SCAMPERING THROUGH RATS’ COLORFUL HISTORY. …In 1963, Jesse Gray organized a rent strike in Harlem and asked 13,000 tenants to bring a rat to court. People brought dead rats and live rats. People dangled rats by their tails for the newspaper photographers; people displayed rats spread out on newspapers, like fresh fish they’d bought at the market, Sullivan writes.

The tenants won. Dozens of buildings were repaired, and the city spent $1 million on rat extermination.

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