So really great to see you and of course, today is juneteenth. I want to ask you, how are you marking it . Im having a great time. As a matter of fact, Corporate America consulted me two or three weeks ago to say, who would you get to talk about juneteenth . I would be happy to do that because i lived juneteenth. Im originally from texas and that was the place where juneteenth started. 1865 when the word came down that there had been the signing of the emancipation proclamation 2. 5 years earlier but as it is with texans, we never got the word. My ancestors celebrated that texas had become a center of the source of the rodeos, parades, baseball games, barbecues, the welldressed and all the things doing what you call a real independent state celebration, thats what juneteenth really is and i love selling it. A lot more people are starting to become aware and celebrate with the black community. As we watch this years scope, its so different that we talk about Companies Giving employees t
Will say to the people of ferguson missouri, get to the polls by 7 00 this evening so you wont have to march at midnight. Thats the kind of stuff we have got to do today. Use the tools that we have. We have great tools to communicate but Everything Else we can text what do we call it . Lets do some voting organizing over the internet. We have the tools. Lets use them for a new Massive Movement that will make sure that we can have in november 2014 the kind of turnout at the polls that we had in 2012 and november. If we voted in president ial elections at the same level, i mean in local elections at the same level that we vote in president ial elections a lot of this stuff that you are fearful of right now will dissipate, go away. Guest we have to do what we can wear began as a professor. I ran the center for the state of democracy and we are organizing a national dialogue. This ear ferguson is on our minds. I think locally it has to be these ferguson problems are local problems. They ar
That is the root and seed bed for black political activism in the United States. He realized if you are going to say you want equal rights and Racial Justice and whether people believe it because of a philosophical reasons or god has led us to this movement he was fine. During freedom summer he is organizing in mississippi and he is with young white organizers who volunteered to come into the deep south. And he said i know some are marxist and some are others but he said if they thing this is a result of god then thank you god. Host do you view this as a Christian Movement . Guest it was a religious movement not christian. There were as many jews involved in the rights as christians. There were other religions. I studied all of the great religions. The first a i got in college was in comparative religion. My father was a minister. I grew up in the fundamentalist church. We believed in dunking and my wifes church believed in sprinkles. All of these are symbolic of how to live and find t
Determination and black people thinking of themselves in way that that in the 1960s were profoundly impossible in some ways. That they were eloquent, beautiful, intelligent, that they had the right to disagree with each other and the mainstream is possible without Stokely Carmichael. I willconclude by saying that the most burped thing to me about writing the book, stokely a life, was providing an introduction to Stokely Carmichael kwame ture to a generation of americans who dont realize the profound impact he had on american democracy and globally. And whether you agree or disagree with the aspects of what he did he was always, always personal sincere. His sincerity and love for the underdog and poor people and passionate belief in social and political justice is what stands out for me. And the fact he really, really walked the dtalk. He didnt just say he was advocating for black equality. He lived a life of black equality even if that meant not getting the benefits that would have com
To start off with a callin question and how many times were you arrested during the civil rights hay day . Guest i didnt keep track. But i talked about the first one and the last one in the book. The first one is the day i met my wife. We met in jail. The last time was in columbia, South Carolina in 1961. I remember that one because that arrest led to a landmark breach of peace case called edwards against South Carolina. It began a Law School Case that most universities use the case book method use that case to teach from. I happen to be one of those arrested that day. I remember those two. In between a lot of times we got arrested and were never really charged. Just taken to the police station, taken off the streets and put back on with once the crowd disbursed. Host why were you and Emily Clyburn arrested and what year was it . Guest march of 1966 and it was six weeks after the students in greenboro, North Carolina were arrested and several weeks before we first met greensboro at Sha