Carol so as you know, on monday we ended with the freedom rides. Those freedom riders were being funneled into parchment prisons as a way to hush them up. To hush them up quietly without the cameras rolling. The visual image was essential for movement, to be able to see the violence of jim crow. But it wasnt over. Bobby kennedy and jack kennedy knew it. So check kennedy is giving his state of the union jack kennedy is giving his state of the Union Address and president kennedy is all, we are fighting for democracy and freedom and there is an opportunity for what is happening here on the globe because we have all of these people. It was the middle of decolonization. Africans, asians arabs, latinos, those nations are getting free. Imperial bonds are loosening and he sees this as an incredible moment for freedom in the global south. But he didnt mention the american south. In this freedom struggle. A kind of silence there. But he needed that silence, because what he was dealing with, he had just come back from the vienna summit. Remember the one, his brother was trying to get the freedom riders to be quiet on . That didnt go so well. He met with khrushchev. And he took him to school. I mean ooh. This wasnt pretty. It really wasnt pretty and it was kennedys fault. He a knowledge that later on. He thought what he could do, because he has gotten by on charm, he can walk in and charm, one of those charm fellows, nikita khrushchev. Khrushchev who has been in the war, who has survived joseph stalin. I love arianas face right there. Shes like, yeah, survive that. He thinks he can chime him so he was not prepared. Imagine going into a summit meeting with the head of the soviet union, and you havent done your homework. Have you ever walked into i am seeing the heads already nodding. [laughter] carol and he just wasnt ready. And afterwards, he told a New York Times reporter, khrushchev beat the hell out of me. Because the bay of pigs, the debacle where the u. S. Tried to invade cuba, after fidel castro had taken over the island and knocked out batista. The bay of pigs went about as well as the vienna summit. So he has got stuff on him. He is trying to figure out, how do i rethink, reestablish authority. Reestablish democracy. Reestablish strength as imitating out of the u. S. After i have had the bay of pigs and vienna . Well there was a problem wanting to reestablish, because you also have the south blowing up. Black folks struggling to be free. And refusing to be quiet. About jim crow and the brutality of jim crow. So bobby has got to figure out something. What bobby figures out is, i have got to find a way to find the sweet spot. That thing that allows my brother to be president ial, for america to be calm, to resume resonate that aura of strength, democracy and freedom, while also providing something to the civil rights folks so that they feel that they are being heard and their needs are being met. What on earth could there be . What could i do, offer then that is so vital and essential, but boring . Really boring . So that no camera will want to be there, that nothing is going to jump off . You know what he came up with . Registering black folks to vote in mississippi. So lets talk about that. [laughter] carol so this is where you have got this disjuncture between policymakers and what they think is happening and what is really going on on the ground. If he has spent a minute and think through it, you are saying, if i am seeing folks getting burned up because they are trying to write a bus, i a bus, then what whengoing to see happening they are trying to vote, or even register to vote . And remember, so much of the power of the south was predicated on disfranchisement. Massive disfranchisement. Powers why you have the of the southern democrats in congress. Electedthey are getting over and over and over, and moving up the ranks in terms of seniority because they only have to be responsive to a small band of the electorate in the south. You are pretty much assured of getting reelected and reelected and reelected and reelected and reelected and reelected, right. So that kind of power, not going to give it up easily. But he is thinking, we have got this. He sets up an arrangement where the irs is going to fund a new organization, provide taxexempt status for a new organization dealing with Voting Rights, and he will try to funnel four of the big civil rights organizations under the heading of this organization. This would be the Voter Education project. And it sounds brilliant on paper. Because what it is designed to do is to provide something that the civil rights workers want while apparently being boring enough, because you are just registering folks to vote. You have got this image. Think about registering folks to vote. There is a table, there is some registration cards. If you think about it the way we do now not quite like now, but you just do it. But remember this is mississippi. Remember we have the poll tax. We have the literacy test, we have the understanding clause. We have got election day terrorism. We have the power sitting there to infect reinforce massive disenfranchisement. Just registering folks to vote is not going to be that easy. But this is the name of the organization. The council of federated organizations. What he is going to do, and it is going to be tricky, he is going to try to bring sclc, the southern christian leadership conference, and the naacp together. There is already a bit of the naacp, big dog. We have been here since 1909. Right . And roy wilkins had been with the naacp since the early 1930s. And he waited his time, did his work, moved his way up the organizational ladder and finally in 1955 became the head of the naacp. What else happened . Emmett till. Rosa parks. Carol the montgomery bus boycott. Who was heading up the Montgomery Improvement Association . Martin luther king. Imagine. You have waited 20 some years to be head of the Civil Rights Movement leadership, and was in the moment the year you become the head, there comes this guy out of montgomery that all of a sudden the media is flocking all around, talking about the leader, the leader. There was this kind of rivalry there. Wilkins would help king out of numerous jams, dont get me wrong. But we have to take into account when we talk about alliances, we are talking about the real deal stuff about people and organizations working together and the frictions that happened when you are dealing with people who believe they should be here and somebody else is getting something they should have. Kennedy would have to work through this relationship between sclc and the naacp. What he really wanted was to defuse the power of the student shock troops. Because students are fearless. You think about that moment after the beating at the bus station and it looked like the freedom rides were over . And core is just like and diane is like, you got this. Send some more students down. You dont stop us simply because you are going to beat somebody. We are stronger than that. Democracy is stronger than that. The students kept coming. Kennedy is looking up going we have got them in parchment prison, but there are more students than parchment can even hold. We have got to figure out how to defuse the power and the energy of the students. Something happened that was going to help with that conversation. And that something was members of sclc and sncc met at the department of justice. He is the attorney general. They are demanding protection from the federal government for freedom riders and protection doesnt mean shepherding them in to parchment prisons. It means real protection. They are on it. And he is coming back. And they are [making dog noises] so finally he is like, look. You know when you get look and he is like, look. Freedom rides arent working. Not working. Am i clear . There is something that will work. You want real civil rights, freedom, protection . That comes from the vote. Let me see you fight for the vote. We are going to help you fight for the vote. We have this wonderful organization we just created, the council of federated organizations. And we are going to help you in terms of providing protection and resources for you to go into and resources for you to go into mississippi and register black folks to vote. What do you think . He is like, you didnt answer that quite the way i was hoping you would answer so let me help you with that. You know we have got this war going on. Right now you have deferments. I will see to it that you keep your deferments. You go to mississippi. You dont go to secede be, you are going to vietnam. I want you to think about that as 18yearolds, 19yearolds right now. I am assuming all of you are about 18, 19. The 29yearold is going, yeah. I will take that. Vietnam, mississippi. Which one are you choosing . Vietnam . Mississippi . To be honest, it aint really good in mississippi either. Carol vietnam . She says it aint really good in mississippi either. This is what you are choosing between, vietnam and mississippi. So you are having to make another choice. Where do i think i can do the most good . That is the perimeter, where do i think i can be the change agent . They chose mississippi. Did anyone choose vietnam . Carol not that i know of. Not that i know of. That is not to say it didnt happen. While this debate is going on, there is a sncc member in massachusetts, bob moses. Harvard trained philosopher, bob moses. Moses had an aura status in sncc because he had what i call quiet power. You know that saying, not the one who is mustering the most or hollering the most or the one who is the flashiest, but there is just something. Yeah, quiet power. Moses chads like i got quiet power. [laughter] i saw that. So moses had that. Moses had been asked by the head of the naacp in mississippi to come down to mississippi and help register folks to vote. So even separate from what is called the Bobby Kennedy organization, moses was on his way down. And he gets to mississippi, with about 12,000 residents and 250 africanamericans registered to vote. Yes . Is he like volunteering or is he carol he is volunteering. That is moses. This is a man that will be appropriately named. He went down to mccomb, mississippi and began setting up Civic Education classes. Because her member when we are talking about the schools, talking about the textbooks in the schools, and in these jim crow schools, the textbooks for black children didnt mention there was a 13th amendment, 14th amendment or a 15th amendment. If what you are reading is what you know, the new dont have a full sense that slavery has been abolished, that you have equal protection under the law with due process and birthright citizenship and the right to vote. So when you begin to set up the Civic Education classes, it begins to help the folks understand they are not just mississippi citizens. They are citizens of the United States of america. With a whole range of rights that the state of mississippi has not yet fully acknowledged for africanamericans. It is one of those things. Once you begin to see, it is like your distance just widens up and you are thinking, wow. Then he sets up registration classes. What is it going to take to get through a literacy test . Because again, remember, about half of black adults in mississippi had five or fewer years of formal education, jim crow education. Being able to read the constitution and then interpret it, like you have got a harvard jd, and there was moses, sitting down with the folk, working them through how do you get through the literacy exams. You are beginning to see the power of this thing. Like in church, or did mississippi allow these like night courses, morning courses . Carol he was going whenever and wherever. That is one of the things about Movement Building. You go to where the people are. You go when they are, you go where they are. So with all of these courses and literacy tests and helping folks with Civic Education classes and Voter Registration classes, he begins to try to register black folks to vote. There was a young man down in mississippi named hollis watkins. Hollis is noticing the work that moses is doing. Hollis is impressed. He was about 17 at the time. He said, what this guy coming down here from harvard, doing this work . Then he says to moses, but you know if you really want to be about it, mccomb is easy. Where you really need to go is to amity county because there is about one black person registered to vote between the two counties. What moses knew was that if he took the easy route understand when i say easy, i have it in big quotes. He knew that in order to fully gain the trust, because Movement Building is about trust. In order to gain the trust of black mississippians, he would have to go where they live. He went into amity county. It got almost like quiet in here. He started doing the Civic Education classes, Voter Education classes, then he went to go register some folks to vote. He got arrested. Think about that. You just got arrested for registering american citizens to vote. But he knows he has the protection of the federal government. So he calls john doerr, who is an assistant in Bobby Kennedys office. He calls john doerr with the one phone call he gets. He calls john doerr and is like, i need you to know i have just been arrested for registering black people to vote. I believe that is what that federal protection is all about. John doerr is like, thank you so much for conveying that information. Two days later the naacp bails bob moses out of jail. Moses goes back. He continues to work with the people. Then he finds another group and they go to register to vote. Part of the problem is that where moses had been staying was right across the street from state representative eh hearst. He was a segregationist white supremacist of the first magnitude. Moses was staying right across the street from him. But even worse than eh hearst, and that is bad, was his soninlaw billy jack caston. He had terrorized black people as long as he had terrorized black people. He saw what moses was doing. You begin to think how this threatens the power structure. When you have counties that are 50 black but you have only got like one registered voter there, if you can get all of them registered and voting, all of a sudden you have different officials which means you are getting different policies, which means, i dont know, maybe eh hearst isnt going to be a state representative for too long. This is really going after a segregationist white supremacist power structure. He is like yeah. Moses goes down to the courthouse. He has got a couple of guys with him. They are going up the steps to register black folk to vote. Billy jack caston shows up, pulled out a knife, turns the handle around and bam, hits moses. Moses staggers. Billy jacks knife down, he starts wailing on him. Remember nonviolence, you learn how to take the blows. We talked about these ethnic notions. What you know is the moment you swing back, becomes justifiable homicide when they kill you. Multiple reasons for nonviolence. That is a strategy. Wailing on him. Moses goes into his zone, that a kind of zen zone. The two black guys who were with him, who he was going to help register to vote, they saw billy jack, and they took off running. You know when your boys step up and leave you . Like whoa. When billy jack is done, moses is a bloody mess. Billy jack is really proud of what he has done. He and his boys walk away. When they are gone, moses stands up, bleeding, just bleeding. The two guys who had run away, they are like looking, and he is like, you ready to go register to vote . Yeah. You see that kind of strength. That is that quiet power leading. He calls john doerr. Couldnt register as i recall. He calls john doerr from the house across eh hearst and says i want to report a beating. John doerr says i know. Hes like you know . , yes, i already have the fbi report. And i willcome down see what i can do, what is going on. J edgar hoover was the head of the fbi. J edgar hoover was not a, how does one say . He was so not feeling the Civil Rights Movement, civil rights leaders, civil rights goals, civil rights civil, civil, no. That is j edgar. As far as he was concerned, they were communists. Just communists. So when john doerr has the fbi report, it is ehh. He gets down to mississippi and he sees moses. Bruised. That is not what the fbi report said. What john doerr was expecting was a bruise here. He wasnt expecting what he saw. He stepped back. He thought, this has got i got to begin to rethink the fbis commitment to civil rights protection here, because what this report is saying is not what the evidence is. Moses told him i will be all right. I just wanted you to know the depth of the violence. The depth of the violence is going to get worse because there is a man who has been helping me named herbert lee. And herbert has been driving around, driving me from place to place and house to house. Anybody live in the country . Own it. Ok. Houses arent like they are in the city right up against each other, you can look in the window and see what your neighbor is fixing for dinner. It is not like that. You have got acres between these homes. Walking them is not the most efficient way of trying to get something done. Herbert lee was driving moses to these homes. Helping folk. With Civic Education classes. Remember moses is living right across the street from eh hearst. Eh hearst sees what is happening. He sees herbert lee facilitating. Voter registration in mississippi. Moses tells john doerr, protect herbert lee. I fear for his life. Protect him. Protect him. Protect him. John doerr says ok. Will do. Gets on the plane and flies back to d. C. To protect him. The moment he gets there, he sees the notice. Herbert lee has been found shot to death. Eh hearst shot him. State representative eh hearst shot him. Hearst claimed that how do you say this it was selfdefense. I am going to walk you through this like we walked through scottsboro. Herbert lee drove up in his truck, got out of his truck with a tire iron, swinging it at Mississippi State representative eh hearst. All who believe that story, please raise your hand. [laughter] are you saying it lacks credibility . It does. But he had witnesses. Of course. Carol the soninlaw. And a black man. Timothy, that look like, what . Named lewis allen. Who said yeah, it happened just the way representative hearst said it happened. Got out of the truck swinging a tire iron at him, and so representative hearst had to protect himself. So he shot him. Moses is listening to this and going that is not adding up. That is really not adding up. Lets see what we can do here. He begins to talk to louis allen. Is that how it really happened . Yes. No really, is that how it really happened . Yes. Is that how it really happened . No. And louis allen was afraid for his life. He would leave mississippi. Before he left, he promised bob moses he would come back and tell the truth. And the truth was that herbert lee drove up. The moment he got out of his truck, eh hearst shot him, then took a tire iron and planted it under his body. Louis allen would come back to mississippi because he missed mississippi. His business was in mississippi. He was in lumbering. He would come back and then louis allen suffered three shotgun blasts to the face on his last trip back to mississippi. Bob moses took that death on his shoulders and in his heart and in his soul because he is like, louis allen, if i hadnt talked to him and convinced to tell the truth, that man would still be alive. But one of the things that became really clear to him, what became really clear to him was that it was going to take more than what sncc had been able to do. To bring Voting Rights to mississippi. It was going to take more than this structure of council of federated organizations. Because there are bodies piling up, and nothing is moving. Nothing is changing. How do you create change . But moses comes up with is freedom summer. And freedom summer will be that moment where he is saying we have to bring in students, because you know, you are fearless. Students from around the nation to come to mississippi, set up freedom schools, and register folks to vote. Now the people that he is bringing in, black students and white students, and not just white students. White students from the ivies whose fathers and mothers are judges and senators. They begin to think through strategy. They thought even mississippi is not crazy enough. To do damage to the students and we can get some work done here in changing the power structure. Any questions . Ok. Wow, really . How are the finances looking . How are they going to sustain all the volunteers and carol he is asking about finances. Fundraising for the movement is always precarious. And so this is where you have celebrities like Harry Belafonte fully engaged in fundraising. You have a man named Stanley Levinson that J Edgar Hoover was convinced was a communist, and levinson worked handinhand with Martin Luther king in fundraising, particularly up north. There is a wonderful article, who funded king . It talks about that fundraising effort because money is always tight. Yeah. Mark. You said the sentiment was that mississippi wasnt crazy enough to damage the students they were bringing in but every time we see that item in this course, seems like mississippi is crazy. Carol [laughter] are you wanting a spoiler alert . I am skeptical. Carol that is going to be next weeks lecture. Emily. Did eh hearst ever face repercussions . Or did he walk away scott free . Carol he walked. What we have been dealing with is the lack of value on black life. The black life has no value. And so gunning down a black man trying to help register people to vote has no value. I was wondering how moses attracted white students from the north and other places with substantial background. Carol he is out of harvard. He is brilliant. He has gone that quiet power charisma, and this is a moment in the 1960s where students believe that they can make a real difference, where they can change the course of this nations history, and they are ready to do that work. You take that sense of fearlessness and you mix it with the kind of visionary zeal and a cause, yeah. They flocked down to mississippi. Freedom summer is going to be something. Going back a little bit, was J Edgar Hoover ever confronted about the falsified fbi report . What happened . I was wondering specifically if something happened. Carol J Edgar Hoover was interesting. That is one word. Carol kennedy did not like hoover. [laughter] carol wanted him gone. There was a meeting that hoover had with jack kennedy oneonone, just those two. After that meeting, the you are hereby fired notice was rescinded. Wow. Carol hoover really did not face the consequences of a lot of the bad stuff that he did. A and he was in power until 1972 . Early 1970s. He died somewhere in the middle of watergate. But he came into power around 1920. Carol yeah, during the first red scare. Right around the end of the first world war. And died during watergate. Somewhere in that era. He put his stamp on that organization. Can you tell us about what actually happened in that meeting and were there any other attempts on behalf of the Kennedy Administration to undermine what he was doing . Carol the rumors have it that kennedy liked women. A a lot. And that there was evidence about how much. That is a rumor. Because there was nobody else in that meeting. It is really hard to tell. It appears again, rumor, that one of the women that he liked a lot [laughter] carol this is a g rated show here, people. May have been compromised in terms of being a spy. [laughter] that is a movie. Carol i mean, every said why didnt every last one of you remembers that. [laughter] carol these are rumors. These are little pieces folks are trying to put together. He couldnt stand hoover. Bobby kennedy could not stand him. Bobby kennedy is hoovers boss because Bobby Kennedy is the attorney general. Those two clashed. Bobby wanted him gone. After that meeting, hoover stayed. Yeah. You said the Voter Education project was like some of kennedys reasoning behind that thing was it would have less press coverage and therefore on the down low be helping the Civil Rights Movement, but without too much press. What was the Media Coverage like . Because there ended up being violence. Carol the Media Coverage was not as highprofile at this moment, but it would be during freedom summer. Yes. So when we get to freedom summer, the press is going to really come in because the killings are going to be horrific. Joshua. I was wondering during the Voter Education, how did local mississippians respond . In overcoming terrorism and their fears to work with. Carol so you had so you mean, how did africanamericans in mississippi . Especially as we see lewis out when and herbert lee. Carol cindy lou hamer, been reading, right, good. She said when you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you know, there comes that moment when you are not going to take it. Not everybody stood up. But you had enough folks. You had vera in clarksdale, mississippi, who was using her independent business she was a hairdresser. She was using that as the spot where people were organizing. And because she did black womens hair, and she owned her shop, she wasnt dependent upon anyone else for her financial wellbeing. That economic independence allowed her. It wasnt like she didnt get harassed and her daughter wasnt harassed, but she was yeah. You have folks who just were sick and tired of being sick and tired. We are ready to put it on the line for a better future. When you think about it, that is what we keep talking about in the movement. We dont have everybody standing up. But we have enough people standing up. Ok. Thank you. What was Bobby Kennedy up to while Voter Education wasnt happening . Carol that is a great question. I am not quite sure, except i know they werent getting the protection bobby had promised. The lack of protection he had promised was sending moses into a direction bobby really didnt think the thing was going to go. Backfire. Ok. Thank you. Dont you dare. [laughter] [applause] [laughter] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you can watch lectures in history every weekend on American History tv. We take you inside College Classrooms to learn about topics ranging from the American Revolution to 9 11. That saturday at 8 00 p. M. And midnight eastern on cspan3. Sunday at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on afterwards. New York Times Magazine contributor discusses her book boys and sex. The de factobecome sex educator for a generation of young people because we dont talk about it. We dont talk to them in school or with parents. Curiosity about sex is natural. Masturbation is natural and important. Whats different for this generation is that, with the rise of the internet, smart phone and the dropping of coin sites, they can get anything they rot anything they want, and a whole lot of things that nobody wants at the touch of their fingertips on their phones. Watch afterwards sunday night at 9 00 eastern on book tv on cspan2. Next on American History tv, next on American History tv, samuel wells talks about the korean wars impact on soviet union and u. S. Defense policies. Mr. Wells is a cold war fellow at the Wilson Center in washington, d. C. , which hosted this event. He his also the author of fearing the worst how korea transform the cold war. Samuel good afternoon and welcome to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for scholars. I am robert litan fox, senior vice president. Today is another in the wilson series where we are delighted to launch fearing the worst, how korea transformed the cold war, by samuel f. Wells, jr. This masterful book is the capstone of sams distinguished career of which the Wilson Center was his home for over four decades