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OJ Simpson: Heisman winner, Actor, NFL Hall Of Famer, Role Model, Murderer?
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00:00I'm not too black. O.J. got to a point where he began to believe the hype.
00:06His sentiment was that I'm not black, I'm O.J.
00:16From the 1960s to the 1990s, as American race relations were transformed,
00:23O.J. Simpson stood as a unifying symbol to Americans of all races.
00:27To white America, he seemed to embody the possibility of a country free of racial hostility.
00:34For black Americans, Simpson's visibility and accomplishments offered hope and inspiration.
00:41But in 1995, when O.J. Simpson was acquitted of double murder,
00:46America's ancient racial fault lines rose quickly to the surface.
00:51Most white Americans reacted to the verdict with shock and outrage, even with a sense of betrayal.
00:57Many African Americans cheered Simpson's release from a system they saw as fundamentally unjust.
01:04In that painful instant, the veil was lifted on the vast gulf that remains between blacks and whites.
01:18He had loomed large on the American cultural landscape for more than three decades.
01:24But from his meteoric rise, with his spectacular fall, the story of O.J. Simpson goes to the heart of the racial divide in America.
01:34While O.J.'s journey took on unique dimensions, it began grounded in the black experience in America.
01:45His parents, Jimmy Lee and Eunice, left Louisiana for San Francisco in 1944.
01:50The Simpsons, like thousands of others, hoped California would offer an escape from Jim Crow in the Deep South and the racial caste system of the North.
02:00The black people who migrated to California, like O.J.'s parents, had a very different sense of assimilation and what it meant to be successful than those people who had gone up north to work in these industrial jobs.
02:15And so in that way, even though we're talking about somebody who, you know, was born and raised in the projects, we're talking about somebody who was born and raised with a very different sensibility than, you know, the large numbers of black people who had gone north or the industrial revolution.
02:31The Potrero Hill District, the Potrero Hill District, the Simpsons called home, was a tough neighborhood, and Orenthal James was a tough kid.
02:40Outgoing and aggressive, he cut school and fell in with a teenage gang.
02:45By the time he was 15 years old, he'd already been arrested for stealing and done time in juvenile detention.
02:52But when his mother engineered his admission to a high school far away from Potrero Hill, Orenthal found his calling on the football field.
02:59Despite the mediocre performance of his team, he attracted enough notice to be named All-City.
03:06And after graduating toward the bottom of his class, Simpson entered a local junior college in 1965.
03:13Orenthal James Simpson came of age in San Francisco as the city around him came into its own as a nerve center for social dissent.
03:21Flower Power was in full bloom.
03:23And just across the bay, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale were starting something called the Black Panther Party.
03:38It wasn't the growing black power movement, but football that captured Simpson's imagination.
03:43From the start of his junior college career, it was clear that Simpson would leave his mark on the game.
03:49In his first season, he scored 26 touchdowns, a national junior college record.
03:54I went and saw him play in junior college.
03:58I'll never forget one play, they threw him kind of a swing pass.
04:02He caught the ball kind of with one hand, had great big hands.
04:05Caught the ball, started up the field.
04:09Some guy hit him from the back.
04:11He's got a guy on his back, a guy on his leg.
04:14And he keeps on going for about another 10, 12 yards.
04:17By this time, there were about five guys on him.
04:19And I said, well, this guy is an unbelievably strong man.
04:24It wasn't hard to tell he was the guy we wanted, you know.
04:27Wealthy, conservative, and overwhelmingly white,
04:31the University of Southern California was located on the edge of one of Los Angeles' black neighborhoods.
04:37Along with the rest of the city, USC had been rocked in 1965 by the Watts riots.
04:42It was the first, and one of the deadliest, in a wave of outrage and destruction that swept cities around the country.
04:51When Simpson entered USC in 1967, what one writer called his colossal likability
04:57may have dampened any anxiety aroused by his presence on campus.
05:02But even with his finely tuned social skills, O.J. was not prepared for the culture of privilege he found at USC.
05:10I think I would have been, and the average black, would have been just as uncomfortable
05:18walking on that campus at USC as I would at the University of Mississippi.
05:23Simpson was not entirely alone.
05:26Months after he transferred to USC, Simpson married his high school sweetheart, Marguerite Whitley.
05:32Marguerite's clean, good looks matched O.J.'s.
05:35But by temperament, she was shy and private.
05:38Everything Simpson wasn't.
05:40The demands of his career and the trappings of fame would in time come between them.
05:45But a stable home eased Simpson's transition to the pressure cooker of major college sports.
05:51On the field, Simpson was spectacular.
05:54In the Trojans' 1967 season, it took him only seven games to rush a thousand yards.
06:00Pro scouts pronounced O.J. Simpson the finest combination of speed and power they had ever seen.
06:05We never had a star like him.
06:10And he had that quality of getting everybody behind him.
06:18He was a real hero in the city.
06:20I think he'd be his shell.
06:22I liked him.
06:24With the help of talented black players that USC had historically ignored, coach John McKay made the Trojans into a football powerhouse.
06:32The changing face of the USC team also helped satisfy a craving for recognition.
06:38John McKay didn't live long after this.
06:40In black neighborhoods in Los Angeles and around the country.
06:44I think under Johnny McKay, USC really endeared itself with the black community.
06:56I mean, you know, they were stars.
06:59They weren't just bench warmers.
07:00I mean, you get the Willie Browns and blacks start going to see an SC play there.
07:04USC, we had a lot of success.
07:08O.J. was a big part of that success.
07:11This is the first time West Coast football had been big nationally, and he was the catalyst for it.
07:17It was, you know, a hero to look at.
07:19I think the black community was looked up to him immensely.
07:25Simpson appealed to white Los Angeles, too.
07:27L.A. was known as the city of dreams, where anything was possible and anyone could be made anew.
07:34And if the Watts riots had served notice that all was not well in America, O.J. Simpson offered reassurance, but it wasn't all bad.
07:42Bright, affable, and supremely talented, Simpson arrived on the scene to help convince a shaken Los Angeles that it could leave the troublesome burden of race behind.
07:54It was a land of individual opportunity, so that individuals who excelled were sort of prized.
08:03No, he wasn't O.J. Simpson, the black tailback.
08:08He was O.J. Simpson, period.
08:11The highlight of Simpson's two years at USC came in his first season.
08:24The annual matchup against UCLA was always a highly anticipated game.
08:28But in 1967, with USC led by Simpson and UCLA led by Gary Beban, the two teams were battling for the national championship.
08:38For a few hours at least, the city of Los Angeles and nearly half of all Americans who were watching television could leave the civil rights struggle and the Vietnam War aside and focus on college football.
08:50Since left in the fourth quarter, USC had possession of the ball in its own territory.
08:58So our game plan was not elaborate.
09:04What it was was Simpson left or Simpson right.
09:06Ron Drake is split to the far side.
09:08Nuccolla, number 22, is a wingback to the near side.
09:14They need three yards.
09:17Simpson hit that hole.
09:18Come right to the sideline and down that sideline, and he was really going.
09:25Oh, very friendly.
09:27Very friendly.
09:28That's all he knows.
09:43Here we go.
09:48That's the kind of player he was.
09:52You never knew what he was going to do.
09:55But you know one thing.
09:56He was going to be good.
10:00USC's one-point victory bolstered Simpson's growing celebrity.
10:05Later in the 67th season, he led the Trojans to a Rose Bowl ring and the national championship.
10:10The next year, his team returned to the Rose Bowl, and Simpson won the Heisman Trophy by the widest margin in history.
10:19Simpson's talent made him a star on the field, but his magnetism generated attention far beyond it.
10:25One writer said O.J. could tug at a mother's heart, or make a young girl's eyes light up,
10:35come across well to grown men, and make little boys look up to him with adulation.
10:41He was somebody who could mingle with ease among the financial and business movers and shakers of Southern California
10:55and command a dual level of respect.
11:00Point one, he was a star.
11:02Point two, he was a Trojan.
11:03Simpson eagerly walked through the doors open by the USC network,
11:08doors that had been closed to virtually all black athletes before him.
11:12I can see some of the guys on the team, and I know they're just as happy as I am.
11:16SC is a university which bestows on its graduates a feeling that they're the members of the private club
11:25and that they will be taken care of by other members of the club.
11:30I said, look, I'm going to do so. I'm going to break the precedent here.
11:33I'm going to put you in the movies.
11:36I will pass your name around to the alumni and so forth.
11:39Is there enough for putting him in there?
11:41He was a hit out there.
11:45The coach called. He said you'd started to become a bleeder.
11:48Goes with the trade. Football's a contact sport, you know.
11:51Take care, my boy.
11:52A would-be recruit has to pass five exams to join the department.
11:55I got a question.
11:56Are the exams tough?
11:57They aren't easy, but all of you here ought to be able to pass them.
12:00O.J. Simpson rose to prominence as the social turmoil of the 1960s peak.
12:09In the months after Simpson led USC to the national championship,
12:13Martin Luther King and then Robert Kennedy fell to assassin's bullets,
12:17and America fell into rage and despair.
12:20The civil rights movement entered a more turbulent phase.
12:26Peaceful resistance gave way to direct confrontation.
12:30And as activists organized a boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games,
12:34Simpson, also a track star, stood with other well-known athletes
12:38at the sweltering racial crossroads of sports and politics.
12:43I think that any black athlete who does cross this ticket line
12:48could find himself in trouble,
12:49and I will not be personally responsible,
12:52nor will any member of this committee.
12:54Anyone who came onto the national stage
12:57essentially had to declare him or herself.
13:00Black people must be qualified to deal with the problems
13:04that black people are faced with.
13:05Were you part of the old system where blacks were Negroes,
13:11where black men were boys,
13:12where we knew our place and did white bidding?
13:16I say violence is necessary.
13:20Violence is a part of America's culture.
13:22It is as American as cherry pie.
13:24Are you part of the new system,
13:27which is in a life and death struggle with the old way?
13:31And the suffering forced upon us by white America
13:35justifies our demand for a complete separation
13:39in a state or a territory of our own.
13:43These people were very serious.
13:45They were very straightforward.
13:46They were very militant.
13:47They were not about compromising in any way whatsoever.
13:50And O.J. was just the opposite of all these things.
13:52And along these lines,
13:54some of the individual thoughts,
13:55the movement on the West Coast recently,
13:58in which you all said there supposedly,
14:00that he might not fight in the Olympics.
14:03Well, listen, his father,
14:07who I'm not too well-enrighted on the situation,
14:10I don't know exactly what they're trying to do, you know.
14:13But if this is what he want to do,
14:15if you think this is the way,
14:16well, that's his own fault.
14:17I guess he can do it.
14:18I can't say I'll do it
14:19because the chance of me making the Olympics a slam,
14:21and I can't see anyone trying to boycott him,
14:24they don't know if they're in it.
14:25O.J. was specifically approached.
14:29I mean, I talked to O.J.,
14:30and he was very honest about it.
14:33I mean, his sentiment was that I'm not black.
14:36I'm O.J.
14:37America, white America,
14:39gives a lot of black athletes a pass
14:41because they're sports figures or celebrities.
14:44And is it morally right to accept that
14:47and then let your brothers and sisters
14:50suffer the atrocities of a society
14:53that has racism as its foundation?
14:59I felt it was harmful
15:01because they tried to use O.J.'s image
15:05against all of us.
15:07It was like,
15:08you guys are not like the Jews.
15:09He's got a great smile.
15:11He's a nice guy.
15:13He's funny.
15:13He's a great athlete.
15:15He's smart.
15:17And you should be like him.
15:20Simpson's reluctance to side with outspoken black athletes
15:23only seemed to make him more attractive
15:25to corporate advertisers
15:26in search of a black image
15:28that was palatable to whites.
15:30There wouldn't have been the opening
15:33for an O.J. to walk through
15:36had it not been for the need
15:37that was created by
15:39so much mass dissension,
15:41so much demand,
15:42so that the white community
15:44had to think about,
15:46well, is this complete and total exclusion
15:48of black people legitimate?
15:50And obviously the answer to that was no.
15:53Variable ratio power steering.
15:55Flushing dry rocker panel.
15:57Conceal antennas.
15:58I remember very clearly
16:00when I was a child.
16:01If a black person came on television,
16:04someone would say,
16:05colored on TV,
16:06colored on TV,
16:07and everybody would come running
16:09to see the colored person on TV.
16:11So O.J. was one of those
16:13colored persons on TV.
16:15O.J. in a very fundamental way
16:19was a trailblazer
16:21in terms of all of those things
16:24that we were demanding.
16:27Four main bearings.
16:27O.J. also has only four main bearings.
16:31Compare this to no one.
16:32I often felt
16:33no one could have scripted
16:36anyone better
16:38than O.J.
16:39because O.J.
16:41O.J.
16:43was what I would call
16:44Negro neutral
16:47because he didn't carry
16:51the weight,
16:54the baggage
16:54that America placed
16:57on other athletes.
16:58You know,
17:00they wanted a nice black guy,
17:02not too black.
17:04They wanted a sports figure.
17:07Okay.
17:08What better
17:08person to have
17:10than your gladiator sport
17:11and football.
17:13And then he was good.
17:15A handful of black star athletes
17:40have secured advertising deals
17:41in the past,
17:43but none approach
17:44the compensation
17:44or breadth of exposure
17:46Simpson commanded.
17:48Simpson's endorsements alone
17:49promised to pay him
17:50$200,000 in 1969,
17:53more than 10 times
17:55the average football rookie's salary.
17:58Entering the largely white world
17:59of product endorsements
18:01required a willingness
18:02on Simpson's part
18:03to uphold
18:04a carefully crafted image.
18:05If he was with
18:07a corporate executive,
18:08he dressed like
18:10what was appropriate
18:11to meet a corporate executive.
18:13He didn't dress
18:14looking like a jock.
18:16He didn't want
18:16to look different.
18:17He wanted to fit in.
18:21They knew
18:22what they wanted projected.
18:24They knew
18:24what was not a threat.
18:26They knew
18:27there wasn't going
18:27to be too many O.J.'s
18:28because how many guys
18:29are going to be able
18:30to run football like that,
18:31go to USC,
18:33and have that kind
18:33of personality?
18:35And so white society
18:37seized upon that.
18:39And you had this situation
18:41in 1968
18:42where black society
18:44was pulling this man
18:46one way
18:47as a symbol
18:48and white society
18:50was pulling him
18:52another way.
18:55Somewhere in that pool,
18:58Ornthal James
19:00fell through the cracks.
19:02O.J. emerged.
19:05O.J. Simpson
19:08prepared to turn pro
19:09in January
19:10out of college
19:10that year.
19:11He was sure
19:12to be the first round pick
19:13of the worst team
19:14in the league.
19:15The Buffalo Bills select
19:16as their first choice,
19:17the first round,
19:19halfback O.J. Simpson,
19:20University of Southern California.
19:23The rising star
19:24from Southern California
19:25faltered
19:26in the industrial chill
19:27of Buffalo.
19:29The blue-collar city
19:30was also struggling
19:31with the effects
19:32of racial strife.
19:34On the field,
19:36O.J. was unable
19:37to break through
19:37an offense
19:38that used him poorly.
19:41They had to
19:42get rid of those numbers.
19:43In thechiedenis,
19:46What the heck are you doing?
19:53Don't put that gun at me all again.
19:55What the heck are you doing?
19:57What the heck are you doing?
19:59Don't put that gun at me.
20:01Don't put that gun at me.
20:16Three years into his pro career, O.J. Simpson was a potential Heisman washout.
20:30Everything changed with the arrival of Coach Julew Saban.
20:34First training camp with O.J.
20:38That's Nick Saban's father.
20:39O.J. and Saban.
20:41He called together his team in a huge huddle on the middle of the field.
20:47J.D., Havia, Bobby, Ray, if you don't block, I can't use you.
20:57You understand me?
20:59Because Lou said, hey, I got a secretary back in.
21:02I'm going to run.
21:11He says, you hear this song?
21:15He says, I love this song.
21:17He says, when I run out in the field now, he says, when I'm past the line of scrimmage,
21:22that plays in my head.
21:24And I make moves to MFSB.
21:32I swear that he could run sideways as fast as he could run forward.
21:36He said to me, got right back in.
21:45I smile thinking about him when he running with that ball.
21:49Sometimes I'd block and he'd talk to me as he ran by.
21:52Then he'd go, oh, buddy.
21:54And then it's bing, and bing, he up inside.
21:57And he's shaking that big old head of his, running around the field.
22:00Well, when you get to the 70s and O.J. is playing for Buffalo, there's a very different
22:07style being displayed.
22:09I mean, first of all, the way he runs, there's all these cuts and these moves, these sort of
22:15head fakes almost.
22:17There's a way in which he sort of visually and I think physically embodies this sort of
22:23improvisational nature.
22:25And this is oftentimes what I think distinguishes black athletes from white athletes is there's
22:31a style that's very much rooted in a cultural tradition.
22:34In the 1970s, as black identity made a deep imprint on the popular culture, O.J. Simpson was
23:01putting his unique stamp on the game of football.
23:05Simpson's exciting style of play was the perfect vehicle for ABC's fledgling Monday night football.
23:12Stand by camera, hold on.
23:14Stand by tape.
23:15Roll tape.
23:16Stand by camera.
23:17And roll over.
23:22Man, I couldn't wait to sort of watch Monday night football.
23:26Hopefully Buffalo would be playing, but even if they weren't playing, you know, Cosell would
23:30do the highlights from the day before and you knew that, you know, one of the greatest scenes
23:36would have to be from the Buffalo game because you knew O.J. had done something remarkable and
23:42to sort of watch that and, you know, hear Cosell.
23:46This man, number 32, Orenthiel James Simpson.
23:50I mean, it was so dramatic.
23:51This is against the no-name Miami Dolphins defense that was top of the league two consecutive
24:00years, Super Bowl champions two consecutive years.
24:03These aren't bums.
24:04You know, as a kid, I've been playing football, you know, in the schoolyards.
24:08Everybody mimicked O.J. Simpson.
24:10You know, I wanted to be like O.J.
24:12You know, run like O.J.
24:12If the Bills played, I didn't get the Bills won or lost.
24:15You know, how many yards did O.J. have?
24:17Did he have a touchdown?
24:18That was the most important thing.
24:21O.J. Simpson had come to dominate the Buffalo Bills.
24:25The team's offense was built around his running style and his racial sensibility had an impact
24:32in the locker room.
24:34I thought he was a tremendous spokesman for getting the blacks and the whites together
24:39on our team.
24:40Now, he never did that nationally, which, and that's the part that kind of surprised
24:45me.
24:47He said, man, I just don't do those things.
24:50Not that he got anything against it, and he's all a fool, but that just wasn't his thing.
24:57His relationship to causes in Buffalo was almost nil.
25:02I don't remember, at least, any dramatic input that he had toward things.
25:10He was not a militant.
25:12He was not an activist in any way.
25:16As far as causes, espousing causes, no.
25:19That's not O.J.
25:25The 1973 season began with a bang as Simpson broke the single-game rushing record.
25:31As the Bills headed into the last game of the season against the New York Jets, the
25:36Juice and his offensive line, the Electric Company, were poised to break Jim Brown's
25:40single-season yard total, and within reach of the magical 2,000-yard plateau.
25:46It was so fitting to come to New York, Muddy Field, the Jets.
25:57I mean, it would have been a shame if we broke it in some little boat on town.
26:01One baseball star pointed to a fence and hit a home run for a kid.
26:05This is what we did.
26:05We pointed our stick at the fence, and there was no way we were going to be denied.
26:09Let's go!
26:31Come on!
26:31All right!
26:31All right!
26:33The better he made us look, the better he was going to look, and he realized that real
26:52early.
26:53But I do think that he knew how to play the media and how to do things, and in his heart
26:58I know that he felt that was right.
27:00This is a guy, Joe DeLamalita wasn't supposed to play any football, so he had a heart problem,
27:07but he came back and you see what we did, J.D. Hill, crack back Hill.
27:11O.J.'s a bit of a politician too, I think.
27:13You know, he was smart, and I don't regret it, I think it was nice of him to do that.
27:19Simpson's rising celebrity coincided with the shift in relations between blacks and whites
27:25around the country.
27:27Despite the shadow cast by Watergate and Richard Nixon's resignation, there were signs that
27:32the civil rights movement had borne fruit.
27:35African Americans won elected office in unprecedented numbers, and there were more blacks in the
27:40U.S. Congress than at any time since Reconstruction.
27:45In this environment, O.J.'s carefully crafted image had broad appeal.
27:50But his success had special meaning for black Americans.
27:58Hey Bill, tune in the main utility room.
28:01I don't know, give it a chance.
28:03I mean, this dude was glamorous, man.
28:07He was hip.
28:08He was pimpin', as we used to say.
28:11So, you know, you had to love it.
28:14It was sort of the beginning of a feeling, oh, there were broader areas that we could participate in.
28:22Because O.J. was in Hollywood.
28:24He was living the life that anyone would have wanted to identify with.
28:29He was a kind of hero, not only because he was such a star, but because he represented the possibility that the dream of the post-war years of civil rights, of the American dream, was true, that it was going to happen.
28:46O.J. Simpson talks about his new career as an actor.
28:49I think it's sort of like being a director in a way, but probably not as intricate.
28:55Simpson was everywhere in the popular culture.
28:58In addition to his sports and acting careers, his endorsements range from tennis shoes to sunglasses.
29:05But when the number one car rental company in America, the Hertz Corporation, hired Simpson for a new ad campaign in 1975,
29:13he seemed to be living proof that America could get beyond its obsession with race.
29:20When you're in a rush, take it from O.J. Simpson.
29:22There's only one superstar in Rent-A-Car, Hertz.
29:25Others claim to be fast, but nobody has more to do it faster.
29:29More cars, more locations.
29:32Go, O.J., go!
29:35Rent a Ford fast from Hertz, the superstar in Rent-A-Car.
29:38Hertz's use of O.J. in our time was not to reach black people.
29:42We were not the business travelers.
29:44We were still locked in segregation.
29:46O.J. was so acceptable, he was used as a spokesperson to reach the white business travel audience.
29:56O.J. looked to us as a colorless person.
29:59I don't mean personality, but that wasn't a part of the specification.
30:04We wanted recognition.
30:06We wanted recognition for being number one, getting people out of the airport fast and in their car.
30:12And we wanted somebody that did that for us as a superstar.
30:18Even as Hertz took the unprecedented step of choosing a black representative,
30:22the corporation's advertising team knew the success of the national campaign would depend on the skillful use of racial symbols.
30:32Having a white guy run through an airport is a little different than having, at that time, a black guy running through an airport.
30:38And we brought it up at the meetings that it could be misconstrued he's running from somebody because he's black.
30:46If you recall, I don't think we ever used a black person reacting to him.
30:51It was always the white people, the white audiences in a sense of running through the airport or somebody at the Hertz counter.
31:00Always the nice middle-class look reacting to him.
31:10In 1978, Simpson and his wife of nearly 12 years separated.
31:13And O.J. began to be seen publicly with Nicole Brown, a 19-year-old waitress.
31:19Simpson's football career was also coming to a painful end, as repeated injuries twice sent him to the operating room.
31:26Before the 1978 season, the Bills traded him to San Francisco.
31:31The next year, O.J. Simpson left the game of football.
31:35I want to tell you that over the years, I've heard your applause and I appreciated your cheers.
31:41And I want you to know that I already know it's what I'm going to miss most.
31:48Thank you all very much.
31:50At that time, it was the second-world tournament to be played.
31:54His football days were over.
31:56But O.J. Simpson remained a sports hero with few peers.
32:00In 1984, when Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympics, he was a natural choice to carry the Olympic torch into the city that had launched his career.
32:10At that moment, Simpson seemed to be the living embodiment of the American dream.
32:16The Olympic torch was given a Hollywood-style welcome by 10,000 cheering spectators.
32:23And there was our own O.J. Simpson, a bright star.
32:26There were a lot of people who felt that Southern California had solved the racial conflicts better than most communities in the United States.
32:37The sunny optimism that surrounded the 1984 Olympic Games was central to Ronald Reagan's campaign for reelection.
32:45And Reagan's landslide victory seemed to validate his designation of the mid-1980s as morning in America.
32:52They were heady, even decadent times for well-to-do Americans.
32:57Yet the gulf between rich and poor widened.
33:01Jobs in the good-paying industrial sector declined.
33:04And the number of Americans living in poverty swelled.
33:07Among those left out of the decade of prosperity, anger and resentment began to percolate.
33:13Meanwhile, O.J. Simpson owned food franchises in L.A.'s black community.
33:18Yet there was a growing feeling among African Americans that he deliberately left them behind.
33:24He lived way on the other side of town in Brentwood.
33:30You couldn't live further away conceptually as well as geographically from the African American community.
33:39Now that said, there were other celebrities who lived far away.
33:43But people kind of know who the people are who really have cultural affinity and those who just happen to be.
33:55I mean, you had some black people that call him Uncle Tom.
33:58You know, he's Uncle Tom, man. All he does is date white girls.
34:01All his friends are white. You know, and I'm like, well, hey, you know, so what?
34:06You know, that's what he chooses. Let him do that.
34:09He was not conscious of, nor did he have any need to feel like he was living some countercultural African American identity.
34:19That wasn't him. He was just O.J., great guy, having a good time, making every friend he could make, regardless of color or creed.
34:27O.J. got to a point where he began to believe the hype.
34:30He began to believe that he was indeed this rarefied figure.
34:35And the minute you start to believe that as a black man in America, there's a long history that suggests that there's somebody waiting to pull the rug from under you.
34:42Although supported by his closest friends, Simpson's 1985 marriage to Nicole Brown drew intense, if different, reactions from both blacks and whites.
34:53O.J. Simpson's marriage or relationship with Nicole Brown, a beautiful, white, blonde woman, was a sign of his success and a sign of his ability to cross over again, if you will, to be accepted in white country clubs, to marry white women.
35:16O.J. Simpson, Because of his celebrity status as an athlete, that gave him a certain degree of freedom that many black athletes didn't have.
35:24O.J. Simpson, If you are a man who is in the position to...
35:27O.J. Simpson, It's 1985. This is 40 years ago.
35:30O.J. Simpson, To consistently trade up, one of the sensitivities that I think a lot of African American women had when they saw that was, oh, okay.
35:40O.J. Simpson, He has the black wife when he hasn't yet reached the status.
35:44O.J. Simpson, When he does reach the status, she goes along with whatever car he was driving or whatever house he was living in.
35:51O.J. Simpson, And it's new and improved O.J. with all the accoutrements of success.
35:56O.J. Simpson, It was as though he was able to sort of cash in his chips.
36:00O.J. Simpson, And one of the rewards for cashing in his chips was this very stereotypically beautiful white woman.
36:11O.J. Simpson, Just as Simpson's marriage tested the limits of racial tolerance, his painstakingly cultivated appeal to the broad public began to falter.
36:21O.J. Simpson, We're moving into a period where people are more or less wearing race in a different way.
36:28O.J. Simpson, So simply being able to present oneself in a colorblind way is not at this point as marketable or as intriguing as it was in the late 60s and 70s when that became your ticket to popular culture.
36:44O.J. Simpson, Doing commercials and being a celebrity gave him an identity beyond the football years.
36:53O.J. Simpson, But I think in order to keep that going, he was always searching for new avenues to keep that identity, that celebrity status.
37:07O.J. Simpson, Please! Throw down your guns!
37:20O.J. Simpson, I was struck by the level of confusion.
37:27O.J. Simpson, I always act to what are you when the play is over, when so much of your public career, your public image, your public self, and to some extent your private self has been choreographed.
37:47O.J. Simpson, What happens when the play is over? Who are you? What are you? What should you be doing?
37:53O.J. Simpson, Beginning in the late 1980s, a series of incidents around the country tore at the fabric of race relations and underscored the hostility felt between black and white Americans.
38:06O.J. Simpson, Then in 1992, black residents of Los Angeles exploded in rage when four white police officers were acquitted of charges of beating black motorist Rodney King.
38:17O.J. Simpson, Fifty-four people died in the riots. More than 2,000 were injured, and more than 800 buildings burned, including Simpson's Who franchises.
38:27O.J. Simpson, The black community's fury and disgust with the LAPD were thrust into the spotlight, and the city's dreams of racial harmony went up in flames.
38:36O.J. Simpson, The anger and disillusionment had not yet subsided, when nearly two years later, the bodies of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were found on the blood-soaked walkway of her Los Angeles home.
38:57Four days later, facing charges of murder, O.J. Simpson traveled the freeway at a languid pace, holding a gun to his head, followed by police in unhurried pursuit.
39:10O.J. Simpson, The America that had so loved Simpson came to a standstill.
39:20O.J. Simpson, All of a sudden, for mainstream white society, O.J. was a lot darker, not just in deed, but in fact in color.
39:32O.J. fell all of a sudden from this position as a white poster boy to the bad brother who went out and literally dispatched two white folks.
39:48O.J. Simpson, The minute the murder allegations arose, it was as though he was back in Portero Hills in San Francisco and nothing had changed.
39:57I mean, you know, it's very much like a true genius, Don King, has said, you know, no matter how much money you have in America, you are still another nigger.
40:06Good afternoon, Your Honor.
40:07Over the course of Simpson's trial, public opinion crystallized along racial lines.
40:13An overwhelming number of white Americans who had accepted O.J. as one of their own believed he was guilty,
40:20while more than 70 percent of black Americans voiced their support of Simpson.
40:24There was a feeling, certainly in white America there was a feeling, that there was a mountain of evidence against O.J. Simpson.
40:30Most of us felt that. Certainly, the blood was a big part of that evidence.
40:37Now, why would the glove didn't fit? You know, maybe Johnny Cochran thought that if the glove doesn't fit, you must have quit.
40:44But, you know, a lot of white people didn't think that, I'll tell you that.
40:47They saw O.J. Simpson, frankly, as a guy who did it, as a guy who killed two people.
40:54And I think that the main thing that I recall from African American community discussions is,
41:00let's make sure that this trial is fair.
41:04For many black Americans, the O.J. Simpson case was an opportunity to put the criminal justice system on trial.
41:12Most people, white and black, didn't actually know the evidence.
41:17I mean, for black people, it was largely the discussion of O.J. being framed by white cops.
41:25I think many white Americans would even believe that police do plant evidence on people of color.
41:31But when the argument was being made about O.J. Simpson, it just simply flew in the face of logic,
41:37because that's not how he was being treated.
41:40No other black man, or few other black men, would be afforded that kind of deference.
41:49Do you use the word nigger in describing Peaky?
41:54Presently.
41:54Yeah, usually you could roll out affirmative and not have to worry about it.
41:59But this is a guy who's got major bank, and if they try to do that stuff that they usually do to us,
42:06they're going to be caught up short.
42:09No, it's not possible.
42:10Are you therefore saying that you have not used that word in the past ten years, Detective Fremont?
42:16Yes, that's what I'm saying.
42:17And when it happened, pretty much as people expected it to happen,
42:21there was this sense of, uh-huh, see?
42:24This is what we've been talking about all along.
42:27And that any disruption, if there is any disruption during the reading of the verdict...
42:31For more than a year, Simpson's murder trial completely dominated the attention of the American public that had so adored him.
42:38On October 3rd, 1995, 142 million people were watching when the jury returned the verdict.
42:47All right, Mr. Simpson, would you please stand and face the jury?
42:52Not guilty.
42:53Thank you, Mr. Robinson.
42:55Thank you, Mr. Robinson.
42:56Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles.
42:59In the matter of the people of the state of California v. Orenthal James Simpson, case number BA097211.
43:06We, the jury, in the involved in title action, find the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson, not guilty of the crime of murder
43:13in violation of penal code section 187A, a felony upon Nicole Brown Simpson, a human being, as charged in count one of the information.
43:21The verdict comes down, and he's acquitted.
43:28And there's probably a split second when everybody sort of absorbs that.
43:36And then a few seconds later, after having absorbed it, people in this office start to unconsciously respond.
43:47So you hear grunts and sighs and moans, and someone says, oh, it's unbelievable.
43:54All right, Mr. Carson, would you please stand and face the jury?
43:58Let's get these reactions.
44:02Well, here are these people who I see every day, who speak to me, who laugh with me, who are supposed to be, you know, my colleagues.
44:13And all of a sudden, it was like I had stolen something from them.
44:18And they turned, and the vibe in that room was so negative.
44:25I have never felt more black in my life.
44:41O.J., in his verdict, revealed the fact that at the end of the day, man, these people do not like your black ass.
44:47For them to come back in three hours and to acquit him and to have cameras in the, in, you know, around various parts of the country with black people standing up and cheering that he got off,
45:05it was very much of an in-your-face to the white community.
45:09And that created a very bitter taste in people's mouths and, I think, led to what is clearly a tremendous amount of backlash.
45:17My assumption is that that group of black students represented a lot of black people in America, certainly a lot of young black people in America,
45:24who didn't especially care, in my view and the view of many white people, if O.J. Simpson actually killed those two people.
45:32That wasn't the issue.
45:33They weren't cheering because they thought an innocent man was acquitted.
45:38They were cheering because the system took it right between the eyes.
45:42I think it's thin.
45:43I mean, it's not, the evidence is so overwhelming.
45:45You seem very affected by the not-guilty verdicts.
45:51Yes.
45:52Yes.
45:52Yes.
45:52Yes.
45:54I've never seen a case where there was more overwhelming evidence than this, and I, I guess race always went out, so it's really disgusting.
46:02At the end of the day, for all the black men...
46:07What, what, what O.J. probably did is on him.
46:13We found out years, decades later that some of the guys had screwed up the evidence.
46:21Like, some people had gone home with samples they shouldn't have gone home with.
46:25I'm talking about law enforcement.
46:27I'm talking about the forensics people.
46:30That's not on, that's not on the, uh, jury.
46:34That's not on the jury.
46:35If otherness is messed up, that's on the people who messed it up.
46:40Who are in jail for shit that they didn't do.
46:44For all the black people who got lynched for shit that they didn't do.
46:49For all the black people who have been guilty by association from the time the first African was brought to this country.
46:57For all those people, here's a system that you created.
47:02And this one time it didn't work the way you wanted it to work.
47:08And all of a sudden, the system's no good.
47:11O.J. Simpson had been, up until that point, accepted, really, in white Americans' homes like no other black athlete had ever been accepted.
47:21So one could make the argument that he was one of us, quote unquote.
47:25And then the minute he gets into a jam of his own making, what does he do?
47:33He falls back on the race card.
47:35So you really aren't one of us.
47:38When it gets down to it, you're one of them.
47:40I think O.J. is a kind of symbolic moment in the history of race relations in America.
47:54I think a lot of Americans, a lot of white Americans, didn't believe in affirmative action.
48:00And they didn't believe in integration.
48:01And they didn't believe in the welfare state.
48:05They didn't believe that black people were equal to white people.
48:10But they couldn't say it.
48:11They couldn't say it without being accused of being racist.
48:16And O.J. gave them the ability, the trial gave them the ability to say it.
48:21So in that sense, it fulfilled a moment in a history that was already there.
48:28I think it was an awakening for a lot of folks, black and white, to see how a certain section of America responded when it didn't go the way they thought it should go.
48:45The race that O.J. Simpson began in 1968 came to a dramatic climax in 1995.
48:52Simpson had once seemed to represent a future of possibility and peace.
48:56But the emotions rubbed raw with the Simpson verdict exposed the deep rift that remains between black and white Americans.
49:05A rift that generally remains out of public view.
49:09For all the hopes and dreams he carried, Simpson's bizarre and tragic journey is a painful reminder of the greatest challenge America has faced since before the founding of the Republic.
49:21Race.
49:26Oh, there you go.
49:27Oh, there you go.
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