Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV After Words 20130121 : compar

Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book TV After Words 20130121

At. In the book you talk about your personal journey and you are very candid about your life and cover new insights as a historian from the life and legacy of dr. Martin luther king, jr. What prompted you . Guest it is the 50th anniversary and it is 50 years of mine life of the king legacy and to my coming of age. Part of it was to do the to tasks. That my life had been connected to the keying legacy king legacy and how king impacted me and i was involved with this amazing journey of editing kings papers. Host it is an excellent reid and we are of the same generation and i was also coming of age. It was bittersweet because i knew dr. King he was my mentor. But bitter because the way he was taken from us because of racial hatred. We can start at the beginning the kids youre on the mall with dr. King and at the end you were there again with 50 years later with the monument you help to design. Guest and coming back for important occasions. I only lived in washington a short time but the mall had a great symbolic meaning and sentimental. Host it is a beautiful city. 19 years ago, the march on washington where he gave the speech i have a dream. How did you get there . Guest i grew up in a small town there were not very many black people. Maybe three black families in lowes alamos and mexico. So what was the black Community Like . I did not have much exposure a mess with my relatives in detroit. I learned through the freedom struggle i would pick up the newspaper there was Martin Luther king, little rock nine. Students doing the sitin and they became my a role models. Then i yemen college and i get to go with the Association Meeting in indianapolis in bloomington. And i meet Stokely Carmichael, the first person i talked to. I told him i wanted to go to the march and he dismissed that. Host why . Was see a detractor . Guest not just margin mr. King but for me he felt i should be in georgia or maryland and it so he would go in to these places there was activism instead of the of one day march is not what he had in mind and he was trying to recruit me but going to the one day marcher be the most exciting saying i had done in my life at that point. Host lets go back to the march during the address what did you think . Did you think it would be like the gettysburg address . Guest no. Not at that point it was the title spee to a long day. I was glad to see him in person. Everyone looked for word to what he would say because he was known as a great orator but his speech was very short and this was 60 minutes. They plan to be less but that is how long he wrote it to me. Host was a logger . Tell that story. Guest what i found out later when he got to the end of his prepared remarks he said it required something more. Know i can look at the advanced text to see she talks about go back to the south and continue the protest but he thought the occasion required something more than he was talking about this dream. The american dream. Then it is his dream and he was in detroit a few months before and he talked about i have a dream america will realize these principles. He was inspired by the moment. To bait him on was tell us about the dream. Guest i listened a lot of recordings but i had never heard that. Maybe she allowed the stage whisper. I want to believe that story host and she loved him i stayed at her home in chicago when i was working at ebony magazine. Dr. King i met him the day after he was hit in the head at gage park in illinois. Did you meet dr. King . I only saw him from a distance. Host how close . Guest as close as i could but i got to the floods of the Lincoln Memorial but the notion as a 19 yearold that i would even shake hands with him would have been the thrill of my life. Those times he was a member of a crowd. He came to ucla when i was a student and that was the other time. Maybe 1965. Host how does this impact you on the way home . I did not tell my parents i was coming and went back to indianapolis. I had to hitchhike. Host were you scared were you scared . Guest of course. But at 19 you think your in principle. Host with his influence did you talk to him . It was maybe three years before i talked with him again. 1963 he was not a wellknown public figure but 1966 was african black power. That is when we got in touch with each other again then stayed in touch the rest of his life. Host has one of my heroes as well as malcolm x i was more in an agreement with of later malcolm x and Stokely Carmichael but as an older i appreciate the teton and dr. King tactics. He has the monument. You had misgivings of Time Magazine naming him man of the year . Guest not at all. From a distance i was very proud but i and absorb a lot of resentment from him. That martin is ticking is following us. We are out there trying to break new ground. For me, moving to los angeles and getting involved with the Nonviolent Action Committee and me involved with employment issues and urban issues. One year before king comes to chicago so he catches up also with the vietnam war and we oppose from an early stage and that he was much more and had more to lose. Is easier to discover for the 21 yearold student to take a stand on anything when you have nothing to lose except maybe your draft status. Which i did lose. But for king he interested everything he accomplished with civilrights was the white house and congress was contingent on not taking a stand with vietnam. Host president johnson was very upset with dr. King he felt that we have handed civil rights and Voting Rights over now you go against me that imf for reelection on the vietnam war . Guest now eyes understood what courage it took to take a stand that he did and why he hesitated. Coretta did not. She was very involved earlier but she was not the public figure. He could send her to speak with him. Host and then proved him right. Guest this is the way that he is a visionary. With the Anticolonial Movement around the world and have a cold war prevented us to show us we were on the wrong side because because the communist movement had identified itself with anticolonialism many wanted to have the system of the soviet union they were for it but we were opposed. Host you left the country during the vietnam era. Why . Guest for me looking back it was not that difficult of a choice. I knew i would not go into military. Host werent you drafted . Guest several times. I tried to be a Conscientious Objector and it was turned down. It came down to our want to go to prison or explore the world . I recognize the five left eye might not ever be able to come back. That is a difficult decision. Host a decision between your life and living and outside of your country. Guest i had to think through. Host newark father was in the military. Guest he was an officer and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. So for him the military offered opportunity. And because the military needed black officers as a draftee he to go to officer training and have opportunities within the military he never had in the civilian life. Host but not for you . I thought about it i could apply to the air force academy in west point. I see how easily my life could have gone in a different direction. Host couldnt you join in the navy to avoid the draft . Did you discuss it . By that time i was very politicized and i would have felt guilty i took the easy way out. I think i knew i could have gone into the military. I may not even have been sent to vietnam but then it was more symbolism thats i did not want to support the war. Host people or black people are aged had difficulty reconciling to serve the country to risk their life. Guest those in the fight for democracy i did not have to go than thousand miles. Host did you think about it . I came very close. In the run up to the mississippi project i went to new orleans and other people there and fought seriously probably if not for the financing to bring there own money to bail themselves out, i worked my way through school. I needed a job to finish college. Host talk about that. You mentioned snic and dr. King organization was the Overall Mission . The Voting Rights . Double rights . How was the approach different . Both started with freedom. In some ways we mislead ourselves with the civilrights movement. If that was the goal of 1965 the agenda was achieved. 64, the active 65, if that was the goal, margin is 13 could retire and go to of college to be that campus minister in carmichael said i could achieve my goal because all of us saw the goal as much more radical. Economic change, empower the black community or the black power movement, using the rights that were gained to bring about concrete we saw in 1965 as the beginning now we have basic human rights but what will you do . Now the community is 100 years behind you cannot say suddenly you will catch up. There has to be a movement. Where do we go from here . That is where we still are we cannot answer the question what do we do with the rights or citizenship . Host dr. King talked about moving from the quicksand to the hard rock of brotherhood we have a black man in the white house but Michele Alexander is the author of the new jim crow she talks about statistics in the 21st century under employed and unemployed clear more afflicted with aids and obesity with tougher sentences for the same crimes but we have a black president and i think the silence in the black community is deafening we would protest everything after we got Voting Rights and we wanted more. Leidy think they are silent . You can see the difference of the support that king got when he was fighting for civil rights reform through 65 the level of support with the widespread support for what he was trying to do. After 1965 moving to chicago with garbage workers and for people he wanted to occupy the national mall. Even during the occupy campaign in recent years no one point something so for word with his support it went down dramatically. Host why . They thought it would make white people angry . Guest there was support for the early king for the black people doing well so for them once you remove the jim crow barriers come to the agenda is gone. At that point there overqualified. Opportunities will open up because they no longer face racial barriers. Jobs are opening. So they dont need another movement the movement is just beginning to getting the vote and the right to go to a restaurant or hotel. What have you gained . A large amount are still pork. Pork and were still silent. Guest but people who came out of the middleclass solve their responsibility to help verbalize for those who were destitute. That is what snic was. College students the grandson and a granddaughter of black peasants and people like myself. With segregated schools. Host or richard father from . Guest alabama originally but part of the migration that went to detroit to during world war war i. Host our parents generation chose to show their activism against racism by moving and ours was a protest. Guest historic day for most people who come from the peasant background it was not from a Political Movement that toward the free environment of the city that is what most people did been in the process some became politicized. Host they thought they would be markedly different. Guest that they would not be murdered for taking a stand in the relatively free environment they could create the conditions for the modern movement. Host talk about the movement and snic and others. Who were the people that moved the most . King comment now, x, john lewis, Stokely Carmichael . All of the above. I tried to explain to students rosa parks made more to mr. King possible. Not vice versa. If she did not do what she had done margin mr. King would be inarticulate wellmeaning baptist minister. Because of rosa parks we talk about him today. She opened up the possibility to open those qualities to rise to the equation. Host while she refused to give up her seat she was thinking of the 14 yearold black boy from chicago who went to mississippi because he whistled at a white woman was brutally murdered. To that change your spark anything with the Civil Rights Movement . His death, brown vs. Board of education decision killing of civilrights workers, the young highschool student who led a walkout to protest against fifth inferior education. 1951. Many people we dont even know there names or other teenagers who did the same thing. So the resistance largely among young people. Definitely when you talk about south africa, we all remember Nelson Mandela who was in a prison cell. For others to revived a movement in the early 70s and the late 60s. Host talking about children, james did something that got a lot of criticism for him and dr. King. Guest king was at a Crucial Point in birmingham with millions of people across the country followed him. From montgomery which king did not initiate, through birmingham, king is a leader in search of a following. Only in birmingham can he initiate and sustain a movement the dow reached a Crucial Point in 1963 all those who were adults who were willing to get arrested already had been arrested. He writes his letter from the birmingham jail. It was not clear he bush win in birmingham. If he lost there would be no march upon washington or nobel peace prize. So what saved the day in birmingham is there were no adults to be arrested but james says there are young people who are eager to be arrested and to join and we have been restraining them. And at that point they come into the picture to save the day for Martin Luther king. Host are there any pictures that come to mind . Guest of course. The dogs and hoses but one involved told me that being in High School Teachers and principals knew they had to keep the students under control and by that time resentments were boiling over. So day locked say gates. Host to keep the children in . What ages . Guest high school. At a certain point the students left and pushed the fence down. Host and they say a child will lead the way. Going back to birmingham and conducting a funeral. But did you feel guilty . Guilty about all these kids being in jail, he felt guilty that he tried to explain and i remember listening to one of his speeches. He said these children are doing they need to do this for future generations. Some of their parents i think recognize. My own parents didnt want me to get involved. They brought me to los alamos mexico so i didnt have to deal with that. Host you mentioned that you were surprised at the Church Bombing of the complacency. People seemed to react to people being murdered, yet we all see what happened in that tragedy at the Sandy Hook Elementary School why were people moved by those children being murdered . Guest people are as concerned about the death of a black child and as they are about the death of a black child that is one of the fundamental issues that we still address. We have had situations where assault weapons are used on a weekly basis in their urban areas and the victims are children. Host 500 people in 2012 for murder, black people were murdered on the south side of chicago and seems to matter more that they are killing each other in their children are dead and it doesnt seem to be the uproar in the country even in our community about it. Guest but thats where we are as a nation. Most americans blackandwhite and of all races understand the we are not the equal nation that we say we are. But theres still a reluctance to address that issue and understand that part of it comes from if you put one of the laws of School Education is that white children are an inferior schools. Host theres action. Guest theres action and that is one of the things about this segregation is that many black parents understand if they get their kids into school with white kids they have leverage. One of the problems is the way in which we went about desegregation is that i agree we should have had that kid should have been allowed to go to Central High School but what about the 900 of the first bill in the all blacks cool . What is being done to make sure that their education as equal because that would have cost a lot of money and a lot of resources and that is where the nation failed. Yes we need to break down the racial barriers and make it possible to have an all white school but that still doesnt happen to deal with the problems that happen. Host in boston in the 70s some of it, the busing in michael foot courtordered busing. We didnt allow our children to go to school with white kids because we wanted to integrate. They go to the schools because they are better. The books are better, the teachers are not necessarily better but the opportunities are better and it goes back to my other question of where are we on the quicksands of Racial Injustice and the hard rock . Not just black people but white people, too. Where are we . Are we somewhere in the middle . Are we almost there . Where are we . Guest we need to do two things. One is to submit the victories. In the generation of people who bring an end to the jim crow system itself, to legalize the this segregation that existed, the generation that ended colonialism. When i tell my students about colonialism theres a few colonies left about apartheid. This kind of legalized discrimination of racism so the victory over White Supremacy has a legalized system of oppression that is a tremendous victory and the heroic figures of that. Thats why during that time the majority of humanity the status changed. How many times that has never happened in history where the majority of people in a relatively short period of time went from being peasants to citizens. But now. Host told them to wait about 150 years of apartheid here in america of jim crow and we were told to wait and many black people were told to wait four more years for president obamas second term. Women brought their issues to the president , the comprehensive Immigration Reform and the governments are bringing their issues to the president. We are not bringing our issues. Martin luther kings issue. Guest who is stopping us . Its one thing

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