Utterly stumped. They believed it was a perfect machine of to that point in time. It was a very wellkept secret. If theres a lesson you can take from this, its one thing that everyone of responsibility should know. Be careful of the word impossible. When 70 says somethings impossible and theres a lot riding on a coming need to check it out. Be careful of your assumptions. If you dont investigate what you believe to be the truth, you can meet with devastating consequences. The germans believed the machines we demonstrated was perfect and can never be broken but thats not the case. Thankfully, for the rest of the world, they paid a very high price. It always pays to check out your assumptions. You are watching American History tv all weekend, every weekend on cspan3. To join the conversation, like us on facebook at the span history. Tonight is the Academy Awards ceremony and the movie selma has been nominated for best picture. Next, congresswoman Eleanor Holmes norton and cbs news correspondent bill plante with act on the Civil Rights Movement and the struggle for Voting Rights 50 years after the protests in selma, alabama. They discuss the 4 the films portrayal of events overall Lyndon Johnson play the movement. This event was hosted by the new cm in washington dc. Welcome for them to the First Insight media of 2015. Were looking at a Program Highlights the exhibit of the civil rights of this is a 50. Feature we began in 2013, and took a look back at the march on washington. In 2015 were looking back at another march that led to a major civil rights victory. Selma, alabama was the location. Our two guests at the time were one, a student activist, and a journalist reporting. Bill plante first joint cbs news in 1964 and a year later was in selma. This awardwinning journalist has been with the cbs News White House correspondent since Ronald Reagans presidency, with the exception of the first president bush. Also with us is d. C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes norton, elected in 1991. She is a nonvoting member of the house of representatives. We will talk about that later. In 1965, norton was a part of the student nonviolent in nonviolent coordinator in committee. Please welcome Eleanor Holmes norton and felt plante. Bill plante. [applause] bill, i want to start with you talking about selma. As a famous phone call that resident johnson made to Martin Luther king asking dr. King to find the most blatant example of Voting Rights being denied, and get it on television so anybody could look at it and say thats not right, thats not fair. As a turn list, what else would you need to flesh out that story to get it to journalist, what else would you need to flesh out to that story to get it on air . If the president says the best way to advance a cause, that is news already. It was typical johnson. Any of you who dont know that those phone calls johnson made are preserved, and you can listen to them as simply as clicking if you google lbj phone calls, it will take you to the university of virginia. You can do it i by date and topic. It is a wonderful trove of history. This call was january 15, 1965. Lbj tells dr. King that he has 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. And this ranks in the top of all bills. What do you think it will take for d. C. Statehood to get the bipartisan support to make it a reality . Greg i am glad you asked about that because there is a thirdgeneration washingtonian whose grandfather was a runaway slave, finding herself in mississippi, and i came from a city which did not have a mayor or a 80 council, governed by three commissioners because of an anomaly of history, believing that the framers never intended to have a capital city where people were disenfranchised. The reason we are called delegate i can because elegant or congresswoman. I cannot because representative, because i have votes in the committee. I do not have a vote on the house floor, so even with business affecting the District Of Columbia, and sometimes there is business affecting only the city because of the role Congress Plays in our lives everybody gets to vote on that except the person who represents the District Of Columbia, so it is as far as we in the capital city is concerned the last great civil rights issue that needs to be tackled, and the only way to make us equal to you is to give us a hook, because the congress cannot interfere in your business. They can interfere in hours. [applause] we saw a show of hands earlier, and most of these people are not from d. C. , and in the meantime, we have seen some teeth taken out of voter rights detections from 50 years ago. From the Voting Rights of minorities the actions of the federal government and the reality of the media now days, where do we stand in the landscape of Voting Rights for all . Martin luther kings birthday, what are we doing . We are trying to get back the Voting Rights act. The Voting Rights act was essentially dismembered. They said, well, i think everything is all right now. We see all kinds of evidence in states, just to name two, North Carolina and texas, where we still see not only the need, but we see voter intimidation, so once you got the 1965 Voting Rights act, the notion that you would be trying to save its central core function would have been unthinkable, but that is what we approach now as Martin Luther kings birthday comes forward, and this is not like mississippi where you see the injustice screen out at you. This is more technical. That one section of the act that they took out. It happens that the 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 do not have to do that. And then we have to use the usual route, and by the time you get that to a court, the election has already occurred. Section five as it is called and this is the section of the Voting Rights act, and we changed the race of the south. A new generation did not think anything about the fact that blacks and whites are voting together, so we are in a period of real retrograde action on the part of the Congress Today, because they do have the right to reenact this law, and that is what many of us are trying to get to happen now. The country has changed. Certainly the media landscape has changed profoundly since 19 five. The issues of Voter Suppression and brutality come back up, but it is not the same as before. What is the proper role of the press . What should they be doing as these two stories come back to the front page of the news . The first thing we have to recommend remembering is we are not only the exclusive conduit for news. You are all reporting everyday on your twitter feeds for you are sending out in graham pictures. Everybody trade information. A lot of it is good, believe me, and all we have trade on is our reputations. I can ask you to watch cbs news because we want to believe that we are trustworthy. Some will not believe it. Our role is the same it always was, which is to present what is going on and do it in unbiased way. We have the resources, more resources than the people who are simply out there with twitter and their own iphone cameras, but now, there is a lot of information. There is a lot of bad information, so in the face of that, we have to continue to do our utmost to bring out what is actually going on. We would like to add your voices to this conversation so if you question to would like to ask and raise your hand, we have volunteers to get a microphone to you and we have got a hand of over here. Right in the middle. Ok, i want to ask you about one thing that has happened, in that is back in the day, Walter Cronkite would close out the news day that is the way it is, and others would say good night to each other, and that within the news day, and to me, that was very important in terms of trying to have a national dialogue. We all have a marker to talk about the same ring. In the 24hour news cycle, it depends on what the last report you saw or twitter feed was. It is almost impossible to have a coherent conversation about what happened in the news today. You are right, because it is an endless flow of information. I am 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, but we have to find a way, each of us, personally, i think, to separate out what we regard as reliable from what we regard as merely entertainment or a pastime. And this goes to congress in terms of the determination made, or we put into the news cycle for whatever purpose it is. Well, everyone is more dependent on media. We do not depend on cbs anymore the way we used to. Ok, tell us your name, and then fire away. My name is my question is for ms. Norton. Looking at where we are now, do you think we have made Great Strides in civil rights equal rights . I think we have made enormous strides in equal rights. The cardinal years, 1963, 1964 1960 five were unlike no years in the country. There was a peaceful revolution, and i mentioned the voter rights , but when you consider the fruits of the Civil Rights Movement are for the most part are still largely intact, people of every color can do everything , and that was not the case in 1964 and as recently as 1964, 50 years ago, so with all we hear the here racial profiling, other people in the streets please dont forget that all of this has not been in they and that we all live in a very different america today. That is a very good western. Right here. Yes, hello. Hi. My name is i saw and read about the controversy of lbj and then there was the tension between dr. King and lbj is that lbj did not want the Voting Rights past because of other considerations, and is that accurate . Was that the conflict or that the conflict or the tension . Well, let me just say that the movie confesses that, and it makes johnson seemed to be the villain in saying, no, i have to do this first. Johnson did tell dr. King in january of 19 five that he wanted to do his Great Society programs first, and he wanted to do them in the first 90 days, of oars, and lets not wait, lets just get this done, and then he said he would take up Voting Rights, but by mid february, he has come around because of demonstrations in selma and he gave that speech that he saw in midmarch. He was preparing that, to make that speech, and at one point he told his attorney general, i guess i was wrong on that. I shouldve come out sooner. It is interesting that the soul period we are talking about, the Civil Rights Era on before it lives, and i was in School Learning about current events, and it was a discrepancy between hollywood and the documentary. I think the shame is that not enough is taught about it in the School Curriculum that there are going to be an awful lot of people who will rely on the movie to tell them what happened in selma, and you have to be able to go back when you get home from the theater and go to the internet and look it up and do your search, so once again, we all are going from the same body of information. We have another question over here. Hi, my name is bruce. I also am a son of the jim crow south, and i grew up with this. However, growing up as a white boy and a young adult, i lived through it. I did not have to suffer through it the way some other people did. My question right now is i am concerned that a lot of things that were mentioned are taking a step backwards. You can sit anywhere you want to on the us, but i think the bug is in reverse and has moved backwards, and also in philadelphia, detroit, and other big cities. What two legislative issues do you think are critical at this time to get behind the representatives to work on to make it right so we are going back in the right direction . Let me just say that the central issue of our time, and remember, we are talking at a time was civil rights was the central issue. It was the most important issue in the nation. I believe the central issue in our time is income inequality. I cannot believe that my own son and daughter are not better than i was. I was better off than my parents. Whenever you see legislation of that kind that is meant to help working people to close this gap, those it seems to me, are the bills that we ought to contemplate on so the socalled American Dream will be something we all read about. It is interesting when you get to the 1970s, the time of large manufacturing. And this was a period where you saw black and white gathering for christenings and birthdays and weddings across lines of race, where you really saw the payoff of the civil rights, but it was mostly American Factory before they got shipped offshore. Again, where do we learn to trust each other and to make friendships . Whether you have unemployment or untrue climate or the separation, it is difficult in terms of what is the overarching landscape of the country when we are trying to, you know, tell a national story. Americans have become very pocketed in many ways. We do not see that if we look around here or in any big city, really. You have to go out. It is very different out there. Ok, i have lost track of the microphone. Right here. Yes. Good afternoon, panelists. My name is angela fraser, and my question is for ms. Norton. I want to know about the individuals who are protesting racial profiling, and what do you give to your reporters covering the protests on both sides of the issue currently today . I do not believe i heard the racial profiling what type of guidance do you give in the coverage of these issues . I believe that these young people are the heirs of the Civil Rights Movement, of which i was part, but i do not presume that they are involved in the same kind of movement i was. For example, they were able to get people out on the street were not able to get people out on the streets because they did not have social media. That has its advantages. It disadvantage, of course, is there is not anybody to articulate what you want. For example, i know what has brought these young people out. Racial profiling means this. If you are a young, black man, and you know onto the streets, you are likely to be profiled today. And you will be profiled over and over again. It does not care what you have on. It does not care who you are. But the white kids are with them. What happened was that Eric Gardners death and Michael Browns death came a vehicle to vent the best person by person rage out. People knew about it. They told their friends. They told their parents. They told their peers. The cops, who are our friends are beginning to say, what are you talking about . We are out here with our lives every day. They are. I would like to hear more of their demands, demands that i understand, but i am not sure the whole country is. I would hate to see a backlash from the police when nobody is protesting the police. We are protesting Certain Police practices. Some of this practices, i can tell you, are done by black cop, 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. [applause] this goes for the reporters also not to take anything at face value just because one or two people say so, and not to present that the people on either side are either right or wrong. It takes a lot of digging, and you have to be fair, and the story may not have a sharp edge on it, and that is when you get into it with management, and that is another story. We have time for another question, and this will be from the middle. Hi, michael, Georgetown University along. Delegate norton, i want to thank you for your support of the Voting Rights. I am a district resident, and back in november, we saw the initiative for legalizing marijuana packed with 70 of the vote, and now congress is trying to block it, and you guys are challenging that, thank you, and the attorney general is pushing to make this a big case. Do you see this as the model as civil rights, given the number of people we have in prison for nonviolent possession . I certainly do, and this is a cardinal example when i say that District Of Columbia residents do not have the same rights as you have. Four states has legalized marijuana. D. C. Has a very mild issue. Like two elses. You cannot sell it. It is more restrictive. It is the most restrictive in the country. To tell you the truth marijuana is de facto legal. Widely. Unlike alcohol. For myself, i say dont smoke anything. But i really dont think you should get a criminal record for it. Why did d. C. Do it . It is a little different than the way the Western State did it. We did it because we discovered after two Reputable Organization did a daddy that although blacks and whites use marijuana as the same rate, the only people who get records are black people. So it is not that they are aiming to blacks. It is that is who they find, and they do not go on the Gw George Washington University campus or a. U. To see who is smoking pot today. It is sweeping the country. Something like 18 states have to criminalized, and many states have medical marijuana. Now, think of it this way. Many people disagree on marijuana. In fact, they do not by what i just said, but has the congress of the United States kept you from doing it . I think you would need a revolution. Perhaps most of all my republican colleagues think the federal government ought to get out of everybodys life. Well, they should certainly get out of their local lives. You know, we raised we have a budget in the district of 13 billion that we raised. Part of that is federal, but we have surpluses and the rest. Before we can spend a cent of the money we raised from our own businesses and our own residence, we have to bring it to the congress of the United States so that they can sign off on our budget. Well, 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 s budget, said the District Of Columbia was about to close down. If the American People knew that, it would be the end of it. Thank you so much for spending time with us today and giving us some reflections on what happened to years ago and how those same issues are being dealt with today, and audience give yourself an applause. We all make this room what it is. [applause] our next meeting will be saturday, january 24, and our guest will be a head of one of the leading Crisis Management firms, about defending fragile reputations. It is a fascinating look