god bless you and god bless the naacp. ben jealous of the naacp, addressing the crowd here in washington, d.c., at the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. i m melissa harris-perry. we will continue to bring you speakers throughout the morning as this march continues to get underway. i want to bring in now taylor branch. taylor branch is an historian and historical biographer of martin luther king jr. i would like to chat with him for a moment about this moment. it s so nice to see you and to have you here. i m glad to be here. so talk with me about who dr. king is, in his journey, to who he is becoming on august 28th, 1963. sort of, who is the king that we see on the steps of the lincoln
americans to be free and it is a tribute to them that they have chosen to still appeal to their government in this type of dignified matter. i am melissa harris-perry and we are part of msnbc s live and continuing coverage of the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. you re looking right now at a live shot of the lincoln memorial. the lincoln memorial is, of course, an iconic image here on the mall in washington, d.c. it is from these steps at the lincoln memorial where dr. king delivered the speech which we now think of as the i have a dream speech. he stood and looked out over literally miles of bodies, of people who had come, black and white, people from the south and from the north people who were christian and people who were jewish, who came out faith. who stood in this place with a
not going to be robbed of their right to vote. and mark mauriel and i, we re going to call an emergency summit within days to mobilize the national community. that president and congress needs to hear from us. we just announced yesterday the 50th anniversary march on washington. this march will now be with martin luther king s son around protecting voter rights. what they have just done is really revoked a lot of what dr. king s dream was all about. we build a monument to dr. king, and part of, at least half of what drrks king s dream was about was voter rights. it was 65. they just revoked that. we are not going to sit by and allow that to happen. you showed the ability in the past to mobilize people. i m thinking of something very different.