To get his education, housing and property bills passed before he goes back to Voter Registration because he just got a Voting Rights bill passed the previous year. He tells dr. King, there are two things you can do for me. One, find the worst example you can of voter intimidation, and get it in the papers, he says. Get it on the tv. The other thing is, help me get my other legislation passed. If you have seen the movie selma, it paints the president s role as a little bit more of a villain than the phone calls will. Help us remind people how pervasive, how numerous the barriers to Voter Registration were for black citizens in the south. Im not sure how many have seen the movie. What you see is a quintessential example of what it was like throughout the south. I was a part of the Mississippi Movement of sncc. In the movie you will see that sncc had been in selma, as it had been in other parts of the south for a long time, and when things got to the point where it looks like there was going to be action, often the sclc, Kings Organization or any organization would come in. Its important to know here were talking 1965. We really need to see this in context. That march essentially produced the 1964 act. If you look at Congress Today of which i am a member, and you see how moribund it is when it comes to even getting its budget out then you think, we had just passed the 1964 act and here comes the movement saying, now go to the 1965 act. Its important to understand this sequence. Why didnt we go for the 1965 act first . The 1964 act has at its center piece title 7 the job discrimination section, but it also memorialized brown versus board of education in public accommodation, so you really hear about that trait you think about the 1964 act and job discrimination. The 1963 march was all about jobs and freedom. Yes, to be sure the 1964 act passed. This was considered a great and important monuments. This was the first civil rights legislation since the civil war. Why did we go for the 1965 act first . Think of what the 1965 act is. With the 1964 act, all we were saying was make sure someone comes in is a qualified person for the job, that you cant turn them away based on their physical characteristics. The 1965 act went straight at the very heart of the power structure of the south of the United States, and the democratic ready. Southern democrats controlled virtually every committee and the congress, because their people kept sending them back largely for the kind of demagogic rhetoric they were known for in the senate and house. If you went for the 1965 act and one has to understand that in judging johnson you are cap going at his party, and he says thats the end of the south and democrats. You can see he was right. The south is virtually now all republican. Worse than that, you are going after some of his southern democrats like himself. That got a lot more political coverage and a lot more effort. To do that, after you think you had just done something that was the crowning glory of anybodys presidency, and here come these people saying we want some more you can understand how this was a great orton to put on a president. Nobody would have thought of doing it if it had not been Lyndon Johnson. Theres probably never been anybody in the senate who can do what Lyndon Johnson could do. He had shown that when he was a senator. We expected him to show it now, for us. He can run pretty fast. By midfebruary he had decided to support had come around pretty fast. By midfebruary he had decided to support. That was his crowning achievement, more than the 1964 act. He wanted to make these changes through the courts, not realizing in the south that blacks had no standing in the sheriffs office, the mayors office, state legislature or congress. There is no way that was going to get through the political system. Lbj understood that. He understood the role of the press also. This is dangerous work. One of the things that courageous sncc kids were able to do was to convince the citizens in the south to have the courage to follow through on the doors you were trying to open. Im glad you mentioned how we did it. We were young and foolish. We really didnt do it. The first thing when you went into a small, rural hamlet, is you fanned out to talk to the people. Who are you . Even those of us from the south were not from those particular places. It took a lot of groundwork to get people who knew better than we did that one took ones life in ones hands when one tried to even do things which would seem less risky than registered to vote, like enter a public accommodation where you once poster enter. Werent supposed to enter. We believe in groundlevel organization, and since we were college students, if you got to talk in college speak, somebody from sncc would say break it down brother. In other words talk in english about what we are doing here. I think that perhaps the most important achievement of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was its work with the people. King, when the southern christian Leadership Conference they got to work with the ministers first. The ministers already had a flock, and that was a very important strategy for the Civil Rights Movement trade if you try to convince people to assert their rights and you are talking to someone they trust, that can work too. One of the most important things to understand about the Civil Rights Movement is how many different strategies we have. We call this the big six when the march on washington occurred. There was a big six, the ncaap went into court. There were groups that had their own Core Strategies, and together they made a movement that made things happen. Bill, dr. King chose alabama because of the brutal reputation of sheriff jim clark. Even though president johnson asked him, he already had on his mind what he was doing that was a meeting of the minds. With the shooting of 26yearold Jimmy Lee Jackson who was trying to protect his mother from a policemans nightstick, that profit prompted the call for the march. What did you find as you arrived in selma to cover what was a developing story . I started covering the selma Voter Registration marches in early february just about the time that dr. King got arrested in selma on the first of february. He got out on the fifth. Jimmy lee jackson was shot on the 15th and died on the 23rd. That was in a neighboring town. We did not know that he had gotten shot until the next day because it happened not in the middle of things, but in the periphery. It was out of that shooting out of his death that the idea for the march to montgomery, the capital, was hatched. I could be wrong, but i think it came from sncc, probably from jim bevel. Everybody thought it was a great idea. Dr. King endorsed it within a few days and said, we will have this march. You know what happened next, there was a march on the seventh of march. Dr. King wasnt there, but john lewis, who was at the head of it. You have all seen the pictures. That is what galvanized the conscience of the entire country. We have all seen the pictures and we will take a look at them once more. Take a look at the monitor. It is from our film that airs on the fourth floor on selma. I want you to take a look at what has become known as bloody sunday. Thats take a look. March 7, 1965 and john lewis led a group onto the bridge, the first leg of the 55 mile walk to the state capital, montgomery. Apparently the orders were once they get to the state highway, stop. You are ordered to disperse. The march will not persist. You saw the horses trampling over people. He saw john lewis. You could see him being knocked over. It was a scary thing. It looked leg state terrorism like state terrorism. A decision was made to interrupt the sunday night meeting, which was judgment about the evils of nazi germany. What happened in selma is part of a far larger movement. Their cause must be our cause too. Its not just negros, but really its all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome. Lbj, powerful speaker. Bill you attended the anniversary of that march. You talked on cbs this morning about that day, about how difficult it was for you as a journalist, how much you had to work to maintain your perspective on the proper role. What guidelines did you use to keep yourself grounded to make sure that your reporting was what it should be . You have to separate your own Core Principles from what you are reporting, and just report the facts. I believe strongly in social justice. I suppose that inevitably colored my reporting. Forgive the pun here. He tried very hard you try very hard not to let your personal feelings interfere. There is fairness, and you do your best to be fair. John lewis said so many times tell me about the relationship between sncc and your activities and the press. First can i say to bill plante, the role the press played in the Civil Rights Movement that is because they were out there with us saying the shall overcome. In a real sense when our movement was on to thee, we were talking to the American People for the first time. Been people had no idea people had no idea they did not understand why this was such an entrenched way of life in the south. One has to understand that. There had been a civil war. The civil war had settled certain kinds of events this. Grievances. The south reasserted itself to the extent that it could. One way in which it reasserted itself was to institute jim crow. In that way, they felt they had gotten at least back to their way of life. You have to understand what we were doing. We were not simply trying to get people to register to vote or enter a place of public accommodation. We were threatening the way of life of a whole section of the country. We were saying everything you believed, everything upon which this section of the country has been built is wrong. You cant preach that to people, but you can show it to them. When you saw unarmed people, and particularly was important this is what we learned as a part of nonviolence when the police came at you this happened at the funeral with the police, it happened much more with sclc. Martin luther king imparted to all of us when these police came at you full of hatred, just one year knees just go on your knees. The southerners were very religious people. The southern blacks were baptists too. When i saw those black people go on their knees much harder to raise your nightstick. Some of them learned to do it. But what does it feel like to see the dramatic response of news consumers, viewers of television who got up to come to the south and get involved . You have to consider the fact that this build over time. You had the initial shock of the bloody sunday, march 3 it was followed two days later by another march. Dr. King was in town. They stopped and surveyed the troopers lined up at the foot of the bridge. But then the troopers dispersed. But that is when dr. King knelt down. Everybody behind him knelt down. He decided after a few minutes to turn back and go back into town. That night a minister from boston names james reed named james reeb was beaten by a couple of locals and died a few days later. That helped to increase the pressure. It brought out even more people. Most of the people who came flooding into selma in that area were either college students, or many ministers, many religious people, but they all came because of what they had seen. They wanted to be a part of it. There were thousands of people. About 4000 was the estimate for the beginning of the march. They were predominately white. The quality of the singing deteriorated. [laughter] but they were very much in earnest, because they had seen through the power of television and in the press what the situation was down there, and they responded. That number, 4000, bloody sunday on the seventh, there were about 600 marchers. That gives you an idea of the scale. Delegate norton, many of the people who came down were white. This was an american movement. We are talking about the rights that would guarantee them the constitution to american citizens. How did it feel too Young College students to see your White Brothers and sisters coming down to stand with you . Selma was a real breakthrough. Thousands of white people came. That always was an integrated organization. With students, you see that trade you see that now in the movement that is underway against racial profiling. You look at whos in the streets with those young people, they are blackandwhite people. In a real sense, the movement was always integrated. Sclc were southern ministers and that tended to be less integrated grade integrated. Most had a core group of white people who were involved. It was very important on the aftermath of bloody sunday to see how white people throughout the United States responded. That was seen on television too. I cant say enough about how Television Talk america taught america about what it had to do. Theres no doubt on my mind that you could not have gotten either of those two great acts without the role the television played on both. Bill, by 1965, dr. Kings stature was pretty wellestablished. Tell me how you saw these young activists, john lewis in particular, but the sncc kids in terms of them being bona fide leaders, having their own Core Strategies moving forward. As a journalist, how did you regard these young people . They were important. The fact that they follow dr. Kings teaching of nonviolence even when he wasnt around, and that they counseled others in nonviolence, made them people of stature and leaders. They were important to the movement. We regarded them as real participants in real lieutenants of dr. King. How did this experience as a journalist impact you personally . It was very moving. To see the march actually get underway i will say this. By the time the march started the Alabama National guard had been federalized. The day before or 36 hours before. There were federal troops as well. It became more of a party. Nobody was going to be in danger now. It was a celebration. I say party, thats wrong. Its more of a celebration. It was a joyful movement. By the time you got to the First Campground maybe it was a little less celebratory. Some people went back to town. When we would go to court [indiscernible] often had to deal with the right to demonstrate. Eisenhower had been the president. The southern course were full of eisenhower judges. That is different from saying southern judges. They came through eisenhower and his judges were heroes for the Civil Rights Movement. They would issue injunctions that would allow us to march and their houses had to be guarded by federal troops because they became in danger because of the role they played in the rule of law. Ms. Norton, i should say with a sense of irony that odor rights voter rights is something you are still fighting for in the congress. This work is not yet done. I see the 93 cosponsors for the bill of bc statehood set a new d. C. Statehood set a new record. A solid ace of cosponsors ranks in the top 1 of all bills introduced in this congress. 50 years since selma. What do you think it will take for d. C. Statehood to get bipartisan support to make it reality . Here were talking about Voting Rights. Here am i a thirdgeneration washingtonian whose greatgrandfather was a runaway salave, finds herself in mississippi trying to get Voting Rights for everybody else, and i came from the city which did not have a mayor or city council was governed by three commissioners because of an anomaly of history that i will not go into, but you can believe your framers never intended to have a capital city where people were disenfranchised. I can be called delegate or congresswoman. I cannot be called representative, because i had votes in committee. I do not have the vote on the house floor. Even when business affecting the District Of Columbia and sometimes there is such business affecting only this city because the role Congress Plays in our lives everybody gets to vote on that except the person who represents the District Of Columbia. It is the last great civil rights issue that needs to be tackled. The only way to make us equal to you is to give us statehood. The congress cant interfere in your business. They can interfere in hours. Ours. [applause] we saw a show of hands earlier. Most of these people are not from d. C. You should be heartened by that response. In the meantime, you are seeing some teeth taken out of voter rights protection that passed 50 years ago. For mere political vantage point, voter rights for minorities, the actions and attitudes of the federal government and the role and reality of the media nowadays, where do we stand on the landscape of Voting Rights for all . I approached Martin Luther king, what are we doing . The Voting Rights act was dismembered by the Supreme Court. They said, i think everything is all right now. We see all kinds of evidence in states where we still see not only the need for it, but we see voting intimidation and all the rest of it. Once you got to 1965, the notion that you would be trying to save central core function would have been unthinkable, but thats what we approach now is Martin Luther kings birthday comes forward. Im not sure how the media can help us on that. This is not like selma. This is not like mississippi see literally that the injustice screams out at you. They took back one section of the act. It happened to be the section that says Southern States have to go through the Justice Department to make sure that any voting laws they pass are not discriminatory. The Supreme Court says you dont have to do that. Without that, we have to use the usual route. By the time you get that through a court, the election has already occurred with the we changed the face of the south. A new generation did not think anything about the fact of black and white were voting together. We are in a part of retrograde action by the congress, because they do have the right to reenact this law. That is what many of us are trying to get to happen now in the congress. The country has changed. Certainly the media landscape has changed profoundly since 1965. The issues of Voter Suppression and Police Brutality come back up. As delegate norton just said its not the same as selma. What is the proper role of the press . What are they doing, what should they be doing as these two stories come back to the front pages of the news . The first thing we have to remember is we are no longer the excuse of conduit for news exclusive conduit for news. You are sending out instagram pictures. Everybody trades information. Not all of it is good, believe me. All we had to trade on is our reputation. I can ask you to watch cbs news because we want to believe we are trustworthy. Some wont believe it. Our role is the same as it always was, which is to represent what is going on and do it in an unbiased way. We have the resources, more resources than the people who are simply out there with twitter in their own iphone cameras. Now theres a lot of information. Theres a lot of bad information. In the face of that, we have to continue to do our utmost to bring out what is actually going on. We want to invite you to add your voices to this conversation. If you have questions you want to ask, if you can raise your hand, we can get a volunteer to bring a microphone to you. In the meantime, we have a hand up over here. I want to ask you about another thing that has happened, and that is, back in the day Walter Cronkite would close off the newsday, thats the way it is. It strikes me that that was very important in trying to have some sort of National Dialogue trade we all have a marker that were all talking about the same thing. In the 24hour news cycle, it depends on what the last report you saw. Its almost impossible to have a coherent cover station about what happened in the news today. You are right, because there is an endless flow of information. Im not going to say that is worse than it used to be, because it is what it is, and we have to deal with it as it exists. We have to find a way to separate out what we regard as reliable from what we regard as merely entertainment or a past time. This goes into congress to in terms of the determinations you make or the material you put into the news cycle. Everyone is more dependent on they media. I tweet too. [laughter] i dont depend on cbs the way we used to in the movement. Thats go to the audience. Tell us your name, then fire away. My question is, delegate norton looking at where we are now, do you think we have made Great Strides in equal rights . I think we have made enormous strides in equal rights. The cardinal years 1963, 1964, 1965 were like no years in American History. We had a peaceful revolution in this country. And that revolution is intact. When you consider that the fruits of the Civil Rights Movement are for the most part largely intact, people of every color can do everything. That was not the case in 1964 and as recently as 1964. With all that you hear, racial profiling, young people in the streets, please dont forget that all of this has not been in vain and we all live in a very different america today. That was a very good question. Hello. I saw the movie selma and i heard the controversy about lbj. The impression i got from the movie was that the tension between dr. King and lbj was that dr. King wanted the Voting Rights act passed now, and lbj was not yet because of political considerations. Is that accurate . Is that something that you have seen that that was the conflict or the tension . The movie compresses that. It makes johnson seemed to be the villain, him saying no, i have to do this first. Johnson did tell dr. King in january of 1965 that he wanted to do his Great Society programs first, and he wanted to do them in the first 90 days. Lets not wait, lets get this done. Then he said he would take up Voting Rights. But by midfebruary, had come around because of the demonstrations in selma. It was between february and the time he gave that speech you saw in midmarch, he was preparing in conversations regularly with his attorney general, which you can find online, to make that speech. At one point he tells his attorney general i guess i was wrong on that. I should have come out for that sooner. Its interesting that this whole period we are talking about, bill was recording it. Delegate norton is on the front lines, organizing for it. I was in school, learning about current events. Regardless of the discrepancy between hollywood and the documentary, i think the shame is that not enough is talked about this and learned about this in the school curriculum. Theres going to be an awful lot of people who count on the movie to tell them what happened in selma. We need to be able to then go back when you get home from the theater and go to the internet and look it up and do your own research so that once again, theyre all dealing from the same bodies and commission. We have a question over here. To the statement i heard john siegel make a couple of times, i am a son of the jim crow south. I grew up with this. However, growing up as a white boy and a white young adult and white adult, i lived it. I did not have to suffer through it as ms. Norton and some other people did. I am concerned that a lot of the things that you have already mentioned have taken a step backwards. You can sit anywhere on the bus you want to, but i think the bus has gone into reverse and is moving backwards a little bit. It is also moved into other big cities. What two legislative issues you think are critical at this point in time that i can get behind my Congress People or representatives to work on to make it right . Well, the central issue of our time were talking about a time when civil rights was the central issue. It was the most important issue in the nation. I believe the central issue of our time is income inequality. I cant believe that my own son and daughter arent light years better than i was. I was better than my depression parents were. I was better off. Whenever you see legislation like the minimum wage, legislation of that kind that is meant to try to help working people to close this gap does it seems to me are the bills that we ought to concentrate on, or the socalled American Dream will be something we all read about rather than lived. Its interesting, when you get to the 1970s by the time we got to the point where the American Factory floor was finally integrated, and that was a period where you saw blacks and whites gathering for christenings and birthdays and weddings across lines of race, where you really saw the payoff of this civil rights idealism. But once the American Factory floor that shifts offshore where do we learn to trust each other and make friendships . Its in our lives. Whether it is the unemployment or underemployment or that separation, its very difficult. Youre trying to tell a national story. America has become very positive in a lot of ways. We dont see most of america if we look around here, or in any big city, really. Youve got to go out. Its very different out there. Ive lost track of the microphone. Yes. Good afternoon. My name is angela frazer. My question is for ms. Norton and mr. Plante. What advice would you give the individuals who are protesting now for racial profiling is a former student of sncc . Mr. Plante, what do you give to your reporters covering the coverage of the protesting on both sides of the issue currently today . I believe the coverage of the protests [inaudible] what kind of guidance would you give to the coverage of these issues . I believe that these young people are the heirs of the Civil Rights Movement of which i was a part. I dont at all presume to think that they are involved in the same kind of movement i was. For example they are able to get people out in the streets in a split second by social media. It took us months of organizing. Their leader less. They are leaderless. That has its advantages,. Its disadvantage is theres not anybody to articulate what it is you want. I know what has brought these young people out. Racial profiling means this. If you are a young black man and you go into the streets, you are likely to be profiled today. And you will be profiled over and over again. It doesnt care what you have on, who you are. The white kids are with them because they tell their peers. What happened was that eric garners death and Michael Browns death became a vehicle to let this person by person rage out. People knew about it. They told their friends and their parents, their peers. Now its out here. The cops who are our friends are beginning to say, what are you talking about . We are out here risking our lives every day. They are. The reason why i would like to hear more of their demands that i understand but im not sure the whole country does is because i would hate to see a backlash from the police when nobody is protesting the police. We are protesting Certain Police practices. Some of those practices i believe are done by black cops as well. There needs to be a conversation between the community and the police so Everybody Knows what in the world we are protesting about and what it is we want or they want. [applause] that goes for the reporters too. Not to take anything at face value because one or two people say so, and not to assume that all the people on either side are right or wrong. It takes a lot of digging, and you have to be fair. The story may not have as sharp an edge on it, and thats were you get into trouble with management, but thats another story. We have time for one more question. It will come from up here in the middle. Michael, Georgetown University alum. Delegate norton, i went want to thank you for your support of d. C. Voting rights. In november we saw initiative 71 passed with 70 of the vote to legalize marijuana in the district. Four other states have done so, and now congress is trying to block it and you guys are challenging that. Thank you. The attorney general is pushing to make this a big case. Do you see this in the vein of civil rights and the idea of colonel justice reform, given the number of people we have in our prisons for nonviolent possession . This is a cardinal example of what i mean when i say the districtborn residents dont have the same rights you have. D. C. Has a very mild legalization. Two ounces, you cant sell it. It is the most restrictive in the country. To tell you the truth, marijuana is de facto legal. It is smoked wildly widely. Unlike alcohol, most people outgrow it. For myself, i dont smoke anything, but i dont think you should get a criminal record for it. Why did d. C. Do this . It was different and the reason that the western states have done it. They did it because we discovered after two reputable organizations did a study that although blacks and whites use marijuana at the same rate, the only people who get records are black people. It is not that they are aiming for blacks, but thats who they find. They dont go on George Washington universitys campus or a. U. To see who is smoking pot today. What we are having happen Something Like 18 states have decriminalized. 21 states have medical marijuana. Many people disagree on the question of marijuana. If the congress of the United States tried to keep you from doing it, i think you would lead a revolution to washington. Most of all, my republican colleagues believe the federal government ought to get out of everybodys life. It certainly ought to get out of their local lives. We have a budget in the district of 13 billion that we raise. Some of that is federal but we have surpluses and the rest. Before we can spend a cent of the money we raise from our own business and residents we have to bring it to the congress of the United States so they can sign off on our budget. We almost got closed down when you saw the federal government closed down because they did not get their business done, and they had not signed off on the District Of Columbia budget for the District Of Columbia was about to close down columbia. Budget. The District Of Columbia was about to close down. Figures a much for spending time with us thank you so much for spending time with us. Give yourselves a round of applause for your input. [applause] our next meeting will be january 24. Our guest will had one of the nations leading Crisis Management firms. His new book is glass jaw. The fascinating look, examples from toyota to tiger woods to nsa, a damage control is done. Thanks for visiting the museum. We will see you next time. [applause] thank you both. Youre watching American History tv. 48 hours of programming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter at cspan history for information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. Each week American History tvs reel america brings you archival films that help tell the story of the 20th century. Developed during world war ii as a more powerful version of the liberty ship, 500 victory cargo ships were built to replace ships destroyed by german submarines. The 1945 film hannibal victory documents the journey of a victory ship from San Francisco to the philippines to deliver cargo for the war effort including several Steam Railroad engines. Are ready to run engines are going to get one more left before their under their own steam by one of the always present docks which work on land and water. It will tow our locomotives under solid ground once again. It is a strange setting to find our engines in. They will carry the war gets first. What we know after the war is over, they will mean a lot in the rebuilding of the philippines helping our friends get on their feet again. Maybe she will have a better world to live in because of those engines. Right now, like its everywhere in the war, it is hello, joe. Now we have nukes. We are told manila bay is open. We are to take the rest of our cargo to manila where they have set up shop to put them together. We steam around the South China Sea into the harbor the army and navy has taken back. A proud and sorrowful memory. Flex this sunday, david brooks, on writing an article for the