could become violent and derail his civil rights bill. >> we had a meeting at the white house with president kennedy. a. philip randolph, one of the black leaders, we called the dean of black leadership, spoke up in his baritone voice, he says something like "mr. president, the black marchers are restless, and we're going to march on washington." and you can tell by the very body language of president kennedy he didn't like what he heard. >> when the march seemed inevitable, the president came around. >> but just in case things didn't go well, they have some of the military on standby outside of washington. they ordered all of the liquor stores to be closed. >> the administration had a secret plan. they put two fbi agents near the p.a. system, ready to pull the plug if they didn't like what they heard. john lewis had to tone down his speech, rewriting it that very afternoon.