh at this time.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I was staying in seven U two I think, and
when when he come upstairs, he had one sailing and myself.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
So I'm always in there.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Pretty much exercising or whatever. Stay. I was shadow boxing
and I do not know how to box, but I
was just shadow boxing as part of exercise, and he
was stopping shadow boxing and I was asking him, Hey, man,
what's up? And he would repeat that thing to me,
you know, and eventually we were uh, he stopped asking me.
(09:53):
One day he said, Man, can you box? I said, no,
I can't box, man, and uh so he said I
thought that, He said, I figured you couldn't bout us,
you know. So we started communicating with each other and
so from now we got to talking about.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
A lot of things were going on.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You know, we got to be pretty cool. So the
first time for all of us that execution is going
to take place. Everybody up there for the same thing,
but this is the first one that we have experienced.
The guys that was up there with me, and it
was like a year a Philly, you know, and so
(10:32):
on Mondays, because the execution was taken out on like
Thursday nights. So when we heard about it, you know,
the Supreme Coast after nine, it's appeal and they sat
a date for the execution. So it's all your five
for appeals. So we had understanding that he was fighting
(10:55):
for it. But eventually it came down to the point
where the week is come, you know, the deadline is
coming up. So that week before your deadline, they moved
you out of your regular sale on Mondays. They come
and get you on Monday, Monday morning or sometime on Mondays,
and they put you in the depth cell. And uh, well,
(11:18):
they put you in the death cell. Then you don't
see the guys anymore.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
We don't see any each other anymore. When they came
and got him Monday and took him to the death cell,
that's that's when the realization of where we was at
and what we was up there came to hit all
of us in the vase. So Wednesday, when they shaved
his head, they'll put you into death cell Monday. Then
(11:45):
they put an officer and right there in front of
your cell to watch you make sure that you know,
you don't try to commit suicide anything. So that Wednesday
when they took him round there to shave his head
and everything, and we we uh it was getting serious.
And that Thursday, like when they executed him.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Now that's when the.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Realization it was so quiet up there that you you
couldn't hear anything. You couldn't hear anything, but you could,
you know by the electy children not being so far
away from you and where we was. You know what
I'm staying. Uh, you you can smell the flesh and uh,
(12:29):
it was uh, it was just for every feeling and
what it did. I think it really just resonated to
everybody up there, Hey, this is what you're up here
for if you don't get off and and and from
that moment, it really just like just put a real,
real bad taste in everybody's mouth. And it taught us,
(12:53):
I would say, about a week or two to really
get over what really just happened, because we interact with
this guy on a daily basis, and now you know,
they killed it, and so all of us is waiting for.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
The same time.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Mitch next talks about the bonds that can form in
the most unlikely of places and the brotherhood that the
man on Mitch's cell blocks share. Here's Mitch on the
bond ze form during his time on death Row.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
We knew everybody was going. We came to the conclusion,
I guess it's like when you're going in the army
and you fight for your country, you go to war,
you know everybody ain't gonna make it out of it.
So we knew everybody. We understood that, we just didn't
know who. But all of us had hosts and believe
that we would be one of the ones that make
(13:46):
it off death Row. But we understood that everybody would
not make it off. And that wasn't necessarily easy thing
to really get sit down and talk about where.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Individual was that you got.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
To know, hey man, some others ain't gonna make it
off here and to have that understanding and agreement. So
what we did we established unique bond amongst each other.
We we we helped each other out if we could.
We uh, we shared with each other with what we had.
(14:20):
Even though there was time when here we'll we'll have
altercations with each other, we would fight each other. That
was time when individuals, you know, at ease and got
a knife and stab one another.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
You know what have you were?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It was still prism, but we had unique And that's
when we say a kinship, you know. We we we
we shared this possibility of the executed. We had that income.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Mitch next shared an original poem of his about maintaining
strength and focus on God to overcome the evil relentlessly
tries to creep into his life.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
It was so much going on in the world, and
you know, and I was, you know, talking to guys
about you know, how we really have to just stay
focus on God and say, focus on our spiritual journey,
you know, and understanding that the enemy is not necessarily
a big trying to creature with horns on the head,
(15:21):
is a spirit that dwells inside of people's And so
I said, we we got to stand strong at this
time in our life in this spiritual warfare. So anyway,
I I written this poem right here called this stand
and uh, this way I started off with it. God
has closed the doors to my inner vision for some time.
(15:46):
It is all his will. However, the door is opened
once more, and the mysteries of life are clearer than ever.
I see the erosion of evil as its truth to
exist as the glory of God comes closer to it,
close in its tombs that will steal it away forever,
(16:10):
as it erodse gay House have begun to.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
March harder to destroy order.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It is mounting on high. It speaks to the Mius
of babies to obtain sympathies. It comes in disguises, in
all our and all our core failures, in order to
deceive us and to believe in the things we know
are wrong. It is standing on the pillars and foundation
(16:39):
of righteousness, preaching lies, but the truth stands and defines
of it all. Actually for the faithful ones to stand
strong at the darkest hour, because morning is only a
glimpse away, and.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
A terrific job by the production editing and storytelling by
our own Greg Hangli and our own Reagan Habib. And
this conversation, well, it just kept getting deeper and more
interesting each week that I proceeded with Big Mitch and
my goodness, that battle between good and evil, and how
we can often see evil just winning with no end
(17:18):
in sight. And here's Big Mitch, locked away in a
cell for forty five years, and he sees things differently.
He sees God in everything, the story of Sunday Mornings
with Big Mitch Episode ten. Here on our American Stories.
(18:10):
This is our American Stories. And up next, Joey Cortez
brings you a story about a fictional character we all
know and love, Superman and how he would team up
with the real life undercover agent to take down a
truly vicious villain.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Over the years, Superman has fought many villains, including the KKK.
Rick Bauers brings us the story of how the hero
not only fought this villain in the fictional series, but
also in real life. Here's Rick with the backstory.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
The actual Superman character was created by two Jewish kids
in Cleveland in the nineteen thirties. And these two kids
were high school students and they loved science fiction. They
would hold up in their attict studio reading science fiction magazines, books,
(19:07):
they would go to the movies. You know, Kpe heroes
like Zorro were doing great things on the big screen,
and they were taking all of that in and they
started to create their own characters. And they created a
character and a story called the Reign of Superman. But
(19:28):
in that first iteration, Superman was bad. He was an
evil scientist, doing horrid experiments on homeless men during the depression,
and he had no real superpowers, he was just super evil.
So they were creating some interesting characters, but there was
(19:48):
always something about that character, that original Superman, that not
quite right. So they put that on a shelf and
let it incubate, and as Superman lore goes, one night,
Jerry Siegel, one of these two young men who were
struggling to get through the depression, find work and make
(20:12):
it in the field of comic art, had an epiphany,
we have it backwards. What the world really needs is
a good Superman. And that epiphany and the character that
evolved from it came just as publishers in New York
City were developing the first comic books, and the first
(20:36):
comic books were actually compilations of newspaper strips Little or
Fan Annie Popeye, and those newspaper strips would be put
in books and sold for a dime of peace. But
after the supply of newspaper strips had been exhausted, these
(20:56):
publishers needed original content, and one publisher recalled this set
of drawings that these kids from Cleveland had said with
this character called Superman, and they were in a Pinch
to launch a comic book called Action Comics. So they
hired Jerry Siegal and Joe Schuster to put together thirteen
(21:21):
pages of Superman stories for the original edition of Action Comics,
And before anyone really knew what happened, hundreds of thousands
of those comic books had been sold, and the character
(21:41):
that we all now know as Superman was born.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Boys and girls, your attention, please presenting a new exciting
radio program in.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
The nineteen forties, The Adventures of Superman on the Air
was created.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Master than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious
to bullets.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Up at the sky.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Look it's a bert, it's a pinman.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And a creative writer and producer named Bob Maxwell transformed
Superman into a radio show from the Mutual Broadcasting System
in New York where actors, it sound effects people would
create a radio program three times a week where Superman
(22:36):
took on mad scientists and crime gangs and evil spectral beings.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And it became a hit.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
So Superman was now in comic books, He was a
strip in newspapers, he was a serial in the movie theaters,
and he was reaching four million households three times a
week through the radio. As World War two comes, the
(23:11):
creators use him more as a weapon against America's enemies.
So he's taking on Nazi spies, he's taking on German generals,
and in one case, he actually took on Hitler and
grabbed him by the scruff and carried him off to
(23:35):
an international tribunal to be tried for war crimes. So
Superman has become a meaningful character in certain ways. And
as the war ended and as times changed, the creators
(23:56):
of the radio program asked a very perplexing question, what
do we do now? It seemed like the crime bosses
and evil scientists had run their course. The war was over,
so Hitler was no longer a target. But there was
(24:17):
something happening here at home that got their attention. The
Ku Klux Klan was attempting a revival. Six million Jews
had just been killed in Nazi concentration camps, and here
we have people in our own backyard who are preaching
(24:39):
a similar philosophy and who believed that this postwar era
can belong to them, That we can bring americaslong to
the Klan's philosophy, and we can create an organization with
millions of members so these two forces are very different.
(25:04):
One is a fictional character on the radio in comic books,
and one is an actual real world organization that is
actually carrying out atrocious acts against its enemies, who would
(25:24):
know that one day they would collide. While all this
was happening, a young man named Stetson Kennedy was growing
up in Jacksonville, Florida. Even at the age of twelve,
he was extremely uncomfortable with the perverse and pervasive racism
(25:50):
of the time. Through the streets of Jacksonville, plans been marched,
some on horseback, dressed in robes and hoods, and at
first he thought that this was kind of a club
for grown ups and they got to dress up in
costumes every day of the year anytime they wanted to.
But he later learned that this was actually a group
(26:14):
that quote took care of people in Colortown, which means
they imposed their will on black citizens. And it was
when the African American made in their house was attacked
by the clan for answering back a streetcar operator who
(26:36):
refused to give her the proper change. She was brought home,
bloodied and beaten that he realized what the real plan
was all about and this young man, obviously being out
of step with much of the culture of his time,
decided at that point that his life would be dedicated
(27:01):
to fighting this kind of hate.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And we've been listening to Rick Bowers and he's the
author of Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan, the true
story of how the iconic superhero battled the men of hate.
When we come back, more of this remarkable story on
our American Story
This is Lee Habib, and this is our American stories.
This next story is about a friend of mine. We're
close in age, but have little else in common. Mitchell
Rutledge aka Big Mitch, was born black and poor in Georgia.
I was born kind of brown and middle class in
New Jersey. He never met his father. I still talk
(00:33):
to my ninety four year old father every week. He
dropped out of high school in his early teens and
was illiterate into his early twenties. I was surrounded by
books growing up and finished graduate school in my early thirties.
Big Mitch spent the last forty four years of his
life in Alabama prisons for killing a man. But this
(00:55):
is not a story about an innocent man sentenced to
prison for a crime he didn't commit. Big Mitch never
denied the crime or made excuses for it. This is
the story of my friend's spiritual transformation while serving his
life sentence. It's also about a friendship. Only God could
(01:15):
have engineered a friendship that began with a single Sunday
morning call. Through these weekly conversations, I hope you come
to know and love him as much as I do.
Here's episode ten. Our conversation on March seventeenth, twenty twenty four,
where Mitch begins by describing his final chance at getting
off death row, illustrating what it was like to sit
(01:39):
and wait as the fate of his life hung in
the balance.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
This is a free call from an.
Speaker 3 (01:48):
Incarcerated individual at Alabama Department of Corrections.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
To accept this pre call.
Speaker 4 (01:54):
Press one to refuse this pre call, press too.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Thank you for using securis. Start the conversation. Now, I
was going back to be sentenced the third time.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
The first two.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Times I was the sentence to death. The third time
I go back, My lord, you tell me, said we'll Mitchell.
The district Attorney's now gonna make any mistakes this time.
It's the last time. He said, they put you back
on death row. This time said, well it's over with.
He was just being honest with me. So I went
in with that understanding, and if I went back on
(02:31):
death row this time, that I was down on death
rod because I had been on death road. He sentenced
me to death and eighty one. Then I get a
new sentence in here in in eighty five and doing
the closing arguments, the district attorney made him proper statement,
and the Alabama Supreme Court gave me another sentence in
(02:52):
the here and decided whether I should receive the death
penaty of life for that parole. And during that particular trial,
the jury came back and recommended life with that parole. However,
the judge explained to me, and my lawyer said, well,
(03:13):
the jury recommended life with that parole, but I had
a final sense though, so I'm gonna make my decision
in two weeks.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
So what they did.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
They took me in, put me in a four man
seve block. I stayed in there two weeks, and the
only thing I could hear now the whole two weeks
was shower dripping, you know, And so I had my
Bible with me, didn't have anything else. I was trying
to get a TV, you know, something occupy the time.
(03:44):
They give me something to think about while waiting to
be resenting. So anyway, while I sitting in there, I
sitting there one day and I'm just looking out the
window because I have nothing to do. I shot down
and I said, wow. I said, I'm I'm in this world,
(04:05):
but in actuality, you know, I never really.
Speaker 5 (04:10):
Lived in this world.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
It sounds crazy, but It's true in the sense that
I never really had any experience outside of just being
in you know, in prison, the neighborhood. That's it, job,
go whatever. So I really don't know. So I said, well,
(04:35):
I'm in prison within a world. In this world. It's
a whole different world right here. So I said, I'm
in prison within the world, within the world.
Speaker 5 (04:45):
So what I did.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
I sat down and I wrote this poem, and here
it go. As I sit within my world watching life
go on, I see life as it really is. How
because time has stood still for me. As I sit
(05:06):
in my window within my world watching life. Life is
not unkind, noring, is it kind? Life is what man
have made of it. Man have changed life into a game,
or they cruel and other game man have created. As
(05:26):
I sit and watch it, my heart becomes sad, my
mind confused. My eyes cried because of what they see.
My ears ache because of the pain they hear. My
voice years i've stop, stop, but no one hears me.
(05:46):
My hands reach out to all, but no one cares
to take them. My leg and feet walk the trouble
rows with you, but you refuse to acknowledge me. My
body hungers for your love, or no love I'll received.
It could be said it is I who sits and
(06:09):
waits within your world, but within your prism, within your world,
because I were completed by man's game. Now I sit
and wait, waiting for the game to end, so that
each one of us can live as life was meant
to be lived for those who come from end, get
(06:32):
it be seend. I sit and wait.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
And you've been listening to Big Mitch Rutledge, and my goodness,
what insights, what profound insights. I'm in this world, he said,
But in actuality, you know, I've never really lived in
this world. And that sounds crazy, but it's true. I
never really had an experience outside of just being in prison.
(06:57):
And then of course that remarkable poem. There's so much
much remarkable poetry coming from this man, and hearing him
read it is just special. Having listened to it many
many months later, when we come back more of Sunday
Mornings with Big Mitch here on our American Stories, Lee
(07:29):
Habib here, and I'd like to encourage you to subscribe
to our American Stories on Apple Podcasts, the iHeartRadio app, Spotify,
or wherever you get our podcasts. Any story you missed
or want to hear again can be found there daily again.
Please subscribe to the Our American Stories podcast on Apple Podcasts,
(07:50):
the iHeartRadio app, or anywhere you get your podcasts. It
helps us keep these great American stories coming and we
continue with our American Stories in episode ten of Sunday
(08:13):
Mornings with Big Mitch. Getting by on death Row wasn't easy,
but it was even harder to see someone Mitch new
and someone Mitch grew close to, finally faced the consequences
of their actions. Here, Mitch Schaer is a bit about
the first man he would see executed during his time
on Death Row.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
John. I got to know him who they executed him.
He was one of the guys that we needed someone
out there on the hallway to represent us, you know,
if a guy seeking to say, uh, if a guy
needed this and needed it, because the officers really didn't
have the time to just you know, to come on
(08:56):
the tears and do the things that need to be done.
So we had to really he's like, you know, protest
to get someone out there. So, uh, John, he agreed
to come out there, and Uh, I really didn't know him.
I knew that he lived downstairs, and I knew of him,
but I never really got to know him until he
got out there and started working outside on the hallways
(09:20):
for us.
Speaker 5 (09:20):
And uh at this time.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
I was staying in seven U two I think, and
when when he come upstairs, he had one sailing and myself.
Speaker 5 (09:30):
So I'm always in there.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Pretty much exercising or whatever. Stay. I was shadow boxing
and I do not know how to box, but I
was just shadow boxing as part of exercise, and he
was stopping shadow boxing and I was asking him, Hey, man,
what's up? And he would repeat that thing to me,
you know, and eventually we were uh, he stopped asking me.
(09:53):
One day he said, Man, can you box? I said, no,
I can't box, man, and uh so he said I
thought that, He said, I figured you couldn't bout us,
you know. So we started communicating with each other and
so from now we got to talking about.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
A lot of things were going on.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
You know, we got to be pretty cool. So the
first time for all of us that execution is going
to take place. Everybody up there for the same thing,
but this is the first one that we have experienced.
The guys that was up there with me, and it
was like a year a Philly, you know, and so
(10:32):
on Mondays, because the execution was taken out on like
Thursday nights. So when we heard about it, you know,
the Supreme Coast after nine, it's appeal and they sat
a date for the execution. So it's all your five
for appeals. So we had understanding that he was fighting
(10:55):
for it. But eventually it came down to the point
where the week is come, you know, the deadline is
coming up. So that week before your deadline, they moved
you out of your regular sale on Mondays. They come
and get you on Monday, Monday morning or sometime on Mondays,
and they put you in the depth cell. And uh, well,
(11:18):
they put you in the death cell. Then you don't
see the guys anymore.
Speaker 5 (11:22):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
We don't see any each other anymore. When they came
and got him Monday and took him to the death cell,
that's that's when the realization of where we was at
and what we was up there came to hit all
of us in the vase. So Wednesday, when they shaved
his head, they'll put you into death cell Monday. Then
(11:45):
they put an officer and right there in front of
your cell to watch you make sure that you know,
you don't try to commit suicide anything. So that Wednesday
when they took him round there to shave his head
and everything, and we we uh it was getting serious.
And that Thursday, like when they executed him.
Speaker 5 (12:06):
Now that's when the.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
Realization it was so quiet up there that you you
couldn't hear anything. You couldn't hear anything, but you could,
you know by the electy children not being so far
away from you and where we was. You know what
I'm staying. Uh, you you can smell the flesh and uh,
(12:29):
it was uh, it was just for every feeling and
what it did. I think it really just resonated to
everybody up there, Hey, this is what you're up here
for if you don't get off and and and from
that moment, it really just like just put a real,
real bad taste in everybody's mouth. And it taught us,
(12:53):
I would say, about a week or two to really
get over what really just happened, because we interact with
this guy on a daily basis, and now you know,
they killed it, and so all of us is waiting for.
Speaker 5 (13:07):
The same time.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Mitch next talks about the bonds that can form in
the most unlikely of places and the brotherhood that the
man on Mitch's cell blocks share. Here's Mitch on the
bond ze form during his time on death Row.
Speaker 2 (13:23):
We knew everybody was going. We came to the conclusion,
I guess it's like when you're going in the army
and you fight for your country, you go to war,
you know everybody ain't gonna make it out of it.
So we knew everybody. We understood that, we just didn't
know who. But all of us had hosts and believe
that we would be one of the ones that make
(13:46):
it off death Row. But we understood that everybody would
not make it off. And that wasn't necessarily easy thing
to really get sit down and talk about where.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Individual was that you got.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
To know, hey man, some others ain't gonna make it
off here and to have that understanding and agreement. So
what we did we established unique bond amongst each other.
We we we helped each other out if we could.
We uh, we shared with each other with what we had.
(14:20):
Even though there was time when here we'll we'll have
altercations with each other, we would fight each other. That
was time when individuals, you know, at ease and got
a knife and stab one another.
Speaker 5 (14:32):
You know what have you were?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
It was still prism, but we had unique And that's
when we say a kinship, you know. We we we
we shared this possibility of the executed. We had that income.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Mitch next shared an original poem of his about maintaining
strength and focus on God to overcome the evil relentlessly
tries to creep into his life.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
It was so much going on in the world, and
you know, and I was, you know, talking to guys
about you know, how we really have to just stay
focus on God and say, focus on our spiritual journey,
you know, and understanding that the enemy is not necessarily
a big trying to creature with horns on the head,
(15:21):
is a spirit that dwells inside of people's And so
I said, we we got to stand strong at this
time in our life in this spiritual warfare. So anyway,
I I written this poem right here called this stand
and uh, this way I started off with it. God
has closed the doors to my inner vision for some time.
(15:46):
It is all his will. However, the door is opened
once more, and the mysteries of life are clearer than ever.
I see the erosion of evil as its truth to
exist as the glory of God comes closer to it,
close in its tombs that will steal it away forever,
(16:10):
as it erodse gay House have begun to.
Speaker 5 (16:14):
March harder to destroy order.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
It is mounting on high. It speaks to the Mius
of babies to obtain sympathies. It comes in disguises, in
all our and all our core failures, in order to
deceive us and to believe in the things we know
are wrong. It is standing on the pillars and foundation
(16:39):
of righteousness, preaching lies, but the truth stands and defines
of it all. Actually for the faithful ones to stand
strong at the darkest hour, because morning is only a
glimpse away, and.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
A terrific job by the production editing and storytelling by
our own Greg Hangli and our own Reagan Habib. And
this conversation, well, it just kept getting deeper and more
interesting each week that I proceeded with Big Mitch and
my goodness, that battle between good and evil, and how
we can often see evil just winning with no end
(17:18):
in sight. And here's Big Mitch, locked away in a
cell for forty five years, and he sees things differently.
He sees God in everything, the story of Sunday Mornings
with Big Mitch Episode ten. Here on our American Stories.
(18:10):
This is our American Stories. And up next, Joey Cortez
brings you a story about a fictional character we all
know and love, Superman and how he would team up
with the real life undercover agent to take down a
truly vicious villain.
Speaker 6 (18:28):
Over the years, Superman has fought many villains, including the KKK.
Rick Bauers brings us the story of how the hero
not only fought this villain in the fictional series, but
also in real life. Here's Rick with the backstory.
Speaker 4 (18:46):
The actual Superman character was created by two Jewish kids
in Cleveland in the nineteen thirties. And these two kids
were high school students and they loved science fiction. They
would hold up in their attict studio reading science fiction magazines, books,
(19:07):
they would go to the movies. You know, Kpe heroes
like Zorro were doing great things on the big screen,
and they were taking all of that in and they
started to create their own characters. And they created a
character and a story called the Reign of Superman. But
(19:28):
in that first iteration, Superman was bad. He was an
evil scientist, doing horrid experiments on homeless men during the depression,
and he had no real superpowers, he was just super evil.
So they were creating some interesting characters, but there was
(19:48):
always something about that character, that original Superman, that not
quite right. So they put that on a shelf and
let it incubate, and as Superman lore goes, one night,
Jerry Siegel, one of these two young men who were
struggling to get through the depression, find work and make
(20:12):
it in the field of comic art, had an epiphany,
we have it backwards. What the world really needs is
a good Superman. And that epiphany and the character that
evolved from it came just as publishers in New York
City were developing the first comic books, and the first
(20:36):
comic books were actually compilations of newspaper strips Little or
Fan Annie Popeye, and those newspaper strips would be put
in books and sold for a dime of peace. But
after the supply of newspaper strips had been exhausted, these
(20:56):
publishers needed original content, and one publisher recalled this set
of drawings that these kids from Cleveland had said with
this character called Superman, and they were in a Pinch
to launch a comic book called Action Comics. So they
hired Jerry Siegal and Joe Schuster to put together thirteen
(21:21):
pages of Superman stories for the original edition of Action Comics,
And before anyone really knew what happened, hundreds of thousands
of those comic books had been sold, and the character
(21:41):
that we all now know as Superman was born.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
Boys and girls, your attention, please presenting a new exciting
radio program in.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
The nineteen forties, The Adventures of Superman on the Air
was created.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Master than an airplane, more powerful than a locomotive, impervious
to bullets.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Up at the sky.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
Look it's a bert, it's a pinman.
Speaker 4 (22:09):
And a creative writer and producer named Bob Maxwell transformed
Superman into a radio show from the Mutual Broadcasting System
in New York where actors, it sound effects people would
create a radio program three times a week where Superman
(22:36):
took on mad scientists and crime gangs and evil spectral beings.
Speaker 5 (22:46):
And it became a hit.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
So Superman was now in comic books, He was a
strip in newspapers, he was a serial in the movie theaters,
and he was reaching four million households three times a
week through the radio. As World War two comes, the
(23:11):
creators use him more as a weapon against America's enemies.
So he's taking on Nazi spies, he's taking on German generals,
and in one case, he actually took on Hitler and
grabbed him by the scruff and carried him off to
(23:35):
an international tribunal to be tried for war crimes. So
Superman has become a meaningful character in certain ways. And
as the war ended and as times changed, the creators
(23:56):
of the radio program asked a very perplexing question, what
do we do now? It seemed like the crime bosses
and evil scientists had run their course. The war was over,
so Hitler was no longer a target. But there was
(24:17):
something happening here at home that got their attention. The
Ku Klux Klan was attempting a revival. Six million Jews
had just been killed in Nazi concentration camps, and here
we have people in our own backyard who are preaching
(24:39):
a similar philosophy and who believed that this postwar era
can belong to them, That we can bring americaslong to
the Klan's philosophy, and we can create an organization with
millions of members so these two forces are very different.
(25:04):
One is a fictional character on the radio in comic books,
and one is an actual real world organization that is
actually carrying out atrocious acts against its enemies, who would
(25:24):
know that one day they would collide. While all this
was happening, a young man named Stetson Kennedy was growing
up in Jacksonville, Florida. Even at the age of twelve,
he was extremely uncomfortable with the perverse and pervasive racism
(25:50):
of the time. Through the streets of Jacksonville, plans been marched,
some on horseback, dressed in robes and hoods, and at
first he thought that this was kind of a club
for grown ups and they got to dress up in
costumes every day of the year anytime they wanted to.
But he later learned that this was actually a group
(26:14):
that quote took care of people in Colortown, which means
they imposed their will on black citizens. And it was
when the African American made in their house was attacked
by the clan for answering back a streetcar operator who
(26:36):
refused to give her the proper change. She was brought home,
bloodied and beaten that he realized what the real plan
was all about and this young man, obviously being out
of step with much of the culture of his time,
decided at that point that his life would be dedicated
(27:01):
to fighting this kind of hate.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
And we've been listening to Rick Bowers and he's the
author of Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan, the true
story of how the iconic superhero battled the men of hate.
When we come back, more of this remarkable story on
our American Story
Host
Lee Habeeb
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