WHATRYADOIN’ – Kadiatou Diallo

The Well

Anson Mount & Branan Edgens

Society & Culture, Comedy

4.9 • 821 Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2020

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When she found out that her twenty-three year old son Amadou had been shot to death by four plain-clothes NYPD officers (in what they claimed was a case of mistaken identity), Kadiatou immediately boarded a flight for New York City. When she arrived, she suddenly found herself the centerpiece of a political and cultural maelstrom which she had not asked for. Further incensed that the media had dismissed her son as "an unarmed, West African street vendor", Kadiatou decided to write the memoir "My Heart Will Cross This Ocean" and reclaim her son's identity. Join us as Kadiatou shares with us the stories of her son's life, her fight for police accountability, and previously unreported facts surrounding the circumstances of Amadou's death.

You can order "My Heart Will Cross This Ocean: My Story, My Son, Amadou" by Kadiatou Diallo and Craig Wolff here.

You can find out more about the Amadou Diallo Foundation by visiting their website here.

Extra music for this episode was provided by Daniel Birch via a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International 4.0 license. You can find the track "Brushed Bells Leaving Home" here.

The photo accompanying this episode was taken by Mary F. Calvert for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	The
0:07.0	The Katya-Dou-Di-Alo is a businesswoman, author, social activist, speaker, a gemologist, and a mother.
0:39.9	She's also the founder and president of the Amadu Diallo Foundation, named after her eldest son,
0:44.9	who, on February 4th of 1999, was killed when four plainclothes NYPD officers discharged
0:51.8	their weapons a total of 41 times, striking Amadu 19 of those times,
0:56.7	resulting in his immediate death.
0:59.0	In 2002, all four officers were acquitted of second-degree murder charges, when they claimed
1:03.9	that by reaching for his wallet to present identification, Amadou caused them to be frightened
1:09.1	for their lives.
1:10.4	In 2003, Katyaudu Diallo wrote a memoir,
1:14.8	My heart will cross this ocean, my story, my son, Amadu. Katirudu Diallo, welcome to the well.
1:23.8	Thank you for having me on the show. It's absolutely our pleasure.
1:29.3	I'll just kick things right off with the book, which I have to say is beautifully written.
1:38.3	What was your primary reason for wanting to write down your story and Amadu's story?
1:46.0	When Amadu was killed on February 4, 1999, he was in New York City two and a half years, living there.
1:59.0	He came to America to work hard and save money for college. And he was doing
2:04.8	just everything right and was so excited. I remember our last phone call, I was in Guinea,
2:11.6	in Africa on January 31st, 1999. When he called me with great news, he was so excited. He said,
2:19.8	Mom, I finally save enough money. I'm going to college. He was so happy. So when the news
2:27.2	broke, when they called me back home and told me about my son's tragedy, I had to cross
2:33.5	the ocean and come to America. And one of the
2:37.2	thing that struck me was not just to loss my son, but also his story was twisted and he was
	...

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