Transcripts For CSPAN3 Paul 20240703

You the latest in nonfiction books and authors. Funding for cspan 2 comes from the Television Companies and more including cox. This syndrome is extremely rare, but friends dont have to be. When you are connected, youre not alone. Cox along with these Television Companies the sports cspan 2 as a public service. My name is wayne colbert, i am head of archives here at the institute. I want to welcome all of you to tonights event. As we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1963 childrens crusade, we do so tonight with an office talk featuring journalist paul kicks. Paul is the author of, you have to be prepared today before you can begin. 10 weeks in birmingham that changed america. While reflecting on a photo of Minneapolis Police officers Derek Chauvin, suffocating george floyd, paul was struck by its parallel to the iconic may, 1963 photo of a black teenager in birmingham, alabama being attacked by a white Police Officer in and an aggressive German Shepherd. The similarities motivated him to uncover the legacy and history behind the historic civil rights photograph. Paul will shed light on the strategy of the 1963 10 weeks southern christian Leadership Conference campaign to end segregation. It is led by dr. Luther king junior. King, along with walker, craig and james joined the efforts of the Alabama Christian Movement for human rights to launch the Birmingham Campaign. Together they sought to Bring National attention to the efforts to desegregate public facilities in birmingham. As detailed in his book, paul is the first to reveal the method of project c, the marches, demonstrations and sit ins that followed led to many arrests of the adults who were active in the movement and the Pivotal Moment in the movement when sclc recruited children to carry the cause. Paul explores what happened to project c and how it influences activism today. Ladies and gentlemen, paul kingston. [ applause ] i want to start by acknowledging a few different things. One of them is that i am a white man. I am married to a black woman. We have three kids who identify as black. And, i grew up in harvard, iowa. My wife grew up in houston, texas. You all may be wondering here in birmingham, alabama, what does this family why do they care about birmingham, alabama today . Let me tell you. In the summer of 2020, we also the images of, as wayne was saying a moment ago, officer Derek Chauvin suffocating and killing george floyd. That murder felt personal to my family. My wife grew up in innercity houston. She grew up on neighborhood away from george floyd. George grew up in the third ward , she grew up in the 50 word. George was the same age as her, 46. Sonia had cousins who went to the same high school as george. Her dear friend and cousin, derek, remember george as the tight end on the yates Football Team that made it to the state championship. So i tell you all that to tell you this. Georges murder was the first time that my wife and i decided to let our kids see that this was part of the black experience. Our twin boys were then nine, our daughter was then 11 and our twin boys in particular had a lot of questions about what they saw that day. It started with, are all cops bad . Are all cops racist . As the questions became hours and then days, they evolved and they sort of took a step down toward selfhatred. What does this mean for my life . Am i inferior in some way . It was a really tough time, the latter half of 2020. And so, they became despondent in some way. All three of our kids. They started to talk about how america was an awful place and they cannot wait to move away from here, just as soon as they could. When sonia and i would try to tell them, no, it is not quite like that, there would be other things. Jacob blake was shot later that summer by kenosha, wisconsin cops in the back as he was walking away from them and his three children screamed from his car as he was shot. Our twin boys ran from the room that day in tears and they said, why do they keep trying to kill us . Out of those moments, i thought back to their birth, the twin boys birth. I again, am a white man, i am a journalist and writer and i had read already the autobiography of malcolm x, i had read certain civil rights books but right after the boys were born, i made it my attempt to really understand the black canvas throughout all of american literature. So i reacquainted myself with the civil rights movement. There was one photo in particular, it was of walter gaskin, a 15yearold boy, perhaps the most iconic image to come out of this campaign. You probably all know it but i just want to describe it, what it did to me the first time i saw it. In that photo you see a German Shepherd attacking the right side of walter but attacking isnt really quite the word, it is more like on walter. All around him people are either running in terror or turning their backs around to see how bad he is about to get it. What struck me about it was the serenity on walters face. I am not sure if it was just the splitsecond that it was captured, but his arms remain at his sides. He is peaceful, he is not fighting the dog or even protecting himself. It is as if he is giving himself over to posterity in this moment, and i found something that was both horrific in that moment and i saw something that was transcendent about that moment. What was horrific was this is indicative of all of the American Experience in one photo. It was the terror that has been visited upon black people, it was the dignity with which so many black people within the civil rights movements responded. And it was ultimately in the serenity, was this sense of transcendence. That we can all as a nation move beyond even this horrific moment. And, be more like walter and perhaps try to find a new day. So, that was my entry point into 1963, right after the boys were born. That led me more and more to try to figure out, what exactly was this photo that went alongside it . What was this campaign . And so, that led me to the 10 weeks in birmingham, alabama. And pretty soon, it was the most amazing thing i had ever come across. Because if you look at it from the perspective of 1863, you have emancipation, and 100 years pass and numerous efforts were made to have real and lasting equality and nothing happened. Nothing. And then birmingham happened, and then everything happened. It is a sponsorship, in the summer of 1953 by jack and Bobby Kennedy who had been strongly against civil rights until then. That sponsorship becomes the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That Civil Rights Act of 1964 become a Voting Rights act of 1965, becomes martyrdom in 1968, becomes a new life for his country, and out of that, the rise of the black, middle and upperclass. The presidency of barack obama, and then in my own life, my ability to marry sonya in a jim crow state like texas and raise our three kids on a shaded street where nobody harasses us for who we are. As the embodiment of kings dream. And what i told my kids after they saw jacob blake and said we want to move away from here just as soon as we can, i said, there is a story that you should hear, it is about birmingham, alabama, even though i am a white man from rural iowa and even though your mother is a black woman from innercity houston, we would not be here today were it not for the 10 weeks in the spring of 1963 that made all of this possible. And so i began to research more, more, and when i say i am thrilled to be here at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, those were not the words. Because as i began to research more and more, i came across these massive oral history projects that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, alongside the birmingham Public Library, has carried out for the better part of 30 years. I dont think it is too much to say that basically every person of consequence in 1963 was interviewed by one of these two institutions, often both of them, and that is what made a book like this possible. Just as much as we say, as you guys say thank you for coming, thank you. I would not be here today, i would not have the life i have were it not for birmingham. Would i publish this book for its not for this institute. You guys made all of this possible and i am unbelievably indebted. One thing i found as i was researching more and more , when i first got in touch with wayne, and with jim baggett at the birmingham Public Library, distorted to read more broadly into the civil rights movement, something strange struck me. This was still in the summer of 2020, i didnt really know, actually, i am going to tell you guys and cspan 2 a secret that i have not actually shared with anybody. My first book was out and i was looking to pursue another book. When george floyd was killed. My agent and i had actually presented it to publishers. [ inaudible ] and after george floyd happened and i began to read more of birmingham, birmingham in particular, i called my agent and i said, can we tell the editors to put the project on hold . Meaning, i dont want anybody to even bid on this as a book proposal. I dont want to do this anymore. There is a whole other book i want to do. Is like, what is it . I said have you ever heard of project consultation . He goes what . I go, exactly. Here was the truth of birmingham as i found it in the civil rights canon. This is predominately by historians. This is meant as no slight against any of those historians. But almost every single historian or journalist performing has decided to do some sort of exhaustive campaign of the civil rights movement. It covers her own lif. It goes movement. Steinbeck warner 20 years ago wrote an amazing Pulitzer Prize winning book that covers the Birmingham Campaign and covers her own life and goes through the fall of 1963. My point is a narrative one. I want to the book that captured , i wanted a story that captured what just happened that spring. 100 years and nothing, and 10 weeks, and everything. What is the story of those 10 weeks . I looked and looked and looked and i am like, it does not exist. The reason i called my agent and said, cancel it, i am writing Something Else, project confrontation. He goes what is that . I said birmingham. You have no idea how it is so much more than that. I thought, as a writer, i saw an opportunity in the richest and possibly deepest of all american cannons. The civil rights movement. There might be more words about that than even the civil war, but for some reason, no book had ever just covered those 10 weeks. What happened . Who were the Major Players . Day by day, what went down . That became my up session. The more i researched, the n summer of 2020 became the fall of 2020, even into the spring of 2021. I saw something that was not just an incredibly rich area and a nuanced one, we often t talk about that nuance. We think about people like dr. King, james bevel, walker, ralph abernathy, we think of them as almost angelic characters. The truth is, in birmingham, they had huge egos. They were at each other. There is a lien that i paraphrased from another civil rights movement. Each of these men could bow before god but could stand mighty tall in front of each other. That is what happened in the spring of 1963 and i wanted to capture that dynamic of what was going on. In the spring of 1963, we are here in birmingham, but in case you do not fully understand it, it was the most violent, the most racist, the most dangerous place in america. The ku klux klan castrated black men. Cops assaulted black women in their patrol cars. You have some of those documents. The famed cbs news anchor, and reporter, came to birmingham just prior and said to is producer, ive never seen any place like this since germany, world war ii. An incredibly awful. Its more like a sign of domestic terrorism, really. The sclc is broke. The Albany Campaign one year prior had been an abysmal failure. Dr. King was marked by the seven press, the Northern Press , and other civil rights groups. John lewis had many members who openly sneered at dr. King and called him a phony. Said its our time, now. Your time has passed. They basically had not had, there was a reason. There was a reason they would reach that conclusion. The sclc had not had any victory in seven years. Some people may take offense to that and say what about the montgomery board bus boycott and heres what i would say. If you look at the record as i did, in montgomery of 1963, black people had gone back to writing buses like it was 1940. It was as if 1955 and 19 56 did not matter and Supreme Court orders did not either, just like brown versus board of education never reached birmingham. They are broke, theyve had nothing but failure for seven years, and they want to go to the most dangerous place in america. Walker has been the executive director, i call him brilliant in the book, but also in moral and we will get into why. Walker said in the Planning Session that they had, this is two months prior to birmingham. King did not even invite his own father because they were going to discuss the most dangerous idea in the whole of the civil rights movement. Thats the language they used. Should we go to birmingham, alabama, and walker said given where we are, it would break segregation or we would be broken by it. There was real concern that not only were they going to die, and king delivered a mock eulogy to everybody in preparation for what was going to happen and told them, i dont think we are all going to come back from this campaign, but after that there was a larger concern on if they lose in birmingham, they didnt have any more money. They were going to dissolve. If king is no longer the leader, what happens to civil rights as a whole . The governor in the 1950s at least alluded to civil rights alabama. George wallace comes in three months prior, segregation now, kings concern is going into birmingham, not only did the organization dissolve, but what happens to the movement as a whole if we dont win . Are more people going to become even more emboldened . Are more Public Safety threats going to surface . Will more people run their cities by fear . This was the biggest gamble of their lives. When they went to new york, the quote comes, theyre trying to get their money from rich new york donors to be like, this is the biggest gamble of our lives and we want you all to put your money on it. No one wanted to do it. The man of the hour and a man that i wish would be as known as dr. King, the reverend, Fred Shuttlesworth, a man of unbelievable courage started to tell stories from his life just before the campaign to these rich new york donors. Henry belafonte is there, davis, hollywood producers, newspaper publishers, like what happened o to bill Connors Birmingham . He was like, let me tell you. I tried it to integrate the bus line not long after dr. King and abernathy did it in montgomery. The day after christmas, i said i was going to do it. I was standing in one room away from where that dynamite hit and it blasted all the way through my house. I landed in ruins. The house was a mess. I emerged from those ruins and i told the people, a lot of congregants from the church, he said, i told them, put those guns up, because people are tired of it. Put those guns up. We believe in nonviolence. Then he told the crowd in new york, i integrated the bus line. It stunned everyone, not just members of Bethel Baptist church, not just the birmingham cops amazed that he had lived and now had the gall to do what he said he was going to do, he put 50 more cops on patrol. Are there any members of law h enforcement here, tonight . They are not cops. Fred did not care. Someone asked him that night, how . How do you do this . He looked at him and said, you have to be prepared to die and that line while the donors. This is now a cause, of course you have to be prepared to die. Thats the only way the campaign could work. 475,000 that night. It was the single biggest hall in their history. The campaign was an abysmal failure. Abysmal. Wyatt walker had all of these plans, and he said that he would time to the second how long it took a young man to do the same, none of it mattered. None of it mattered. A couple reasons. They did not like this, coming in saying, weve been living here all our lives, who are you . Theyd heard all the stories, theyd read all the stories. Fred did not know martins real name. That was one concern. There were others. Another concern was far more economic. Over 50 of black birmingham at that time were domestic workers. They were threatened. The rest of the middle to professional class, teachers, lawyers, lets actually deal with teachers first. They had a white superintendent. Do you think that they wouldve allowed any of those teachers to march alongside king without losing their job . There were members who had passed, who could not even argue cases in birmingham and now y king comes in and is telling them, we want you to march . Like, im going to get disbarred if i march. Even ag gaskins, well on his way to being the richest black man in all of america, one of the richest people in all of america he said, you guys have got to leave. Hu you dont understand how this city works. And it did not work. We talked about wyatt walker, we talked about the bravery of Fred Shuttlesworth, i want to talk about the righteousness, the ingenuity of the third deputy and the other major protagonist, james bevel. I dont know if you know much about him, but he is fascinating. Everybody else is sort of middleaged, the black tie, i dont know if you have ever seen photos of him, he wore country babes come out of his native mississippi. He wore a yarmulke on his head. He said he was half jewish. He loved the old testament. He loved the righteousness. People in the movement called him the prophet himself. Then the prophet said one day, the Martin Luther king, if we cant get the adults, we have to get the kids. Martin luther king jr. Said, are you out of your mind . You want to use kids . Hes like, yeah, i do. He had gone around and had talked with a lot of the kids, a lot of teenagers. They understood what their parents were dealing with, the economic ramifications but they understood that this would be their life, too. 100 years, nothing had changed, itll be 120 unless we do something to stop it. Bevel tried to tell king this, they are ready. King wanted nothing to do with it. No one did. Bit by bit, he kept working with these kids. Other places around town, he walked in, here, to a cemetery, there were like, 50, 60 kids. He walked and said, look around. In 50 or 60 years, you will all be here. What are you going to do while you are alive. Soon, dozens of kids became scores of kids, hundreds of kids, and late april, 1963, thousands of kids. By then, the campaign was anemic. He never actually said, king never actually said, okay. James bevel, instead. We are going to launch double d day. That happened 60 years ago. Dday and double dday. We all know about the firehose. Fire hoses dont really capture what happened. In fact, nothing i had read before captured what exactly happened until i was able to piece it together thanks to these oral histories at the birmingham civil rights. I want to read to you what actually happened during double dday. To set it up, Childrens Campaign starts may 2nd, 1963. On that day, National Media is there, interNational Media is there, that day is peaceful. They know these camera crews w are here and are not going to play into kings game. All the rest, all these kids, 800, 900 kids thrown into birmingham jail, which is what king wanted, fill the jail, the more we fill the jail the more optical illusion we have to show massive support and if we fill all the jails, they have to make a choice. If all of the jails are full, where are you going to put the next days protesters . What was the game . What were they after . In birmingham . Was it the integration of the city of birmingham . Yes it was. To integrate the most racist, segregated city in the nation was a huge part of it, that there were bigger things. A much bigger gain that they were playing. For 100 years, theyve been trying to get some form of civil rights legislation. Martin luther king jr. Had even gone in late november, 1962, to try to say jack and Bobby Kennedy, please, now is the time, 100 years after the emancipation, lets write a second emancipation. Jack and bobby wanted nothing to do with it. The civil rights bill might harm the reelection bid in 1964. So what was birmingham really about . Here is what birmingham was really about. Birmingham was really about, lets turn our bodies into metaphors of the black experience itself. If we can do that and if a New York Times reporter knows that that happens, or of Walter Cronkites camera crew is filming when that happens, then perhaps, just maybe, we can get the audience we really want. The men at 1600 pennsylvania avenue, if we can convince them that this is america, maybe, just maybe, they will say now is the time to change america. That was the real game. What role did the kids play . Lets be honest. What is better copy, what is better footage than children ip going up against paul connor . They knew that this was going to be huge if this actually took place. They had to come to grips with that. That is what double dday was also about. Friday, may 3rd, 1500 kids not even bothering with a veneer of heading to school, 1500 kids who skipped it entirely and did not care about the degree of permanent expulsion or their parents finger wagging to stay away. Today was double dday. That is what james bevel and wyatt walker were calling it. 1500 kids walked straight to 16th street baptist, a move that may have helped their teachers. George wallace had threatened overnight to have any educator charged with criminal collaboration for aiding truancy. They poured into the church, 1500. One report stated that 887 of the 7300 86 black High School Students attended school that friday. They had not made it to the front in front of the church to be arrested. There were kids who had seen the arrest on the news and wanted to play their part. A lot of children were brandnew , they had never even shown up. James bevel told all of those kids to stand aside and passed the trash can around, and soon it was half full with knives and brass knuckles and he was like, we will start nonviolence today but it has happened today. Not so much as a peachpit should be on your weary march. Meanwhile, around 10 00, they had a press conference in the open air courtyard intending to negotiate for strength. Local columnists, national outlets, camera crews. If the white power structure of the city would consider meeting minimum demands, then we will consider calling off the demonstrations. They talked about this last night and into the morning. The jails were close to bursting with even more kids primed for incarceration. Where would the mayor put them all . King argued it was in the citys best interest to sit down with him right now and negotiate the terms of desegregation. They wanted promises plus actiof , but what they did not say was what he knew and had known all along. What wyatt walker even hoped for in the initial planning memo. If the goal was to leave bull connor no good option, the results might be bold action, turning his vengeance on the protesters. They had to be prepared for that. That meant king had to make his peace with it. He did not say this in part because he did not know what sort of pain connor might inflict. It became clear, across the street were not only the cops in battle hellmanns with canines with tanks on display, but something new. Firefighters unfurled water hoses and trained the nozzles on the church. Since april, Birmingham Fire chief john swindoll had heard connor bello about his fear, a mass of black protesters marching into the white owned downtown. Connor demanded that swindoll turn the hoses on any black protester who tried to march downtown. This suggestion appalled him. Hed been able to deter connor and argued that the National Union strongly disapproved of fire hoses being used as crowd control. With the protesters, they ordered swindoll to unfurl the hoses today. He again argued it just this morning, tied to hydrants, they said no one was walking or marching anywhere. The message was clear. He would beat back the crowds because he could not afford this. He could obey the order or be fired. The chief was not fired that day. The pep rally, the freedom anthem, the kids sweating from the exertion, today felt a bit like yesterday in the final moments before james bevel open the doors. Today was also different. There were too many cops outside, for one. Hundreds of them, as if the whole force had shown up. Cops in tanks, all those firetrucks, it looked like a battle against the apocalypse. For the kids would been inside the church yesterday, they saw so many more onlookers on the street. Some were even parents of the kids in the church, all of them with that full show of force that oconnor had assembled. They had not marched, that of bull meant for them to frighten us, his plan worked. She found the strength with School Friends around her and told herself that she would not back down, she would march today, she would right the wrongs highlighted in the workshop she attended, with white and colored lines in the city, why she could not go to kiddie land. Just a child, but she vowed to do something that might make her childrens lives better. The time came. No violence. The whole of the congregation, just like the day before. Then much like yesterday, the church doors swung wide. The first group of 50 marched out. These children saw police barricading certain streets while thousands of onlookers and hundreds of pressman cordoned off the other side of the park and there was one place for the children to march, toward the firetrucks ahead. They tried to be brave as they approached and setting a call and response number, we are going to walk, walk, walk, freedom, freedom, freedom. One girl noticed the firefighters holding giant hoses and thought, where is the fire . It must be massive, and she watched as the nozzles were leveled at her fellow protesters. They never said a word about water hoses, she thought. A suit and tie, swinging at these children with his one good eye. He said out of the other, the truth and the unglory. Captain evans of the Police Department put a bullhorn to his lips and ordered them to disperse. The kids had been trained not to disperse. They inched forward again. Some children saw how it took three or four firemen just to he hold a hose. They quickly mounted their hoses on massive metal tripod as if the water was artillery, as if the water carried the force of a cannon. Last chance, evan said. The kids did not move. Evan told the firemen to turn the nozzles to foggy. This would drench the kids with half the strength of the hoses potential. The children inched forward again. Like a geyser, it was Strong Enough to send many children screaming in pain. That water stung one teenage boy, later said. With the mist that spread in the waters wake, onlookers saw about 10 kids had refused to move. These teenage boys and girls were completely soaked and held their ground and continued to sing as more sprays of water hit them. They grab each others hands for balance and lifted them to the sky. They raise these hands as one and belted out the single word of a song over and over and tell everyone could hear it. Freedom. I want to positively quick. You guys have this photo. 10 kids, completely drenched. You can see them. It brings tears to my eyes. The defiance, the plea of their oneword anthem. Photographers have the presence of mind to capture this moment, which is instantly iconic. A bull connor saw these kids as something other than freedom fighters. Saw them as degenerates trying to wrest control of the afternoon. Blast them with that water, some firemen hesitated. The nozzles were on full strength and one firefighter later said good lord, i was scared to death about what might happen if they actually turned the t nozzles to full power. But it was in order. Obey or be canned. That moment of indecision stretched out. In the end, what can be said is that no firefighter had the bravery of those 10 children standing no more than 30 feet from him. No firemen walked away from his job that day. Instead, the firefighters cranked up the pressure and steadied themselves. The water lashed out. The singing stopped immediately. As if from automatic machine gun fire, the force of the water flattened to the kids. One teenage boy tried to rise again and the stream hit him square in the face and he back flipped. I actually saw this footage. He back flips and lands on his stomach like a 360. These fire hoses, held by four men or mounted on metal tripods so highly pressurized that its power could knock breaks loose or strip bark from trees at a distance of 100 feet. The water struck down some children at perhaps 30 feet. It stripped the shirt off of one boy, disintegrated it. The kids shouted in agony as they began their retreat slow because some children kept trying to stand against the waters wrath. They did not want to leave the park. It was at that point that they sent out the next 50 kids. Reinforcements. From then on the day showcased in almost otherworldly bravery and savagery. One girl walked to the water and cart wheeled through the park and over and over and and when the water hit another girl and flattened her, the firemen then had the cruelty to focus that stream on her exposed back. Juthe water slid her down the street, perhaps 50 feet as she screamed in pain and fear. Elsewhere children huddled behind trees or light poles or attempts to use each other as shields against that stinging fury. We could hear the firemen yelling. The crowd, some 3000 people and again, parents, retaliated. They through whatever was near the firefighters, bottles, rocks, even bricks. Bull connor did not like that. He ordered them to train the water on the crowd and increase the debris. The fight was on. Mass arrest was cops cracking people across the skull, victims bleeding from the temples as he antagonized the crowd by hopping to that white tank and driving it up and down 16th street north with more bottles and bricks raining down. Still, the next group of protesters hit the water with screaming children, freedom songs between screams, because what was a metaphor for the black experience in america if not this moment . A 14yearold in this group, trying to act bravely, marching as the water leveled the kids in front of her and now, her too, hitting her in the face and hissing across her hairline, scalping her. Making her cry in pain. Then the canines. They tried to grab control of the afternoon. The dogs snarled, writing whoever they wished as adults fled, children tried to avert them like bull fighters. One of the dogs, black German Shepherd named after the n word, vicious, lunged at a small boy, a child protester, and clamped his teeth around the boys throat and shook his head until eventually it let the boy go and the child was rushed to the hospital. Another marched, training their hose on a massive children on their knees, on the sidewalk, completely defenseless at a distance of 15 feet. Elsewhere in the park, the overwhelming power of the hose such that the four firemen ac holding it could not contain the thing. Spraying water and twisting wildly like an angry, venomous serpents until one firefighter tried to grab hold of it and also slapped him hard across the face and knocked him out cold. The press captured all of this. Filming everything. The white man, driving his car into the crowd. A black teenager fighting a cop and grabbing the cops gun as they beat back the kid before he could shoot. Elsewhere, or everywhere, streams of water and the dogs, absolutely crazed, one German Shepherd named leo attacking a 15yearold boy named walter. Leaping in the air and clamping down on his exposed right core, like the dog was feasting on the boy. The carnage of this day. Nbcs reporter stopped to gather himself for a moment, and as Charles Moore said, ive never seen anything like this in my life. A sentiment that they would repeat for decades after even ht when reporting. Nothing distressed or frightened him like this day in birmingham, alabama. In that moment, he thought about this. Three years as a photographer in the marines. He agreed with apple, commenting that the dogs were the worst of it, the snarl of the German Shepherd, how the victims screamed in pain and terror. It hewas revolting and neither man knew that at various street corners around the park, wyatt walker of the sclc, the executive director, had enlisted his deputies to blow dog whistles, blow them hard as they could, because walker wanted to see it, wanted these objects. Everything must escalate. He had not okayed the idea with king, he just did it. He instigated the white rage and the consequential black suffering that were native to birmingham and had been since its founding and americas, too. The quicker white walker could show that to the press, who would show it to the nation, tell the world, the sooner wyatt walker would get what he wanted from that nation and the world. Yet, what was the project if not the pain of white walkers fellow black people . That had been his rationale all along and everyone else, too, but now that the day was here and those doing the suffering were children, he went outside at 3 00 two hours and a lifetime after the protest had begun and shouted at the kids to move back to the church. Bevil had seen enough. Around this time, a Police Inspector walked into 16th street baptist and found king. He looked queasy and told king that both sides needed to call it off. It was unclear if the cop was negotiating with approval. King had been watching and was only too happy to accept these terms. He had seen enough for one day. That was double the day. H its a complex story. Its a hard story. But, how do you get to hear here, after 100 years . Was wyatt walker so wrong . This is a question that i weigh as a parent all the time. In your archives, there are so many interviews with so many parents, sometimes activists alongside fred in the days when birmingham was just as dangerous , castrating black men, or taking a cattle stick and labeling them, that happens. One of freds good friends, burned. Now, its their kids. Ew and its really hard to come to grips with that. What i can say, and what your archives show is that the kids knew what they were doing. They had been trained. They knew it might get this bad. James bevil had shown them footage of one of his first protest in nashville in 1960 and in that footage, you see a white diner owner with white patrons in the diner throwing black people over the counter. It got worse than that. The owner of that diner made sure to keep black people inside, locked the doors, and literally fumigated the place. Theres footage of this. There are people struggling to breathe until the Fire Department breaks down the doors and when they showed that footage to the kids in birmingham, the first thing he told them, birmingham will be worse. He was not wrong. Do you know how many kids stepped away and said i dont want part of this . None. They knew what they were doing. They were young but they were brave. They were smart. What i did not read is what happened later that night. King tried to preside. The parents were not happy. They were not happy at all. I understand why. Wyatt walker said, i alter my morality for the sake of winning. I would alter my morality. Its tough. That is what it took to win. We will have a chance to celebrate what the 60th anniversary meant and when i had a chance to pour through the archives here and elsewhere and piece this altogether i realized it was so much more. So much more than fire hoses we see in a greedy grainy pdf, nothing against those, theyre great, but it doesnt capture what actually happened. I get a chance to see them tomorrow morning. I dont know where i fall. I am so grateful for what happened in birmingham and they had to realize, we have to make a really hard choice. What will it take for us to win . What will it take to break segregation . What i can tell you, to jump ahead, in late may of 1963, birmingham is integrated. Fred shuttlesworth brings to life everything that man fought for. It was even better, for king, because what happened after that is black people saying in greenville, in montgomery, in new orleans. In boston, and new york, they said well, if the most racist and segregated city in america can be integrated, i want my integration, too. That is where the story of this 10 weeks becomes miraculous. Something that even king had not foreseen because suddenly there was not just one birmingham, there were 20, there were 50, there were 100. What did Bobby Kennedy have to do . I have to consider this. Politically, bobby is jacks protector. He is the morally abrasive one in that cabinet. Politically, its in our interest to try to resolve this. We have to consider civil rights legislation and i will say that there is a final turn in the book where i would argue that the greatest intellectual and spiritual transformation is Bobby Kennedy because of what happens in may and june. Its far more than just a political argument. May 2nd, may 3rd, may 4th. If we are going to isolate 10 weeks at alter the trajectory of america, we can further isolate three days. Those were the three days. We are in them now. It changed america forever. It allowed me to come here, it allowed me to marry my wife, it allowed me to raise my kids. I take pride in that. I am very grateful. If there are any questions about what happened or anything else, i am happy to field them. Right here . Have your children read it . Thats all i could think about. I have told them, yes, i have read this. I have told them a lot and theyve had a lot of questions. What i really think, not only is this a story about danger and courage and what it takes t to do that, but i really think that those 10 weeks, the ingenuity it took, because their plans failed constantly, the courage it took, the faith, the time, these massive egos how to find a way to coexist, its a guide to life. The last few years have been tough. I got so sick and tired of the negativity that surrounded me and to look at the actions of what the sclc did, with those kids in birmingham did, like, i want to try to live my life that way, right . If anybody reads this book, keep that in mind. It explicitly is dedicated to my children, an open letter to my kids, i truly believe that. So this is, i will answer this question in a roundabout way. When i was in college, i took a few Biblical Studies classes and in those, the history of the bible, you are taught fairly early in those classes that the text you want to consult is the text written closest to the events that never happened, right . One way to answer that, weve been in contact and i will try to meet up with her tomorrow, she played an integral role in the day, a longer way to answer that is even though some of these people are still alive, what they gave to the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute or Public Library 30 years ago, their memories were that much fresher and i cannot say this enough, because they did such an amazing job, i often like, i dont have any followup questions. This is exactly what i wanted to know about those 10 weeks. It was perfect. I just want the goods, i dont want the full story, i want some of the life story but just tell me what happened and time after time, it went right back to, here is what those days were like. In some sense, i did not reach out to that many of those people because at this point, a lot of them had passed by now. Again, this is a credit, it was such a concerted effort for such a long time. So, it happens today, to be mo honest. I am staying at the red mont and i am like, north . I walked the streets, what is this . Every time i come down here, its right next to the park. The book is not just those three days, but like, i got so much information that you look out and heres the hotel. At least when i was here, i se dont know if the city changes these images. There was one girl whose photo i loved, i called her the defiant girl, i love that image. When i first came here, the city had it out on this walk. I did not look to see if it was out, but it comes alive. Its giving me goosebumps right now, you know . It is such an old trope, the past isnt dead, its not even past, but you come to birmingham and youre like, yeah, this is right here. That is Something Else i wanted to capture. It is viscerally alive, this is 1963, but i want it to resonate to 2023. Anything else . Like you, i was fascinated. He came here. Somewhere around accomack 98, 99. I read that he was the person who put the strategies together. Could you talk about that a little bit . What he did as a primary strategist . Its kind of like, the youngl guy. Hes kind of the young guy who, king had recruited and after that, especially after birmingham, he becomes ever more central to executive leadership and his strategy, liking used to say that he fascinated and frightened him. Because its like, the originality of his thought and the righteousness with which he carried out this, so that march , hes like, i want to do in birmingham where we could have the press present and this is the push. We have the Civil Rights Act but we need more. That strategy was just almost the same thing, how can i best put the foot soldiers where they need to be so they can be captured by the press, on and on. Incredulous incredibly original. When it comes to the birmingham hero, very quick personal aside, in november of 2020, not long after i began the research, not long after it had sold to the publisher, i got laid off. I did not know, i was terrified. My mother in law, from inner city houston, i was the primary bear breadwinner and i dont have a job now, and they came to the institute and i did a ton of research and one day i was at the gift shop and there is a photo of Fred Shuttlesworth. I had read a lot by that point. The late march night, where he gave that speech, and to me, its not only the physical courage, but its almost like a spiritual thing that you have to prepare yourself to give yourself over to what is going to come next and that is the only way you can live. To bring it back, i took that photo. This came at a time where im like, i did not know what i was going to do. I decided i am going to try to go it alone. Ive always wanted to be an author, not reliant on anybody, see if i can make it and every day, not every day, but there were many days where i was scared out of my mind and i would write what i needed to write for the book and when that was tough, i would look at freds photo and the like, what do you think . And you know, he was just an unending source of courage and strength for the last few yearst i really feel that i came to know him even though he died in 2011, i think it was. I am deeply grateful that i got a chance to understand who he was and how amazing he was. Everything is fine. Yeah. I dont want to go to my resume, but everything ended up turning out just fine. I have Fred Shuttlesworth to thank. Yeah. I really, i have a lot of hope for this book, but one of the hopes that i have is just that more americans will be aware of who he was, right, or understand the complicated moralities, just who Fred Shuttlesworth was. He should be a national icon. Do you guys know that his name is listed as a defendant in more cases that reached the Supreme Court. Some people are nodding, you do know this. I didnt know it until i researched it, than any other american ever. Fred shuttlesworth versus birmingham, city of alabama, an versus the United States government, over and over. Thats how dedicated to this man was to civil rights, freedom and equality and just living, yeah. Question whos the next king . Oh yeah, the next. And the response commercial nonprofit organizers, when someone asks that question. The response was , they did what they did and now what are you going to do . That would be the time for tomorrow. Such a good point. The first is that i think that the person who commented that is right. You should never be the next anybody, you should be the first you, and however that and that manifesting, great. Im not too cynical about kids in the news, today. If you look at the young legislators in tennessee, right . I think both of those guys are in their 20s, right . They are doing something. If you look a few years back, who were the people on the streets for black lives matter . They were kids, teenagers, twentysomething, my daughter. We live in connecticut. A slightly more complicated way to answer that question is, i see a lot of regression. I see it in the book bans, i see it in book burnings, as if suddenly thats the thing again. I see it in the exhausting discussion of what exactly Critical Race Theory is and should we even be teaching it, like, just teach at all. April 16th, 16th street baptist church. He said i had a dream tonight. I had a dream that little white boys would go to school with little black girls, and they would swim together, and play in the park