really appreciated the irony, but you re watching a movie about the trial of nazi war criminals. suddenly, the tv switches to innocent unarmed americans being mercilessly beaten on live television. that s a moment that will forever be known as bloody sunday. this airs on sunday night, march 7th. tuesday morning, at 9:00, there are over a thousand people from as far away as hawaii. before expedia, they mobilized instantly. i ve come to selma to put my body where my heart is, to make sure that the negro people recognize that there are white people in the north that are with them in their fight. reporter: the shockwaves from selma reverberated around the world. dr. king made an appeal for religious leaders to come to selma. ministers, priests, rabbis and nuns came and walked across the bridge to the same point where we had been beaten. it was one of the finest hours for people to respond the way
the same age as a matter of fact. it was horrifying. it was my 9/11. it was basically, you know, an act of terror. reporter: in 1955, mississippi was ground zero for racial terror in the american south when 14-year-old emmett till arrived from chicago to visit his great uncle, mose wright, in a town called money. he was a big city kid. he wasn t familiar with the dark heart and the social taboos of the jim crow south. black people and white people interacted only on a transactional basis, but they were largely two different worlds. you ll stick to your own kind, we ll stick to our own kind. one day emmett and his cousins go into town, and they go to a little grocery store, bryant s grocery store.
ministers and elizabeth didn t have anybody. she really took the brunt of it that day. this black young teenager all by herself being frightened and screamed at, it s the first of a series of images showing how powerful and virulent southern white racism was. reporter: traumatized by the reaction of the ground elizabeth refused to speak to news crews. can you tell me your name, please? are you going to go to school here at central high? don t care to say anything, is that right? reporter: there was one journalist elizabeth agreed to talk to, moses newson a newspaper reporter for the baltimore afro-american. when i heard about it and rushed over and she recognized me and she said she would talk to me.
still, the words and that still picture do not have the impact of the motion and the viciousness of the attack. the whole idea behind direct action, particularly the sort of nonviolent gandhian tradition is to produce conflict in a disciplined fashion that reveals the opposition to be as morally bankrupt as it is. you want them to show themselves, and in selma, they showed themselves. i think the civil rights movement understood that you need to make people own their shame. you need to embarrass and humiliate people in order for them to stop doing the thing they thought they had a perfect right to do. reporter: in 1965, tom brokaw was a reporter for wsb-tv, atlanta s nbc affiliate.
was over, the violence had claimed two lives. one was a french journalist named paul guihard. he had a bright red beard and red hair. probably part of the reason that he died is because he was clearly identified as a member of the press. his body was found over near behind a women s dormitory, and he s been shot at close range. unsolved to this very day. reporter: by the next morning, the riot was quelled. under heavy guard, james meredith was finally allowed to register and attend class at the university of mississippi. he remained enrolled under the protection of u.s. marshals until he completed his coursework the following year, becoming the university s first black graduate. mississippi mood hope and fear. the hope is that meredith