Im yuval levin. Im a scholar here at the American Enterprise institute, and it is my great honor and pleasure to welcome all of you to aei for this special forum to mark the 60th anniversary of the march on washington. The march took place on august 28th of 1963, so were a little early marking the anniversary and we decide it to be a little early so that we could bring together people who will otherwise be scattered across a variety of events and celebrations this month. And as a result, we really do have an extraordinary lineup of sessions today looking at the march and its legacy and the broader Civil Rights Movement from a variety of angles, thinking about what it has to say to us now in ways that are both timeless and timely. Were going to hear from scholars, from journalists, from policy thinkers, from religious leaders. Some of them are colleagues here at aei, including our president , robert doar, who has a lifelong connection to the Civil Rights Movement and conceived of this event. And some are guests who have come to mark the occasion by thinking with us about the effort to live out the true meaning of the american creed and how it was transformed by the march on washington and how its going now in contemporary america. Were honored to have these guests with us and to have all of you with us. I is deeply committed to articulating and interpreting and applying and living out that american creed. And this occasion is a wonderful opportunity to do just that. Were going to start this morning by considering the march itself as a stoical event, as a turning point in the history of the Civil Rights Movement and in the history of our country. And to do that with us, weve got one of those honored guests truly ideal person to start with, taylor branch, the historian and author whose three volume history of the Civil Rights Era is just an unmatched accomplishment on this front. The first book in that trilogy, parting the waters america and the king years, 1954 to 63, was published in 1988, won the Pulitzer Prize that year. It won many other awards and honors along the way. And with the second and third volumes in the trilogy, pillar of fire and a canaans edge, the series is really one just about every imaginable award for a history book. It represents an extraordinary 24 Year Research and writing effort that i think of as just a great gift to our country. Taylor branch will offer us the opening keynote this morning, setting the scene, and then he and i will talk for a bit. Hell take questions from all of you in this room before we move on to our second session on the legacy of the march. And so with no further ado, taylor branch, the floor is yours. Thank you, dr. Levin. Im im excited to be here. I couldnt say no to robert doar. I was devoted to his father and i did many interviews with him in the course of of writing that trilogy all those decades ago. And so im happy to be here with you today. Historians arent usually associated with enterprise of of at least often. But id like to tell you that. I grew up in a dry cleaning family. I thought my dad was a dry cleaner. And in the mid the early 1950s, he had a an mba from the university of chicago, where he was the only honors mba graduate with schultz, who became secretary of labor. And he told me that the dry cleaning industry was heavily concentrated in the 1920s. It was there were a few Mega Companies that owned the dry cleaning plants and in a fledgling industry, and that in the course of the 20th century, until he got in it, he said much to his dismay, it got decentralized. Its one of the few industries in American History that has grown more decentralized through the course of history until entrepreneurs like my dad were displaced by primarily asian entrepreneurs in the modern dry cleaning industry. So i claim a real devotion to private enterprise, because my first job when i was five was putting the trouser guards on hangers that came in a box of 500, and you had to put the trouser guard on there. And i worked in that dry cleaning plant every summer and many weekends off for my entire childhood in atlanta, georgia. So i have some enterprise. Before i got before the power of the Civil Rights Movement changed, the direction of my lifes interest against my will on merely because it was so tenacious and it raised such deep questions throughout my formative years. I was in the first grade, the year of the brown decision, and i finished college in the spring that dr. King and Robert Kennedy were were killed. So all in between all the issues of race, all going as deep as the constitution and as deep as the scriptures and as as dr. King used to put it on. Were in my face and eventually change the direction of my i dropped my premed courses in my sophomore year at chapel hill in 1966. Im here to talk to you about the march on washington. Were about to were coming on the 60th anniversary of a major event. The first thing i would like to say to you is that the march on washington like race itself is largely a subliminal phenomenon. We dont really deal with and analyze. We are not inclined to bring to the surface the forces that govern our Racial Attitudes in the United States. The march on washington occurred because of what happened in birmingham in may of 1963. What happened in birmingham in may 1963 is not acknowledged or studied very often, quite frankly, because its too embarrassed to acknowledge the fact that the emotional core of the United States resisted in doing anything about racial segregation in the United States until all the world saw photographs of small children being attacked by dogs and fire hoses. On may 2nd, 1963. The backdrop of that is also not studied, which is that dr. King, eight years after the brown decision and three years after going to jail everywhere, from everywhere he went. But three times in albany, georgia, had made no real headway, no real purchase on changing formal segregation laws in the Southern States of our country. And he feared greatly that the organized resistance to the Civil Rights Movement was gaining ground historically. And that and that the movement was losing its window to accomplish anything lasting in American History. And so he designed and kept secret from his father and most other people because he knew they would try to stop it a Great Movement to try to confront the heart of the beast. Segregation in birmingham, alabama, one of the most segregated cities in america. And they train for four or five months. James lawson, who is still with us, as far as i know, hes still here. Trained, nonviolent volunteers for four months in birmingham. And in april, they started daily marches down into the Downtown Business district to seek service, and they were instantly arrested and instead of building, which was the design and the core of the stories about what happened in the jail and what happened to the adult volunteers, no matter how strong their training was, meant that within. Two and a half weeks they couldnt find any more adult volunteers, and they were on the verge of of surrendering and leaving birmingham with dr. Kings head tail between his legs on the Kennedy Administration actually offered him Foundation Money if he would do that, to switch to Voter Registration instead of confrontations with segregation in in birmingham and he had a real dilemma. But some of his staff principally james bevel and his wife, diane nash, came and said, dr. King, before we surrender, i know we cant get any more volunteers and a movement cant move without soldiers. We want you to know that our numbers in the nightly teenage, the meetings that occur after the nightly meetings, mass meetings have been growing. We have more and more teenagers who are willing to do something about it. Not only that, we have people, kids younger than teenagers who who say this affects their future. And the rumor that dr. King might be considering lowering the age for demonstrators in birmingham seeped out into black birmingham and caused a vile revolt among black parents who came to him and said, you came to birmingham promising that you were going to bring liberty and freedom here in place of segregation. And now, months later, youve left our jails full of people and horrible stories about what goes on in both countries jails. You have brought no freedom. Theres been violence in the street. Many people have been fired. Youre on the verge of losing. And now you want to leave our children with criminal records and obliterate any chance that they might have. As black people in the United States of having a respectable life. How dare you . And the. And james bevel and diane nash got right up in their face and said, yes, these children are going to do the take these risks because you didnt do what you should have done to stop this. You didnt take any risks. And now they have to do it for you. And so dr. King allowed bevel and nash to train people in the basement of the 16th street baptist church, the same church that was bombed a few months later, primarily for this reason. Its where the marches started to go downtown. It was just a few blocks in the basement on may second, instead of 12 straggling adults out came 600 teenagers to the horror of the black parents who were across the street in kelly ingram park. But as the teenagers marched singing i aint scared of your police because i want my freedom to the tune of the old gray mayor and dancing they converted the parents who said, sing children sing as they were hauled off to jail. And the next day, over a thousand kids came out. Thats when bull connor thought he was doing them a favor since they were kids. And by this time, even Elementary School kids, mostly girls as young as six years old, he thought he was doing them a favor by scaring them away because the jail was already full from the previous days. So he brought out the dogs and the fire hoses and the kids didnt stop. They didnt run away. They marched into the dogs and fire hoses and those images went all around the world and they converted the Emotional Center of the United States, where the average person like me who made be fascinate ed by the Civil Rights Movement, as i was then a senior in high school, but fearful of it because it was scary made a transformation from somebody needs to do something about this segregation problem someday transform from that to i need to do something about this and demonstrations broke out all across the United States. There were over 750 demonstration ins within the next six weeks, leading to 14,000 arrests everywhere. President kennedy was astounded that there was even a picket line inside an air force base with the Nuclear Arsenal up in north dakota or wherever they are, south dakota. He said, how the hell did that happen . My own soldiers are marching on this, but it was the subliminal effect of birmingham, jim, that so changed the world. When king came out of birmingham after a settlement was finally reached there, he found that the whole world had changed that well, that his his schedule went from going to black church, from black church to black church and preaching about freedom and putting one foot in the constitution and one foot in the scripture. As he always did and said equal souls, equal votes. Take your choice. Were talking about your fundamental values and nothing would happen. What what happened after birmingham is that when he arrived in cleveland, he was treated like an astronaut with a white motorcade through the city of cleveland. And he gave six speeches in one day in white churches, in black churches. And he told his aides a week or two later, including Clarence Jones, we are on a breakthrough. I dont i dont want we need a mass protest. We need to go to the go to the capitol and take advantage of the fact that birmingham has touched the heart of america. Thats where the march on washington came from. And. The other point i want to make about how race is subliminal is that the the impact of the march on washington, on it is filtered through the lens of what the majority culture really wants to see. The truth of the march on washington is that before it occurred, this capital was terrified. They canceled Liquor Stores sales the whole week for the First Time Since prohibition. The chief judge, judge lewis, had 14 judges and he ordered them all to stop august vacations, come back in the city and be ready to hold all night bail hearings on people arrested for insurrection. The hospitals in washington, d. C. Stockpiled plasma. There were 4000 troops ringing the city and there were 15,000 paratroopers on higher alert at fort bragg in case all hell broke loose. When black people came in to the city of washington. And my favorite, because im an orioles fan and we all know how how hard it is to get professional sports to cancel anything or when president kennedy was killed later that year, they moved nfl games. You know, one day they moved my High School Football playoff from friday night to saturday night. Thats all. That was a concession. Major League Baseball canceled in advance. Washington senators game on the day of the march and also on the day after the march in advance. Assuming that we would still be cleaning up the mess the federal government gave its workers liberal leave not to come to work. And of course, what happened at the march on washington is what we have processed, which is this immense relief and a joyous i have a dream, you know, in figuration in black people arent so bad after all. All this this was really something. But what we forgot is the contrast. We forgot where our subliminal interest came. Life magazine said that washington had the worst case of jitters before the march since the battle. The first battle of bull run, which was actually inaccurate because people before the first battle of warren didnt think it was going to be a disaster. They thought it was going to be a picnic and in fact, packed picnic to go watch the battle and had to come flying back into washington when the confederates turned the tide at the first battle of bull run. But anyway, thats what they said afterwards. Our news media had had to do a gigantic backflip, having predicted mayhem and disaster, or to say that this was a wonderful role. Grant would type patriotic event. I have a dream and how did they do that . Ill never forget talking to Bayard Rustin about it. He said that he had never gotten any decent publicity. Was the principal organizer behind the march, Bayard Rustin was a black excommunist out of wedlock homosexual who who was denigrated by every standard in american life. And yet when the when the march on washington turned out so well he was made the ark. He was made the wizard who transformed who explained why armageddon had turned into a picnic. And he he confronted the reporters privately. And, of course, they never printed any of this and said, i know why youre being so nice to me. He was he was on the cover of life magazine, the wizard of the march on washington. He said he said, now you were reconciled to me and you wont say any nasty things about me anymore. As you were saying, i am the wizard who put porta potties all along the march and made all those nice enough for tea. And thats how the march on washington came out. So these are just two examples of the fact that most of what we think and what we feel about race is not openly discussed. We dont openly discuss the fact that race largely determines whether youre a republican or a democrat. When i grew up in atlanta, we never even heard of republicans. Hardly. There were a few eccentric judges who were who were republicans because they believed in the two parties system that didnt really exist. It was it it was a single party, democratic monopoly and always had been republicans were scarce as polar bears all. And then as soon as 64 came and Barry Goldwater proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Strom Thurmond switched parties, saying that the party of our fathers is dead and worships the foot of materialism and an all consuming power in washington. Therefore, im going to become a republican republic and sprang up in the south out, nowhere out of dust. And now the south is the white. South is presumably republican or we forget that within four years after 1865, the republican of lincoln put the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments into the constitu ation, and then we put the 15th amendment to sleep for 100 years on. This is the subliminal power of race, in my view. It determines more than we like to think and our greatest challenges to discover it and ask questions about how it does. Because race in our Public Discourse is almost entirely an accusation or a summary to get past it rather, an inquiry about how we move forward and how race influences our dearly held beliefs. It it affects whether were called liberal or conservative, and in fact, on that score, there, there virtually are no liberals. Why . For the last 50 years, 60 years now, since the march on washington, has the word liberal gone into harmony . Well, i suggest to you its because it was mercilessly whipsaw, odd in the 1960s from the right by george wallace, who said that white liberals were just as afraid of black people as White Conservative was. He said that liberals in washington were so scared that they had to build a new Theodore Roosevelt bridge over the potomac river. For all the liberals trying to get out of washington. And he ridiculed liberals from the right and x ridiculed liberals from the left, saying saying that they were part of the tribe and they were they mumbled and didnt know what they were doing. And as a consequence, the word liberal virtually vanished from our discourse to be replace progressive, which in some sense is a historical flashback back to what happened at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Progressive Movement was popular in both political parties. The roosevelt and wilson, and to some degree today a progressive is a liberal, chastened to talk about race by whats happened in the last 50 years. Meanwhile, conserve natives. Cannot cannot say the name conservative too often to claim triumph for conservative ideas without acknowledging that in many respects as that as it relates to equal citizenship. Conservatives have retreat it under protest from every advance and equal citizenship from the ones that put the first women into harvard and yale and into my alma mater, the university of north carolina, which had no female students except nursing students. When i was there, it was a white gentlemans university. Conservatives were treated from their past, opposing the legalization of interracial marriage. In 1967. And and the idea of civil union or or of homosexual behavior was opposed by every conservative, even though in the rear view mirror today it looks incredibly tepid in an era of Marriage Equality across across gay and lesbian lines. So conservatives in many respects have retreated on all of these things and yet claim benefit of. Profound ideas. And the reason for that, i think, to be confronted by honest scholars like yourself is that conservatives have been able to win elections by demonizing the federal government that mandated equal citizenship since the 1960s, and that this this demonization has has advanced progressively. One illustration i will leave you with on the whole notion of liberal and conservative. We need conservative. The whole premise of the United States selfgovernment and public trust is the key to the american experiment. In everything madison ever said conservative discipline and and selfgovernment in an individual sense and in a collective descent. That sense is what we need. In 1963, at the march on washington, there was not one single lottery in the United States. There hadnt been one since the Supreme Court finally obliterated the louisiana a serpent, i think, in 1903, setting a constitutional precedent for public laws to govern private behavior in some senses, state behavior. There were no lotteries. The first state lottery was established with great restraint in the state of New Hampshire in 1964. In movement led by the Manchester Union leader. Some of you know about the Manchester Union leader as a met in rallies for three goals. Number one avoid having any statewide taxes by establishing a lottery number to oppose the civil rights bill that was then pending and in congress. And number three opposed the march of over bearing liberal government and the first state lottery was instituted and approved in massachusetts. They only had two drawings a year on and you had it was full of inhibitions because they knew that it was a really big deal to have the voice of the State Government encouraging its citizens to buy lottery tickets and gambling that were a terrible bet. Both liberals and conservatives should agree that in a compact of citizens for the common good, to play your own citizens for suckers is a fundamental step. Well, now there are lotteries all over the United States in these 60 years since the march on washington, they are supported by conservative is because of conservatives hate taxes theyre supported by liberals because they want public funds for public purposes. And theyre too scared to argue for them in straightforward public elections. So you have a unity behind lotteries everywhere, and instead of being inhibited once every six months, as they were in 1964, you now have lotto games and jackpot bingo that change every 30 seconds because of the progressive diction of state lotteries advertised by public dollars and the voice of your government telling you to buy it. The d. C. Lottery. Ill never forget it when i moved out of washington, the d. C. Lottery said he had a dream. I had a picture of Martin Luther king. He had a dream. Play the lottery. Those voices are subliminally tied to race. Race is still at the heart. Its the barometer of our commitment to selfgoverning public trust in a government that is unique and human history. Because it is constructed to work on votes instead of the kings army. You know, every king, every dictator is the product of war. And ultimately depends on violence that makes and democracy. As we know, january six is a system that is designed to work internal without violence. Thats the whole purpose. We common. We resist saying that the american experiment is an experiment in nonwhite violence. Dr. King talked about nonviolence once, and when he talked about it, he said, what is a vote . Its a piece of nonviolence. But people want to think of nonviolence as something completely separate from our voting system, peculiar to black folks, because they have to have it. Its not peculiar. Thats why dr. Kings message was so central to the heart of of of american democracy. So i want to leave these things with you. The United States needs desperately innovative, conservative dialog about the place in discipline, the discipline that we need to restore our belief in votes, to restore our our capacity to do difficult things like confronting climate change, to look people in the eye across us, the ethnic lines that divide us and say, your vote counts as much as mine. What can we do together . We need all of those things today and were not going to get there by papering over the fundamental issue of race. Thats the great thing that the march on washington accomplished. But we need to remember that it the first step was to put your children in jail under a under attack from dogs and fire hoses in birmingham. A very, very profound psychology, a cool boost for american democracy that we dont often give them credit for. Thank you. Thank you very much for opening us up and putting a lot of issues on the table. Its interesting you ended up saying that the that in a sense, the purpose of the march was to try to make the subliminal real, to have to force people to see what was in front of them. Is that how the organizers of the march thought about its purpose . What was the purpose of the march on washington . Did they feel like they achieved it a month later . A year later . Well, remember, in the wake of birmingham, of all those demonstrate patience that when president kennedy said, how the hell did that happen, all moved him. And i would it would be a great movie scene. He made the one great civil rights speech of his life on june 11th, 1963. It was the same night that medgar evers was murdered. After watching that speech. But what made it so remarkable was that he did it because these demonstrations were going so, so much. They had no way of stopping them. And they thought that introducing a civil rights bill would be the best way of regaining a sense of normalcy. He was he was going to berlin. He was about to say eichmann ein berliner, or he was invested in the free world as a global enterprise. And here he is on getting embarrassed around the world for whats happening in birmingham. And he said he wanted to go on the air with 2 hours notice and no speech written and no congressional consultation. Thats how extraordinary it was. And they were literally, come on, burt marshall, you must have some ideas at all before he went on the air and thats when he said, we are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is it is as old as the scriptures and as clear as the constitution, which is just like dr. King, you know, one foot in the scriptures, one foot in the constitution. So president kennedy gave this speech and he had introduced the civil rights bill. Now, so what dr. King said is were on a breakthrough. We need to have a national protest. But by the time they started organizing, it was Philip Randolph and others in york. This bill was introduced. So the the stated purpose was called the march on washington for jobs and freedom, but for freedom was to support the bill that president kennedy was. I dont think he had submitted it by the time, but he said he was going to they were working on it in the justice department. Mr. Doar was working on it. Whats going to be in this bill or president kennedy said, you know, public accommodate is nothing. You know, we do that in boston. You know, black people go to the movies. Thats so anyway, they were formulating this bill and the stated purpose of the march on washington was aimed at Congress Pass the bill. Thats what it was. And in fact, they said over j. Edgar hoovers wiretaps, which is a great primary source for the history of this period. They said, dr. King, Clarence Jones said over the year we are glad that we decided to focus on congress and not on the president , because the president has come out with a non statement of the moral and political stakes are in the civil rights bill in that in that one speech that he gave and how was the how was it received in congress . What kind of effect did it have on congress . Well. A few members came and actually marched. One thing its kind of embarrassing to remember is that when when they marched up to the to the washington monument, when the leaders marched the men came up constitution avenue and the women came up independence avenue. They were divided by gender, even within the movement. Then thats what thats what it was. But they came up and im sorry, what was i saying . The effect on congress. Oh, some members of congress came marched with them, but very, very few. And they are they there are some embarrassingly overt racist comments in the congressional record put by a lot of of southern congressmen about what was going to go on and and how these people were better off in africa. There there was a lot of very, very embarrassing things. So it didnt really hit congress with a wallop. They werent they werent eager to get into this. You know, the legislative history of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is quite remarkable. And the and the senate filibuster, which consumed, you know, the whole spring. Of 1964, is a remarkable event. You know, senator goldwater got he decided to vote against it all, which was the same reason that he decided to when he when he won the nomination. And that same summer, just a month later in san francisco, with a republican convention, when he decided he was going to vote against it, it was a watershed for his whole career. And he consulted two lawyers on on on how to make the the how to defend a vote against the civil rights bill. Robert bork and william rehnquist. Those were his advisers on opposing the civil rights bill, which is a Pivotal Moment for the republican party. Turning it from the party of lincoln into the party of Strom Thurmond and so it entered it opened a battle in congress that that went for a long, long time. But a lot of people dont know that all during the filibuster in the senate. Senator russell, my senator from georgia, who i met several times, was the leader of the southern democrats, and he a big easel in the back of the senate explaining. His bill, the racial relocation act, which said that the civil rights bill unfairly targeted the south because most black people live there. And his racial relocation act would export the proper number of black people from the Southern States to the northern states to equalize the black population. So for each state, it had plus or minus, how many black people are. Were going to have to were going to be, as a result of his bill. Now, of course, it was a fantastic bill, but he said, ive never been a serious about anything in my life and insisted that the easel stay there in the back of senate. So the march on washington did not overwhelm did not overwhelm congress with a sense of purpose. The civil rights bill passed with a lot of sweat, a lot of sacrifice on on the part of republicans and democrats. You know, 80 of republicans in the congress voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In both houses. It was over 80 in the house on the civil rights bill. Wouldnt have passed without republicans because the change that had been instigated with goldwater and Strom Thurmond and everything was just beginning, it happened instantaneously in some places. If you look at the congressional directory. For 1965 law, look at the alabama congressman, i think they had seven men. They never had any republicans, five democrats switched parties in the summer and elected as republicans instantly. And their biographies in the congressional directory omitted the word democrat in all of their prior history and substituted party. So Party Chairman so and so. Because thats how thats how sudden it was. And in other places, of course, youve got courthouses and everything that that have been. That are institutionally democrat. And it took a generation for those to switch over. But its its a fantasy to say that it switched for any other than the racial realignment of 1964. Theres no other force in our politics or anywhere comparable to a force that can turn the partizan structure of the United States upside down, like race. And so to discuss this fundamental things in politics which we need to be doing today, we need to be asking questions how does race fit in it . How does race affect mathematically . How does it affect representation in congressional districts . How does it affect gerrymandering . These are these are fundamental questions, but we we tend to skim over them. So you say that it wasnt the effect wasnt overwhelming on congress. Was it overwhelming in the culture . Did it was it a big moment received as a big moment . You know, the civil war historian allan gillezeau tells a story of having sat down to write an essay about how lincolns speech at gettysburg was received and finding that it just wasnt nobody noticed the speech of gettysburg that we now think of as a kind of turning point in American History. Yeah, it was the march on washington was was kings speech in particular understood to be a big moment the day after the week after . Well, i think it varied, you know, the Washington Post front page the next day didnt have a word about it, didnt. But the New York Times had, i think, three stories about it. James reston recognized it instantly. So i think, you know, it depend it on or on who you were. It it grew, of course, into the into the culture. So that commonly now, you know, people simplify the Civil Rights Movement to rosa sat down martin had a dream and im free you know thats thats pretty much thats pretty much how it came down so its definitely i have a dream i think is recognized by schoolchildren everywhere. It is part of the culture. I think it took a while and for me it was really amazing to study it because he wrote an incredibly stilted speech. This was the biggest event of his life. He knew that and the speech that he that he wrote and began to deliver was stilted. And he could tell that it wasnt going over. And a black preacher is sensitive to the audience, and black preachers are more or less jazz musicians. They have riffs on that that they know how to work. And the whole i have a dream speech was extemporaneous and something he had been delivering across country. So it to me its its a remarkable bold fact that what captivated the country was something that was not planned and something that he that he did from pulpits you know four or five times a day and hadnt been noticed before. So the i have a dream you know famously in his said and i could not document it but a number of people said that Mahalia Jackson was standing behind him and said, tell him about the dream. Martin because he had just given the i have a dream riff in chicago shortly before that. I dont know whether thats true or not, but i do know that you can see his text and you can see where he deviated from it. And and he deviated at exactly the right point because the next line, instead of i have a dream, the next line of his speech was so let us go back to our communities as creative members of the International Association for goodwill. You know. You know, and he skip that line, you know, and we are all better off course, you have a striking line in your book in talking about this, saying that that that speech, that moment transformed king and transformed his meaning for us. You said it planted him as a new founding father, and surely some of that was his selfconscious connection to the Founding Fathers, to the to the, as i say, one foot in the constitution and one in the bible. And the sense that what he was doing, what they were doing was in extension, a continuation of of the american creed, how essential is that to the kind of case he needed to make . And how is it that that argument, that way of understanding the purpose became as controversial as it did as quickly as it flew . I think thats the most profound question going about the movement is, is the the internal debate within black culture and in white culture to us as to whether racial dialog should be centered in kind of constitutional theory or or not, you know, the black Power Movement said, to hell with that, that the Founding Fathers were all slaveholders are we believe in violence if we if need be by any means. But of course. King. Something like some of my favorite interviews were with Stokely Carmichael after that, who said that, ironically, he and dr. King became friends on on the meredith march when he was blistering dr. King with black power and the press was absolute head over heels in love with stokely and saying that dr. King was old hat. Dr. King said, stokely, i cant tell you to stick with nonviolence, but to me youre saying that you want to step up. How come black people have to be nonviolent and . The rest of america admires john wayne. They dont care about nonviolent people and he said, well, doc, doc told me that nonviolence is a leaders hip doctrine. Were trying to move people up to not nonviolence once in governing between them in is not where we want to catch up and be as violent as white people. And so on. I think that its essential to kings success, but also central to our modern appreciation for of the challenge for Martin Luther king that he devoted himself. He he saw in the founders trying to create, even though they were slaveholder. But if you end slavery as a system entirely based on violence, in fact, american Race Relations are, you know, a residue of violence between the races. Thats all there was. There was no consent in slavery. It was based on violence. But king appreciated that the sound was who knew that slavery was more wrong. Thats why its not in the constitution. So on, so forth said if we even dream that we can have our relations across races on anything but violence, weve got to invent a system that stops us from killing ourselves. Thats why were in america. Weve been killing ourselves in europe for hundreds of years within white folks. Thats the only kind of politics we know. So you know. I think that where constitutional scholarship on race should start is where dr. King started, which is how did the founders do . Design something to move politics from a system of applied violence that determined peoples loyalty, that determined what they were going to do, you know, until the next coup or the next civil war or whatever. How do we move it from there to to a system of selfgoverning public trust . Its a psychological experiment. And so, you know, madisons said that constitutional theory is the most profound and meditation on human nature. And i think, dr. King shared all and he knew that stokely was wiping the floor with him because because he was sexy and and there was an electricity about him that was catnip to the American Media and to black people who were tired. Stokely had been going to jail for six years or why didnt why should he have to keep going and king kept saying, its a leadership doctrine. Stick with it. So. In that sense, i do that. King and diana ashe and bob moses and a number of the other principal civil rights leaders were modern founders in the sense that they were trying to do the same thing the original founders did, which was to take, i presume, and ingrain a sense of politics that depended on violence and move it toward equal citizenship so that so that people could elevate their politics into the constitutional system we have. Lets open up for questions here in the room. Just please do ask a question and also tell us briefly who you are when you get started. Theres a microphone going around. Well get started right up here in the front. Just wait for the microphone, if you would. Who i am. My name is joe freeman, 1963. I was a college student, california, who was inspired by the multiple events, 63 to join the bay area Civil Rights Movement. 65 i went south to work for the southern christian Leadership Conference and included smith there. Quite a bit of time there, including a few days in the birmingham jail. I researched, i spent 12 years researching a very long book on all of that, and i came to the conclusion that it wasnt just the Civil Rights Movement which caused a change in our cultural consensus on race that it was also due to the role of the federal government, in particular the role of the civil rights division, which was headed by john doar and the federal judges appointed under who were vetted by herbert brownell. Now youve written a lot in the Civil Rights Movement. I have one of your books right here and ive read most of the other histories. Why is the federal government left out of this equation . My the only one that sees its importance. Well, of course, the march on washington was an appeal to the federal government. It was aimed particularly at the congress, to try to try to get this try to get this passed. But on the the the Civil Rights Movement was very, very complex. As you know, there were civil rights lawyers down there all over the place. The naacp believed wholly in a legal strategy and really didnt degraded demonstrations as something that were that were dangerous, that would convince average white people that that black people were lawbreakers. Thurgood marshall famously said that Martin Luther king was a boy on a mans errand and that he should be in court. So the role of lawyers and the role of the federal government were central. I mean, some of the most sensitive moments in the Civil Rights Movement. When john doar showed up in selma at jean jacksons house, where dr. King was staying, he had identical pajamas with ralph abernathy. He was staying there. And john doar showed up and said, there is a federal injunction for you not to march after bloody sunday until judge johnson holds a hearing on what happened on the pettus bridge on bloody sunday and and people around dr. King said, youre talking to the wrong people. We didnt do anything. You need an injunction on the people that attacked us, not on us. And and john doar said, yes, this is a federal court order. I agree. If you want the federal government to enact a Voting Rights law, which is the purpose of the selma movement. We cant do it if you are in contempt of a federal order, you have to wait. The greatest illustration of the importance of the federal government, the federal judiciary and the Congress Really all the branches of the government. The king had to decide i going to march in defiance of this order. Tuesday, march 9th. A remarkable day in American History. Bloody. Was march 7th. Okay, march 9th in the morning. There were 2000 people who had come from as far away as as hawaii before digital airplane reservations and and to some degree before jet flight. Because king sent out telegrams saying, if you want to do something, march with us from the spot where these people were beaten. It was on television and they were all there and they had all come all that way. And john doar is telling, is asking him to tell them, you came here for nothing because were not going to march. And there was a virtual hemorrhage within the movement. But tween the hope of a partnership with the federal government that depended on obeying federal court order and the cohesion of a movement that depended on the willingness of people risk their lives. Breaking state law and tradition in the face of george wallace. And so what did dr. King do . He marched halfway. He marched across the pettus bridge and then said, we will go back to the church again. It was the famous turn around march. And on. And judge johnson examined him from the bench about it later. But preserved the fact that judge johnsons order when it came out, ordered protection and for the for the next march and and Lyndon Johnson called up george wallace. Are you going to do it or not . Or wallace said, no. So the federal government said, we have to it. And all of this was lined up. This is all about lining up cooperation and consent, all for the federal government to do things that it had never done before. So i agree with you wholeheartedly. You know, just as dr. Kings fundamental outlook on the world is grounded in selfgoverning public trust, grounded in constitutional faith, to move us toward a nonviolent politics are in place of the politics you have today in russia. And most of the countries in the world. Just as it was that fundamental, it was also about how how does the federal government in areas of Race Relations given the fact that its a you know, there are three branches of government. Dr. King was negotiating with all three branches of the federal government, all in deciding what to after bloody sunday on that produced the Voting Rights act. So yes, it was absolutely vital and frankly, i think that had it been anybody. Other than john doar, it might not have worked. I mean, its not easy to tell people who have come this way to risk their lives, you know, sit your heels for a week. And a lot of them, you know, the first nuns they defied, the catholic all to come from all over this place. And they stayed a week behind. What was the sheriff, clark and the police chief in selma put up a rope outside brown chapel there that they couldnt march, and they called it the berlin wall. And and all these nuns and all these people who had come from all over the all over the country, stayed there until the federal government, in its good time, arranged through the courts and through the federal government, that when they finally did march all the way from selma to montgomery, all they had federal escorts, they had Army Helicopters or an they made that march through lyons county, 54 miles. And and arrive. So, yeah, the Civil Rights Movement is a profound interaction between all the branches of government, between law, politics and pulpit and and selma is a is a supreme illustration of that. You had the the greek patriarch jaco was came all the way down there at a time when many greeks were terrified of associating with the blacks Civil Rights Movement because they wanted greeks to be seen as white people. And, you know, and not odd immigrants. But your boss went there anyway. Ive never known whether it was jacobus or jacobo, so even though i interviewed him, i still cant get it. But thats thats the range of this movement. So thank you for that question. So take another question here on the sun. Thank for this fantastic talk. My name is michael panama. Im Program Manager here at aei. I want to learn a little bit more about dr. Kings reliance on the declaration of independence. Was that rhetorical move long standing in his thought and was a controversial within the Civil Rights Movement in other words, was it seen perhaps were the were there those critiqued him for using this document written by a white man written at a time when slavery was widespread or were was this generally agreed upon as a as a rallying point . Was there any controversy over the use of the declaration of independence. Not as much as you might think, but, yeah, there was there were a lot of people who said, why are you quoting all those white folks . They were slaveholders. As i said, there was some tension in the movement to dismiss the thing as and yet if you want something thats going to appeal to everybody, the lines in, order to realize fundamental change. You cant start anywhere else. Frankly, i think studied the constitution more than he did more than he did the declaration of independence. But let freedom and those lines you know the i have a dream speech is a series of risks. You know let freedom ring. I have a dream. And with this face it was it was a series of them. Some of them were from the declaration of independence and some of them were from more of the constitutional era. We the people of dr. King, frequently recited the preamble. Oh, if i had one recommendation to heal american politics today, i would recommend that every political debate begin with asking every candidate to recite recite the preamble. Its one sentence, but it is breathtaking in its optimism and in its scope for what . For whats at stake and left to we the people, you know, thats thats where its grounded. And the fact that it was written by. Governor morris, one of the great cynics among the the founders, is a testament to his skill. Madison said that morriss genius was so great that he could express other peoples ideas better than they all. And thats what he, in writing that preamble. Its a Beautiful Run on sentence. Yeah. Deep breath. Well, weve were just about out of time. I want to ask you one last question. The the the first book in your trilogy, the book that covers the march, among other things, was published 35 years ago. And theres a funny thing about legacy. Its not really stuck. It stay it changes with time. How do you think now differently 35 years later, about the legacy of the march on washington than you did when you wrote it. Well, obviously, it looks like more of an early and somewhat naive baptism of than a culmination at the time it happened. I mean, literally, people thought this is over, you know, this is all over black people and white people are getting along. And when the civil bill passed, all people instantly this is over the. You know, segregation only in the south, all and dr. King, ironically, dr. Was in boston within a month of the selma march dragging his staff to say, we have opportunity to show that race is not and never has been. Purely a question of south. Its an american question. So. More and more it looks like a beginning of it at least raised questions than what it looked like at the time, what it looked like at the time. As this pretty much settles that dr. King can give a speech, good as anybody and white people and black people were both dangling their feet next to each other into the reflecting pool. Therefore, thats the model for how americans are going to get along. And obviously thats naive. Taylor branch thank you very for Getting Started this morning. As usual