Remarks from three former president s, george w. Bush, bill clinton, and barack obama. Live coverage is here on cspan3. Amen. This is john lewis favorite poem, invictus. Out of the night that covers me, black as a pit from pole to pole, i think whatever god may be to my inconquerable soul. In the fell clutches of circumstance, i have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeons of chance, my head is bloody, but im bound. Beyond this place looms but the horror of the shade. And yet menace of the years finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how straight the gate, how charged with punishment the scroll, im the master of my fate. Im the captain of my soul. John lewis was my hero and my friend, lets honor him by getting in good trouble. [ applause ] only the inconquerable spirit and the magnanimous soul of john lewis could summon all of us together in this place at this time. Only john lewis could compel three living american president s to come to this house of god. To celebra
Decision of the United States Supreme Court batting segregation in public transportation. My street mate on that Greyhound Bus you must understand in 1961 black people and white people could be seated together. When you get out of washington to travel to virginia to North Carolina, alabama, mississippi, wewere on our way to new orleans. So we didnt have any problems for the most part until we got to rockville. And a little place in charlotte North Carolina, it was a sizable city, a young africanamerican man attempted to get a shoeshine in a socalled white barbershop that was in a socalled white waiting room. He was arrested and taken to jail. The next day the jury dismissed the charges against him but my seatmate and two of us arrived at the Greyhound Bus station in South Carolina and a group of white men met us in the doorway and started beating us and left us lying in a pool of blood and the local officials came up and wanted to know whether we wanted to press charges andwe said no ,
Emphasize was the fact that ordinary people were becoming much more militant and aggressive in defending their civil rights. Im going to continue that theme tonight and, indeed, i think its even more so the case in the 1950s and 1960s that ordinary people became the engines of the Civil Rights Movement. We tend to think about the Civil Rights Movement as Martin Luther king, jr. , fanny hammer and largerthanlife figures. The Civil Rights Movement was made up by ordinary people including and youll find out tonight a lot of College Students. A lot of College Students. In fact, in some ways the driving force of the Civil Rights Movement came from people who were probably no older than you in this room. I want you to remember that. College students were the main force in terms of the Civil Rights Movement. Okay. I want us to keep that in mind when we talk of the evolution of this movement. Ill begin the lecture by discussing the decade of the 1950s because the 1950s really provide, i think,
Hes young, hes charismatic. He had platformed on a number of promises. So this should give a little bit of context where the Womens Movement is coming into play as we work through some of these overview issues. Now, the 60s, as much promise as there was, we also know there are a lot of issues, particularly racial issues. But there was a period of great change, warfare, and for those who did find promise in the 1960s, there were those who didnt get access to that. And so there are a number of individuals and groups fighting for that access. If you look at the 1960s, we had the 1967 detroit riots, a series of political assassinations, jfk in 1963. In 1968, he also have the assassinations of Martin Luther king jr. And bobby kennedy. So there is also a lot of fear about what this change means and a lot of people are reacting to that. Focussing in on jfk because were going to be talking mostly about women in the Civil Rights Movement today. We will be focussing in on other womens experience
Elected president. Hes young, hes charismatic. He had platformed on a number of promises. So this should give a bit of context to where the Womens Movement is coming into play as we work through some of these overview issues. Now, the 60s as much promise as there was, we also know there was a lot of issues. Particularly racial issues. But it was a period of great change, warfare, and for those who did find promise in the 1960s, there were those who didnt get access to that. And so there are a number of individuals and groups fighting for access. So we have the 1967 detroit riots. A series of political assassinations. Jfk in 1963. In 1968 you also have the assassinations of Martin Luther king jr. And bobby kennedy. So theres also a lot of fear about what this change means and a lot of people are reacting to that. Focusing on jfk because were going to be talking most about women in the Civil Rights Movement today, well be focusing on other womens experiences on wednesday. But to give you