yoke of segregation and tyranny of jim crow, all that history met on this bridge. reporter: just seven months earlier, in ferguson, missouri, peaceful demonstrators protesting the shooting of teenager michael brown were confronted by a militarized police force. all of a sudden, three urban tanks came. it looks like flash grenades. there s smoke rising up and now it looks like the tear gas is coming out. we just need to open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to know that this nation s racial history still casts its long shadow upous. it not just negroes, but really it s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice, and we shall overcome.
we had the protection of each other and this group of 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
the message of black power, kind of like the message of black lives matter 50 years later, this is a message that is geared to blacks themselves. black lives matter. black lives matter! black lives matter! wt do w? justice. when do weanit? now. whose streets? our streets! this movement is not brand new. this is the latest chapter in a liberatory struggle in america for black people and for people of color. what s been the response so far? the real truth of the matter is that children are the ones who are suffering from this occupation the most. my role is to take the demands from the street and make them relevant in the policy space. reporter: brittany packnett, a leading black lives matter activist, was one of several civil rights leaders, past and present, invited to the white house in 2016. people like brittany, who served on our police task force in the wake of ferguson has led
little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. i have a dream today. reporter: viewers around the world watched transfixed as a parade of celebrities, black and white, called for unity in the struggle for racial justice. mr. brando, what sort of an impression has this day left with you? that it is possible for all men to come together in a sense of good will and to solve problems in a democratic way. the truth of it is that the march on washington was what transformed a southern, predominately black movement into a national movement. it meant that we were not just an isolated movement. this movement became a universal movement. there were whites protesting
america s first black president, barack obama, with john lewis at his side, visited selma to commemorate bloody sunday. in one afternoon 50 years ago, so much of our turbulent history, the stain of slavery, and anguish of civil war, the yoke of segregation and tyranny of jim crow, all that history met on this bridge. reporter: just seven months earlier, in ferguson, missouri, peaceful demonstrators protesting the shooting of teenager michael brown were confronted by a militarized police force. all of a sudden, three urban tanks came. it looks like flash grenades. there s smoke rising up and now it looks like the tear gas is coming out. we just need to open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to know that this nation s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us. it s not just negroes, but