Transcripts For KCSM Democracy Now 20180125

Documentary presented here at Sundance King in the , wilderness. , morefelt many ways predictable outcome because in the north, the racial hypocrisy was very subverted. It gave the of karens of being appearance of nothing like the south. The south was the center of all evil and the north was a place of the higher experience. King said, that is not the case. They make a we will speak with the team behind king in the wilderness, including Pulitzer Prize winning Historian Taylor Branch, filmmaker Peter Kunhardt, and writer trey ellis. All that and more, coming up. Welcome to democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We are broadcasting from park city, utah. Longtime usa Gymnastics Team doctor larry nassar has been sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually assaulting and abusing more than 100 young female athletes, including olympic gold medalists, under the guise of providing medical treatment. This is michigan judge rosemarie aquilina. I need everyone to be quiet. I told you i am not nice. Amy more than 160 women testified at dr. Nassars sentencing hearing. The chairman of usa gymnastics and several Board Members resigned amid the highprofile trial. Now the president of Michigan State university Lou Anna Simon has also resigned. Dr. Nassar worked at Michigan State university from 1997 until 2016, and the university has faced widespread accusations of failing to investigate the accusations of abuse. This is gymnast kaylee lorincz, testifying on the final day of dr. Nassars sentencing hearing about the complicity of Michigan State university and usa gymnastics. I guess i thought it would feel like i could close the chapter of this book. But i cant. Not yet. Instead of feels like ive been mindsg the criminal episode. Although the team catches the serial killer, in the last few minutes of the episode, you find out the statistic killer had accomplices sadistic killer had accomplices so the story does not and. Why do i feel this way echo larry nassar has more than one accomplice. He was not only enabled by u. S. Ag and msu, but they fed him his victims. Amy cozad the head of the u. S. Olympic committee and many of the Sexual Assault survivors are now calling on all usa gymnastics directors to resign in the wake of whats being described as the worst Sexual Abuse Scandal in u. S. Sports history. President trump claims hes looking forward to answering questions under oath as part of special counsel Robert Muellers Ongoing Investigation into whether the Trump Campaign colluded with russia as part of the 2016 election. This is President Trump during an impromptu briefing as he prepared to depart for the World Economic forum in davos, switzerland. Pres. Trump im looking forward to it, actually. There has been no collusion whatsoever. There is no obstruction whatsoever. I am looking forward to it. shortly after the briefing, one of President Trumps lawyers, ty cobb, quickly tried to walk back trumps promise, saying trump was speaking hurriedly and that trump will be guided by the advice of his personal counsel. During trumps briefing, he also said hes open to a path to citizenship after 10 to 12 years for the nearly 800,000 young undocumented immigrants known as dreamers, whose daca Program Trump canceled last year, although his decision has been temporarily blocked by a court. In response to trumps comments, the farrightwing website Breitbart News attacked trump, calling him amnesty don. A group of mayors canceled a planned meeting with President Trump at the white House Wednesday after the Trump Administration again threatened to cut off Police Funding to socalled sanctuary cities, where local Law Enforcement refuse to collaborate with immigration agents in carrying out trumps promised mass deportations. Among the mayors was new york citys bill de blasio, who tweeted he was skipping the meeting because realdonaldtrumps department of justice decided to renew their racist assault on our immigrant communities. This is mayor de blasio. This letter expose ali threatens our funding once again, threatens to subpoena our personnel on the very day where in principle there were telling us they wanted to have an honest dialogue. This proves there was no intention to have a serious dialogue. What i got was a stunt from the Trump Administration. Amy in more news on immigration and immigrant rights, eight activists with the humanitarian group no more deaths have been charged with a slew of federal crimes over their volunteer work of leaving water and food in the harsh sonora desert to help refugees and migrants survive the potentially deadly journey across the u. S. Border. The charges come a week after the group no more deaths published a report accusing u. S. Border patrol agents of routinely vandalizing or confiscating the water, food, and other humanitarian aid left condemning refugees and migrants to die of exposure or dehydration. Only hours after the report was released, one of the groups volunteers, scott daniel warren, was arrested and charged with the federal crime of harboring people in the country. In oklahoma, the bodies of five oil workers have been found after a deadly explosion at a gas well about 100 miles south of tulsa on monday. Authorities say the cause of the deadly explosion is not yet known. The well is owned by the Company Red Mountain operating, and was drilled by the company pattersonuti energy. In brazil, an Appeals Court has upheld the conviction of former president Luiz Inacio Lula da silva for corruption, dealing a blow to the highly popular leftwing leaders bid to run in brazils upcoming president ial election. The judges ruled wednesday to increase lulas prison sentence, sparking protests across brazil. Lula served as president from 2003 to 2011 and is currently leading in the polls for octobers president ial election. On wednesday, lula called the ruling politically motivated, and said it makes him want to run even more. What i am starting to realize is everything they do is to try to prevent me from being a candidate. Not even to win, but just to be a candidate. This provocation is so big, it has given me a little itch and now i want to be a candidate for president. Said aakistan has suspected u. S. Drone strike also northwest pakistan. The drone strike killed two alleged militants with the taliban linked haqqani network. One man was killed as he was taking a shower early wednesday morning. Two doctors are warning wikileaks founder Julian Assanges physical and Mental Health is dangerously deteriorating amid his more than fiveyear stay in the Ecuadorian Embassy in london. Assange first sought refuge there in 2012 when he faced possible extradition to sweden. The doctors called for assange to be granted safe passage to a london hospital. In economic news, a news study by americans for tax fairness finds the Koch Brothers and their Business Empire could save as much as 1. 4 billion on income taxes each year from President Trumps tax overhaul, which was passed in december. The Koch Brothers lobbied heavily to pass the tax cuts. They are already tied for 8th they are already among the richest in the world, each of them worth over 48 billion. And in germany, police have raided activists blockades in the ancient hambach forest, where activists have been camped out for years trying to stop the ongoing construction of the hambach coal mine, the largest openpit coal mine in europe. The activists say at least 10 people were arrested in the polices massive eviction operation. Democracy now visited the occupied forest during the u. N. Climate summit last year. This is one of the activists named indigo. Were in a treehouse village in an occupied forest. It has been occupied for over five years now. The occupation has the aim to prevent the exploration of the mind. It is not just about protecting the forest, but about fighting Global Warming because this region of lignite mining of power plants is the biggest stuff of co2 emissions in all of europe. And you go how has the company responded to the occupation . They say what they do is because it is legalized by the democracy, they say what they do is right and what we do here is illegal. And so they asked the police to evict us. For us, that is a strong sign that the program is the system we live in. If it is legal for a company to destroy our whole planet from any that is also time to resist against their power. Amy thats an activist named indigo, speaking from the treehouse village last november in germanys hambach forest. To see our whole report from the occupied forest, go to democracynow. Org. And those are some of the headlines. This is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival in park city, utah. 50 years ago this april, the reverend dr. Martin luther king was assassinated in memphis tennessee. He was just 39 years old. Today we look at the last three years of kings life beginning after president Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights act of 1965. Despite passage of the monumental legislation, king set his eyes on new battles to wage by launching a Poor Peoples Campaign and campaigning to stop the vietnam war. It isolated him from many of his closest supporters. Well, a new hbo documentary about kings last years has just premiered here the Sundance Film Festival. It is titled king in the wilderness. It will air on hbo in april. I had a chance to sit down this week with the films director, longtime documentary filmmaker Peter Kunhardt, as well as two of the films executive producers the writer trey ellis and Pulitzer Prizewinning Historian Taylor Branch, who wrote the america in the king years trilogy. I began by asking Peter Kunhardt about why he named the film king king in the wilderness. We came up with the title in the editing of the film. It was based on the fact that we were overcome by the fact that king was struggling in every possible way during those last three years, trying to find his way as he branched away or in addition to his work on racism to work on poverty, to work on moving moving to the northern cities and to oppose the war in vietnam. His support that he had enjoyed all during the early part of the Civil Rights Movement vanished. He was left with no roadmap. He felt his friends abandon him. And he was alone and struggling and trying to find his way. We just felt the title captured that kind of loneliness that he experienced. Amy go trey ellis, you did a lot of the interviews with the legendary figures, the contemporaries of dr. Martin luther king. Talk about the people that you spoke to and this particular period in his life of course, dr. King is a legend, an icon, and people cannot imagine that there was this period where he did feel so alone. So vilified. First, such any amazing experience to talk to these people who were of my carrots generations. Parents generation. And to hear that martin died of a broken heart. Then when i talked to diane nash and she said she happened to know my parents from Howard University and i did not know that until i interviewed her. My journey of interviewing these legends was really transformative for me. These are people i knew just from books. Amy talk about to diane nash was. I think of her as wonder woman a little bit. ,egendary Civil Rights Activist responsible for the march to selma, the Voting Rights movement in alabama, the lunch Counter Movement in nashville when she was a student at fisk. But she is also a mother. She had all of the problems of in the movement and being a legend in the movement. We know who john lewis is, congressman in household name. Nash should be as famous as him. Amy diane in the movement and being a legend nashs commet dr. King and the differences she had with him in those last three years, where she felt the efforts of the Civil Rights Movement should be focused. To this day, she is still very fiery. She says the idea of the us to one or two leaders, she is very much against that. Pretty eloquently about how we have defined the movement in ourselves and each of us has to pitch in. Being on the ground floor, she knew there are other people around her that were great leaders. It is sort of easy for us to outsource our activism to people who are more active than us. , lets talkbranch about those last three years where dr. King is moving north. He would say at that time he was never so afraid as he was in chicago. I mean, for all that he faced in the south, chicago, northern united states. Well, within a month of selma in 1965, he was saying, we have to go north. The staff, including diane, did not want to go north. We still had work to do in the south. That is what she said. Determined. More he was reluctant in the early years. He was trying to make the movement climb up the stuff he gets the nobel peace prize. Said we want to go to selma. As soon as some a was done, he said we want to go north to show issue hasat the race never been purely southern. The staff did not want to go. For onehe staff, except person, was against his coming out and making the Riverside Church speech against vietnam. Stafflm shows how much dissension there was on the Poor People Campaign and then on memphis. There was a downward pull of king in the last years were he felt compelled to make a witness on things that he did not have confidence were going to be big breakthrough moments like i the civilam or rights act of 1965. He is in the wilderness and lonely, but he is much more of a leader almost a possessed leader. We have to do this. Even the Civil Rights Act made a speech to hisf saying, we have to finish. There is a quoted in revelation we have the friend us our principles even if we have very little left. Amy can you take us on the Church Rectory of the mississippi march after the selma to montgomery march, james meredith, and why king decided to join us through the whole challenge by Stokely Carmichael who would later become incredible footage of them publicly feuding or it was more a battle of ideas of who should be included in the march. But start with meredith. The meredith march was a watershed in the Public Perception of the movement. It was the birth of black power. Stokely had just taken over the student nonviolent did for dating knitting committee. Lewis was ousted because he was too much like Martin Luther king. When meredith got shot, dr. King and stokely were thrown together and continuing his march. Amy cozad what happens. James meredith had his own to try to inspire black mississippians who were afraid to go to the courthouse to register to vote after the Voting Rights act. He said, if i can march through mississippi by myself, then you should not be afraid to register. But on the third day out, he was shot by white people who were angry he was trying to rally people black people to vote. Civil rights leaders, many of whom were not consulted about this march but felt they had to continue it because it was so public. It through dr. King together sncc leader stokely and stokely said openly he used all the press came with dr. King to announce this new doctrine to make this student nonviolent coordinating to not be second fiddle. They felt that dr. King got more attention. They announce this new doctrine, we want black power. It mesmerize the to not be secod fiddle. Media. To this day, it is more popular. There are a lot of nonviolent movements that are embarrassed because they were nonviolent because black power became so popular. Dr. King would argue a stokely marching down the road, and there are scenes of that. ; with a reporter between them holding a microphone going back and forth. And also the inclusion of nonblack activists in the movement. Wanted thethey march was very integrated. 220march remember, it is something miles. It went on for almost a month. It is bigger than the selma march. It marchgnificance is to the transformation between violence and nonviolence or the opening of a debate. Stokely would say, how come we have to be nonviolent . How come america in myers nonviolence only in black people, but otherwise they admire john wayne . Why do we have to do that . Dr. King would say, we dont. Im not telling you to do it. Im telling you that nonviolence is a leadership doctrine. If we become violent, it is not that were stepping up to be like john wayne, it is we are stepping back from nonviolence to try to move the country toward reconciliation, toward spirituality. So they had his big arguments about whether the Civil Rights Movement needed to be nonviolent in the whether it was effective, whether it was principled, and what kind of Leadership Strategy it was. Dominated the last couple of years of dr. Kings life. ,my Historian Taylor Branch prize, partpulitzer of his remarkable trilogy, talking about the new hbo documentary king and the wilderness, directed by Peter Kunhardt. We will be back with them and executive producer trey ellis in a minute as they talked about king moving to chicago in 1966, and much more. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. We are broadcasting from the Sundance Film Festival in park from utah, broadcasting park city tv. We return now to our coverage of the documentary king in the wilderness that just premiered here at sundance. It is about dr. Martin luther king juniors last three years. I spoke this week with filmmaker Peter Kunhardt, as well as two of the films executive producers the writer trey ellis and Pulitzer Prizewinning Historian Taylor Branch, who wrote the america in the king years trilogy. We will return to our conversation in a moment. But first, an excerpt from the documentary which is playing at sundance and debuts on hbo in this is Harry Belafonte april. Speaking. A dear friend and close copy. Of dr. Martin luther king. Know that everything martin said or did he was prior quite prepared for. He had felt in many ways dealing with the south in a more predictable outcome because in the north, the racial hypocrisy was very subverted. It gave the appearance of being not like the south. The south was the center of all evil in the north was a place of a higher experience. The said, no, that is not case. Amy that is Harry Belafonte, one of the closest confidantes of dr. King in the last 10 years of dr. Kings life, talking about dr. King moving north. He did not just march in chicago, he moved his family to chicago as he particularly took on the issue of housing. Taylor branch, you are a veteran civil rights historian. He won the Pulitzer Prize for parting the waters. You, too, were surprised by some of the footage you saw in king in the wilderness. Yes, i was surprised by i wrote, but i do not feel i thousandsy book that of white people would come out and throw bricks and it was women with pocketbooks and they hit people with pocketbooks and yell and scream. But to write it is different based on source material than two c nazi signs and people yelling and screaming in chicago. It was a very rough place. Amy the swastikas, the presence of the swastikas. There were lots of swastikas and young people involved. On the other side, dr. King was withg to experiment nonviolence in the north and in many respects, it was there are no stories there were in methods of nonviolence breaking down on the movement site in chicago. In fact, a number of gang leaders would come up to dr. Kings apartment and argue with him all night and a number of gang leaders were in those marches. So he had the blackstone rangers and a number of them in these marches. In some respect, it was the far reaches of the laboratory of who could be nonviolent and whether or not it could work. But what you get out of the films you see the other side of it. Dr. King said, we have to show america that there is a race problem in the north because you would be surprised how many millions of people think there is no more race problem since we passed the civil rights bill. Theyat one little test, succeeded admirably. Nobody really argued there was no racism in the north after chicago. Amy was and he hit by a brick . He was hit by a break on that march. He was hit many times, stabbed, struck. Violence at all was been close to him before memphis. That was not new. In chicago, even what andy said, down in the south, youd have a couple hundred klansmen and you would be scared. In chicago, there were thousands and they were enraged. You could hear them. It was and a great crowd. Amy trey ellis, lets talk about the riots in chicago, the holdingzi swastika protesters who were going after king. Your interview is done as President Trump took office. We see charlottesville, the summer with so proclaimed nazis and fascistss marching in virginia. Your thoughts connecting these two 50 years apart. It was quite moving. In some ways, depressing to see how segregated much of the country still is. To hear diane nash and the other chicago people talk about the issues of chicago and i remember as a kid talking about the nazis marching in skokie, illinois, as well. Really ern racism while interviewing subjects was, on the eve of the trump trump had just been inaugurated when i started these interviews. It was reverberating in my head in ways that was troubling. Amy the inclusion of women who you dont often see in this documentary when talking about the Civil Rights Movement. Can you talk about some of the figures . It wasnt we need to include some women, it is who are the most important people alive at various stages and they were women. Dorothy cotton trained the young black children who did the childrens marches in birmingham. That was her job. She was a singer. That was one of the great watershed moments in the civil right euro when the dogs and the fire hoses came out. She did that. Diane nash who helped her then took that reaction and said, we have to do something to answer these kids who got bombed. There is a document what became the blueprint for the selma Voting Rights. Thrownre not just women in there. These are women who are central, but they have not been recognized in their true proportions. Joan baez, very significant in the huge arguments within the movement about whether vietnam or poverty. Marian evelyn, it was her idea edelman, it was her idea to move into the Poor Peoples Campaign. These are highly significant women that i think get their due in this film, and you cant feel their significance in the interview. Amy talk about the relationship between lbj and dr. King. Really significant, especially lbjs alarm as riots are ,reaking outcome uprising rebellions. Who did he call . Dr. King. So interesting you have the audio recordings. What did you get them from, fbi surveillance tapes . No, those are president ial recordings. Lbj is talking to hoover and saying that dr. King is a faker, trying to undercut him. Blanket hostility. It also lbj talking to Martin Luther king saying this is terrible, what can we do . Because in onead of the conversations, it was too long to fit in the film, lbj said, what we did in selma with you mobilizing the public and me being able to give that speech, that is the way democracy is supposed to work. Energize citizens and responsive government. That is about the best thing that ever happened. In the same conversation, theyre talking about vietnam. You can feel vietnam pulling them apart will stop johnson just he said my legacy is civil rights, for that is being threatened by these riots and i have this war and my ally dr. King is turning against me on the war. Theres a lot of passion in those conversations. Amy lets talk about vietnam and how king ended up making speech, why i oppose the war in vietnam. I want to turn to a clip of since harding before he died. We had a long conversation with him about the speech and his conversations with dr. King. Harding who helped craft that speech. Worse the endmuch of his life, you may remember, by the last years of his life, he was saying america had to deal with what he called three triple evils. The evil ofracism, oferialism, and the evils militarism. And he saw those three very much connected to each other in a way, amy, as long as martin and werew each other, we talking about the kinds of things that were involved in that speech. We were talking about the tremendous damage that war does to those who participate in it, to those who are the victims of tremendouse who lose possibilities in their own lives because of it. Always were always talking about what it might mean to try and find creative, nonviolent terrible,es to the oldfashionedness of war as a way of solving problems. And then when vietnam began to develop on all of our screens in the 1960s, we talked a great deal about our countrys role and a great deal about the role of those of us who were believers in the way of nonviolent struggle for change and what our responsibility was, both as nonviolent believers and as followers of the teachings and the ways of jesus the christ. Was clear with himself that he had to make a major, public address on this , as fully as he possibly could do it, he was looking for a setting in which that could be done on the grounds of his religious stance particularly. And when clergy and laity against the war in vietnam invited him to do that at riverside for the occasion of 1967,gathering in april it was clear to him that was a place he really ought to make this speech, ought to take the stand in the most public way possible. Amy that was Vince Harding, close ally of dr. King who helped craft that beyond thatam speech, the speech dr. King gave at Riverside Church in new york on april 4, 1967, a year to the day before dr. King was assassinated in memphis. Hardings rolee in that speech. He was a mennonite student of nonviolence is whole life who lived in atlanta, not far from dr. King. When the speech when he undertook the speech for reasons that trait can explain, it is one of the few he wrote out. She had to have a condition of doing this was that they wanted to publicize it and get his views out. They wanted a written version. Amy that dr. King wrote. Yes. Normally dr. King winged things. He had to have a formal speech. He called in a number of people that principally, Vince Harding did the first draft to try to get it right. The staff did not want him to give the speech but they said if youre going to do it, do it in a way at least you dont the press will Pay Attention to it. Dont do it with a lot of, hey, hey, lbj, how many kids placards on amy how many kids do you kill today . Do it in a nice way. To interview did fernandos about how they went in there. They were trying to make it as palatable as possible and get the world one chance to listen to his comprehensive argument about the history of vietnam, the be news people the enemies people, how they viewed our clams we were fostering is out of concern for their democratic future. He crafted this comprehensive speech and nobody listened to it anyway. They said you are a traitor him you should it was one of the big disappointments in his life. Amy king and Vince Harding said . Vince you got me in a lot of trouble and im going to blame you. They survived on gallows humor. Dr. King was a champion. Amy talk more about the significance of this speech. I want to play another clip. This one of dr. King himself. So many of the phrases he used became so important later. And speak as a child of god brother to the suffering poor to vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of america who are paying the double price andmashed hopes at home death and corruption in vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world. For the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves america to the leaders of our own nation. The Great Initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours. As i have walked among the dust desperate, rejected, angry young men, i have told them that molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they ask, and riley so, what about vietnam . They ask if our own nation wasnt using massive doses of violence to solve its problems to bring about the changes it wanted. Those questions hit home. I knew i could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today, my own government. Amy that is dr. King saying that his country, the united states, was the greatest purveyor of violence on earth. The corporate media, the mainstream media, went after him time i have the life magazine copy when they talked about the fact they said his speech sounded like a script from radio hanoi. They said here that a disservice to his cause, his country, and his people. Those 10 people today as it is easy for king because everything he did everyone idolized, he was slammed. Documentaryin the talking about he nudged into the idea of global politics, talking with andrew young and goldberg and anytime you try to say anything except for white southerners should not segregate, he was pilloried. They tried their best, as taylor said to say, how can we make a strong statement as innocuous as possible . Amy and what happens after . A year to the day before he is assassinated, that speech is what king says. It is amazing that the coincidence that it is a year to the day after that speech he is gunned down in memphis. Against the speech was not only the media or the white community, it was also Roy Wilkinson and the naacp come all of the black clergyman and even inside the sclc were concerned. Amy the southern christian leadership conference. Which he led. They were concerned. Their money dried up. He had no friends. That is when his great advisor who begins our film says, he died of a broken heart. That is one of those great reasons that everybody seemed to have turned against him with his turn against the war. Amy that is right or trey ellis coexecutive producer of the new documentary king in the wilderness. We will be back with him and Historian Taylor Branch and Peter Kunhardt. [music break] amy this is democracy now , democracynow. Org, the war and peace report. Im amy goodman. King in the wilderness. Thats the name of a new documentary about Martin Luther kings last three years alive. I spoke this week here at the Sundance Film Festival with filmmaker Peter Kunhardt, as well as two of the films executive producers the writer trey ellis and Pulitzer Prizewinning Historian Taylor Branch, who wrote the america in the king years trilogy. The film premiered here at the Sundance Film Festival. I asked trey ellis to talk about kingsport people campaign. So after the coming out against the war in vietnam and he is really at his lowest point, some people might say, you deserve it. If you want to be taken over Riverside Church and live in the Upper West Side of manhattan, you deserve it, right . Fightd, no, he wanted to longer. The first interview i did was with mary and elven. She said when she visited the poor in mississippi when Bobby Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy said to her, tell king to bring the port to washington, which goes to Taylors Point about having the public private, help governance works best, how king and lbj could work together, when she brought that message to king, she goes into his office and he is very sad. She tells him this idea from Bobby Kennedy and her, and he lights up. This he talks about march on washington, this Poor Peoples Campaign. He really envisioned it as bigger than the i have a dream speech. He figures this will be all americans, white, black, hispanic, all poor people would march on washington in big transformative change. When you see the place for that march and what could have been in that march cut short by the assassins bullet, it is quite heartbreaking. Amy Taylor Branch . One reason he may have let up so much, this idea of racism, poverty, and war calling it the triple scourge of evil, and it was mentioned in the film, that was not a new idea for king. It is the theme of his nobel prize lecture that they are related, racism, poverty, and war. Violence of the flesh and violence of the spirit. He had done racism. He had done war in vietnam. Poverty is equally violent in his worldview. So an opportunity to make an explicit witness on the third leg of what he called the agent triple scourge of racism, poverty, and war, i think was something that he knew he needed to do to make his message complete. He had been speaking, but had not been demonstrating on poverty. Amy lets move on to memphis. Not the final moment of memphis, but in two parts. Again, were talking about you nor mr. Jim within the sclc and dr. Kings closest advisers being concerned about king going to memphis. Here been invited to stand with the sanitation workers as they tried to unionize. I will talk a little bit about the origins of memphis. The film shows it took an enormous effort to get the staff behind the Poor Peoples Campaign. Some people said, if you do not end the vietnam war, doesnt matter what we do. Others said we still have segregation in the south and north and we should be on race relations. He finally gets them going on the Poor Peoples Campaign and their plans, then this incident happens in memphis. Twostrike started because of the sanitation workers were crushed to death in the back of a cylinder garbage truck when they were not allowed to seek shelter in rainstorms. They were all black and the rules do not allow them to seek shelter in any white neighborhood because it offended white people. The only place they could find shelter was in the garbage with the garbage itself. A lever compacted them. Literally crush them. That is the origin of i am a man. They picked that slogan because the whole strike was it was economics, but it was also just essential dignity. They were being crushed like the garbage they were picking up, and nobody cared. Amy so they carried these signs. And the person leading the demonstrations, jim lawson, was one of dr. Kings old mentors and he calls them and says, martin, can you come . Did mosthere trey of the interviews about memphis, but that is where it was. He said, i have to go to memphis. Yes, it is a diversion, but it is from jim lawson and if these people dont personify what the Poor Peoples Campaign is going to be about, nobody does. He drags his staff to memphis as a diversion from the Poor Peoples Campaign. Amy take it from there. What is amazing, every time when he wanted to go north or go against the war, he was getting this pushback from his staff. And now theres such a little hunger strike. Thes the first time first time he cant get through to them and yes to do something extreme so they will listen to him. To me, and extraordinary moment when he goes to the first memphis march and it goes badly and some people it is unclear the reasons, but some people in the back are taking the i am a man wooden placards and using them to break windows and the march is a disaster. I am most impressed by dr. King when he is on the film and says, yes, it was terrible and i should have done a better job organizing this march. I should not have just jumped in sight unseen into this march. There is not a single politician ive ever heard in my life who would admit to that kind of a mistake. When he comes back, he is redoubling his efforts to come back next time and make it right. Amy talked about his returning to atlanta. Andy young, the former mayor of atlanta, close ally of dr. King for some many , i have never seen dr. King so angry. Taylor branch . Tension broke out after that march. They went back to atlanta. A lot of the staff who had not wanted to go to memphis in the first place thought they were right, we should not have gone to memphis. Violence broke out there. We told you you should not do it. Others said, yes, we should be doing other things. Dr. King was possessed. We have to go back and rectify this. We have to show them that nonviolence can work. He had some of his stuff people saying, martin, you cannot assume the burden of making every black person in memphis it here to nonviolence. These were young kids who thought they could name a name for themselves by being militant. You cant impose that. He said, we have to make an effort. He was possessed to get everybody behind him. He was mad at them. Dont tell me youre for me, im out here alone on this. It was a very, very rare moment. He yelled at all of them. They chased him, could not find him. He went off and slept one night, so this stuff went to Ralph Abernathy who got his wife to cook some catfish and try to anyway, they went back united to memphis. That is where they were when the assassination happen. So they were trying to rectify this error and prove that nonviolence was still pertinent. They had it at Court Ordered to allow them to vote again. Andy young was in court all the last day and comes back from court and says, Martin Martin hit him with a pillow and add pillow fight like a bunch of 10 years old like kids. Amy before we go to that, andy young, the lightest experience with king for years. I want to go to the clip of dr. King the night before he was killed. This was april 3, 1968. I dont know what will happen now. We have got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesnt matter with me now because i have been to the mountaintop. Like anybody, i would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But im not concerned about that now. I just want to do gods will. And he has allowed me to go up to the mountain. I look over and i have seen the promised land. You, not get there with but i want you to know the night that we as a people will get to so im happyland tonight. Im not worried about anything. Am not fearing any man mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord. Amy that is dr. King hours before, the evening before he was assassinated. You interview Jesse Jackson, who was at his side at the time of his death, about that speech and what happened in those ensuing hours after it. It was really amazing talking to someone like Jesse Jackson who you think you know as such a public figure, to get him to really open up in a very personal way and you really tear up about this story. That is the part of me as a narrative film maker, talking to someone, almost like a director trying to put them back in this space that is very and comfortable for them. As he starts telling the story, he describes dr. King not wearing a tie. Jump, jesses a jackson mix a jump. I jumped out of my chair. He describes the bulletsevering dr. Kings tie. It is one of the most harrowing moments of my life talking to him about that. Amy Jesse Jackson then saying the one thing he knew he needed to do was to call karen scott king. A young guy, Jesse Jackson, former football player, asked to do the hardest thing of his life, call her. He says, he got shot in the shoulder. He said, i could not tell her the truth. To coretta inifts a way and her handling this in the house in atlanta. Andy young says quite forthrightly, we could not hold the Movement Together without dr. King. Amy and a the church of dr. Martin luther king and his father. You see his father breaking down. Coretta scott king is stoic as she stands next to the open casket of her husband. It is one of the most painful moments of the script. It is one of the most painful moments of the film. But in terms of how progress of dr. King is, he talks about in income, howniversal that would be a good idea. He talks about how he was to into povertyize and antiwar movements. He talks about subsidies. It is for poor people it is called welfare. If it is wealthy people, it is high was or the g. I. Bill, then it is just called subsidies. Everything he was saying is so exactly what we need right now. Amy i went to end with Taylor Branch talking about today. This film coming out in the era of trump. This last year with the white marching,ts, nazis empowered around the country. President trump, after his shole amidst talking but african countries in haiti, the next day he is extolling the virtues of dr. Martin luther king. Film is a think this great opportunity in two respects. First of all, it shows a side of dr. King that i think most people know and dont know what will find shocking. T on theseffered, tha issues for the end of his life. But if we had listened and accepted him as a leader on the issues he cared about, racism, poverty, and war, we would not live in a cynical era. Thet of our politics in last 50 years has been denying the leadership of the Civil Rights Movement. Womensead to t issues and to gay rights movements and to all sorts of things. But our policies politics are cynical because trump is only making explicit what a lot of the antigovernment, antiwe the that has beenm pervasive in our society. And i am hoping that we are returning at this 50 year cycle so that kings spirit could join together with black lives matter metoo movement. Without his discipline to realize it is virtual and political, you put one foot in the scripture and one in the constitution, we dont have the depth to turn it around. I think it is very, very topical because this film is about dr. King struggling with the issues that our country needs to struggle with now. Amy that is calypso prizewinning Historian Taylor Branch, writer trey ellis, and director Peter Kunhardt. Their new documentary king in april 2 oness airs hbo. It premiered here in the Sundance Film Festival. Tune in tomorrow with an indepth interview with jane fonda as she talks about the five chapters of her life, from acting to opposing the war in vietnam to organizing around civil rights and economic justice. And that does it for today show. Ill be speaking here at the Sundance Film Festival tomorrow, friday, at 1 00 p. M. The free event is at at the the park city museum, 528 main street. Democracy now is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning. Email your comments to outreach democracynow. Org or mail them to democracy now p. O. Box 693 new york, new york 10013. [captioning made possible by democracy now ] its not breakfast, and its not lunch. Its brunch and thats what im going to prepare for my guests today, my bountiful brunch buffet jazzy, youre gonna be healthy with the Jazzy Vegetarian jazzy, so snazzy were gonna cook something healthy and light [scatting] jazzy, so snazzy laura so join me in the kitchen right now. Were gonna cook something healthy and light thats right. Join me as i prepare a bountiful brunch. Were gonna begin with my easytomake mini biscuits, which ill serve alongside my surprisinglyauthentictasting noegg scramble, and then crispy cashew french toast served with warmed organic maple syrup is next up on the menu. My simple side dishes include tomatobasil pinwheel