We expect the passage of an effective civil rights bill. Were going to move together. Were going to Grow Together. Freedom, freedom, Freedom Freedom now free at last, free at last, thank god almighty, we are free at last we march to redress old grievances and help to resolve an american crisis. That crisis is born of the twin evils of racism and economic depravation. We march to demonstrate massively and dramatically our unalterable opposition to these forces and to their centurylong robbery of the American People. Our bodies will bear witness that jobs and freedom are needed now. Those were the words used 50 years ago to explain why we march on august 28th, 1963, when more than 200,000 americans demonstrated that the time for change had come. 50 years later, the voices that will speak from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial have changed, but the reasons to march remain the same. Good morning. Im Melissa Harrisperry, live from the National Mall in washington, d. C. , where events are already underway for the 50th anniversary march on washington. Thousands of people are gathered here already, with more continuing to stream in. Among those scheduled to speak today are Martin Luther king iii, merly evers williams, the reverend al sharpton, attorney general eric holder, and john lewis. The only person to speak at the original march who is still alive today. Here he is in 1963. By the forces of our demand, our determination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated south into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of god and democracy. We must say, wake up, america wake up for we cannot stop and we will not and cannot be patient. On that day, 50 years ago, 250,000 people gathered here to demand the rights of full citizens. They demanded comprehensive civil rights legislation, school desegregation, full employment, living wages, and the aggressive use of federal authority to ensure economic political and social justice. 50 years later, we have made progress, was the struggle continues for those same demands. We will bring you the live coverage of the events here on the mall throughout the day, right here on msnbc. And as we get things started this hour, i am thrilled to be joined this morning by joy reid, msnbc contributor and managing editor of thegrio. Com. She also leads nerdland whenever im on vacation. Also, julian vaughn, naacp chairman emeritus. And next to him, the reverend William Barber, head of the North Carolina chapter of the naacp and leader of one of todays most important social movements for justice, the moral mondays protest in North Carolina. Thank you all for being here. Mr. Vaughn, i want to begin with you. As you think about where we have been, over the course of the past 50 years, how would you assess progress . Well, if you look at the 50 years, the real measure of progress was the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Thats the legacy of that march. And that opened the door for black americans and people of color to go places and work in places, go places they hadnt been able to go before. Some of the other legacies are not as strong. The Supreme Courts revision of the Voting Rights act is a bad mark on them and meant that Justice Roberts had a dream that he followed since he was working for ronald reagan. He wanted to get rid of the vote rights act and now is in a position to do it. Its sort of a mixed picture. A Million People were ahead, behind, its a terrible thing to concentrate. But the thing that happened 50 years ago is people left here, determined to make a change, and people, i hope, are going to leave here determined to make a change. But that story of some forward progress followed by some retraction is part of the story. I think, you know, we tell it in our elementary schoolbooks as though its a steady march, always towards justice, but i think its helpful to remember that theres always the backslide. Its back and forth, back and forth. Yeah, it always is. Thats the way life is, unfortunately. But Typical Movement has been forward. Weve gone forward, forward, forward. Weve won things. We have a black president , we have a black attorney general. If you would have told me 50 years ago, i would say you were crazy. The you told me a year before it happened, i would say youre crazy. But it happened. It shows that were changing country. But we havent changed enough and theres much more work to do. Let me ask you about this question of the more work we have to do. You have been gathering an interracial coalition of activists every single monday in North Carolina, at the statehouse. And now yall have kind of taken it on the road in North Carolina. Talk to me about whether or not we should still believe that mass movements can have the kind of power that they did to affect policy 50 years ago. You know, melissa, a part of our challenge is today in the movement, is to hold on to what we won and to push forward towards what is yet to be won. You know, were still toward a more perfect union. And i think mass movements alone can do it, but if theyre fusion politics, if you create space by using language like moral versus immoral, extremist versus constitutional, dont get limited into conservative versus republican, liberal versus democrat. Tough brilliance of dr. King and attach that movement to a voter strategy and a Voter Education strategy, and you dont you know, dough dont work at trying to see who you can keep out. You actually keep julian bond and william bond together. I wasnt even born in 1963. I was in my mothers womb. I was born in august 1963. But the value is, when he and i can consult and learn the wisdom of the past, bring the nuances of the present, and have what we call in North Carolina a values coalition, not raw personnel, but around deep moral values, deep constitution values, and fusion movement. We went to mitchell county, North Carolina. 99 white, 89 republican and took the dream. The gang chains, the republican chair announced going to moral monday. 10,000 people in asheville, in a city thats 5 black. Thats the power of the coalition. And i want to go a little bit further on that. In part because sometimes coalition also means doing relatively temporal work with people, with whom you have other kinds of deep disagreements, right . And yet you can say, all right, we may not agree on who we will vote for, once we get into the polling place, but we can agree that everyone should have unfettered access to that polling place. When we went into mitchell county, we said to them, listen. When this governor in North Carolina cuts unemployment, unemployment in mitchell county, though its 89 republican, was 15 . When he cut education, that made the jobs up there a public schoolteacher. When this governor goes against the environment, you dont mess with peoples environment. When you hurt the vote, you undermine my and what they ended up saying was, theres not a lot different. I love that language. If you dont touch mountain peoples environment. And joy, let me ask you a little bit about that. Because part of the challenge that this movement represented by this 50th commemoration is, is that this is not just about race, this is not even primarily about civil rights, this is about lbgt questions, immigration, environment. That seems like a tougher coalition of people to hold together. Yeah, its difficult. Because youre trying to sort of build this multifaceted view of what civil rights means, when i think in the minds of many people, civil rights means what it meant 50 years ago. It meant an africanamerican issue. And it was even sometimes getting the civil rights establishment to accept the expansion of the feed for civil rights into an lbgt community. So you have a challenge, because some of these coalitions are sort of fractured, and they each have their own needs and their own priorities. So getting everyone on to the same page, but i think thats ones of the reasons the fight against it is so tough, and the fight against it is so fierce, because i think theres always been an understanding if you marry economic populism and you marry Racial Justice and it transcends race, thats a coalition thats a lot bigger and a lot more difficult to keep out of a voting booth. And thats part of what i want to talk about when we come back. Is that this was always a march for jobs and freedom. There was always a labor aspect to this. So, in fact, even our memory of this is not completely accurate when we think about the coalition. Speakers are already at the podium, as you can see and probably hear behind me. We are going to bring you many of the voices live today. Now, for those of you joining us from home this morning, we want you to know that we want to know about what you are doing, even if you are not hear. How are you advancing the dream . We dont just want you to tell us, we want you to show us, too. Head to advancingthedream. Msnbc. Com to share what you are doing to help further dr. Kings dream. Use the advancingthedream and tweet a picture that explains how youre going to help in moving forward. Were going to be right back with more of our special coverage of the 50th anniversary of the march on washington. We provide the exact individualization that your body needs. This labor day, dont invest in a mattress until you visit a sleep number store. 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Ask your doctor if including advair could help improve your lung function. [ male announcer ] Advair Diskus fluticasone propionate and salmeterol inhalation powder. Get your first prescription free and save on refills at advaircopd. Com. I have a dream. My four 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 back with me here, just a short distance from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, dr. Julian vaughn, William Barber, and msnbcs joy reid. I want to start with you again, mr. Vaughn. In that quote that i think has become the iconic one about my four little children being judged by the content of their character. But of course, what we know historically, within a month of this historic march, four little children lost their lives in the church in birmingham. And reverend king had talked about the idea of redemptive suffering before that. I want to listen for a moment about dr. King talking about redemptive suffering and ask you about that. So lets take a listen. And go on with the feeling that this is a righteous cause and that we will have to suffer in this cause and that a physical death is the price that some must pay. Its the price that i must pay to free my children and the children of my brothers and sisters and my White Brothers from a permanent psychological death, then nothing can be more redemptive. I have always believed that unearned suffering is redemptive. And if a man has not discovered something so dear and so precious that he will die for it, then he doesnt have much to live for. So thats just two months before the march. Its hard to get your mind around that, if you havent found something to die for, then you have nothing to live for. And most of us are going to say, i dont have anything i want to die for. But if you think about the people in the movement, they had made this commitment. They had said to themselves, im willing to die, im willing to be arrested, im willing to be beaten, im willing to go to jail, im willing to do all this suffering because im advancing this greater cause. Everybody in the movement believed that and many people listening to this believed that too. Its a noble thought. And not just themselves, which is one thing, but their children. And the fact that just moments before this great, 50 years ago march, was the campaign. That changed the moral complexion of our nation. The parents in birmingham didnt want their children to do this. In fact, they told their children not to do it and the children did it anyways. And if you talk to those children today, theyll tell you about the fights they had with their parents and how they snuck out, they jumped out the backdoor of the school, they did everything they could so the adults wouldnt stop them. But once the adults saw them doing it, they were tremendously proud. My father and mother didnt want me to get arrested and they were horrified when i was, but i think they thought, you know, what a wonderful thing to do. I guess as we are thinking about where we are 50 years later, one of the questions, then, that i have is, so what motivates us in that way that dr. King talked about . What are the things that have that level of a sense of urgency for americans, regardless of race at this moment . I mean, now its difficult, because i think a lot of particularly younger people were really galvanized around the redemptive suffering that a lot of people feel for Trayvon Martin, and this sense of fe feeling, and i think that is the closest that modern americans can come to feeling what it was like about literally feeling like a stranger in your own country. Not able to walk into a restaurant and sit down, suspected of being a criminal. Hold for just one moment. Msnbcs ed schultz is actually addressing the crowd right now. Were going to take a minute and listen to ed. But it was the future. I take you to birmingham, alabama, last night, where i did a radio town hall and i can tell you whats happening in america right now. The dream can only be realized if we Pay Attention to whats going on in our own backyard. When we start picking and choosing neighborhoods, whos going to get the resources and whos not going to get the resources, we will lose this country, we will lose the vision of diversity, we will lose the opportunity of equality to move all people forward. You need to Pay Attention to whats happening in your backyard, to make sure that your school and those young kids get the resources they need to have an opportunity in america that will help them grow. Being a product of the middle class, i was the one who was afforded the opportunities. And if we start picking and choosing neighborhoods, what kind of message are we sending to the youth of america . That this is the vision that theyre going to have . That this is what its supposed to be for them . No thats not what dr. Kings message was, thats not what americas focus is, and that cannot be the road to the future for america. Stand tall in your community, fight for diversity, understand its strength, and make sure that every school is resourced to give every american child a chance to live the dream. God bless you thank you that was msnbcs ed schultz, speaking there. Msnbcs ed schultz, speaking there, in part about the poshs of diversity e tity in schools. It makes me think about the attack on civil rights and Voting Rights in North Carolina began first with an attack of the integration of schools in wake county, North Carolina. Exactly. And part of what we have to do, melissa, is destroy this myth of the ultraconservative, extremist, that can hurt some without hurting all of us. The fact of the matter is, we connect the dots and we show that an attack on medicaid or an attack on Public Education or an attack on the working poor or an attack on vote rights is an attack on all of us. And then we frame all those things as moral. Health cares a moral issue. Session a moral issue. And then we say to folks, what we need is an antiracial, antipoverty, projustice, movement. And go back to mississippi, go back to North Carolina. Come here, but dont stay here. If youre going to change the nation, youve got to think states . And this is a question of what is happening in our local community. We will continue with coverage of this 50th commemoration of the march on washington when we return. [ bottle ] okay, listen up im here to get the lady of the house back on her feet. [ all gasp ] oj, veggies youre cool. Mayo . Corn dogs . You are so outta here aah cause im reworkin the menu, keeping her healthy and you on your toes. [ female announcer ] the complete balanced nutrition of greattasting ensure. 24 vitamins and minerals, antioxidants, and 9 grams of protein. I see you, cupcake uhoh [ bottle ] the number one doctor recommended brand. Ensure®. Nutrition in charge™. [ bottle ] the number one doctor recommended brand. Help keep teeth clean and breath play close. Fresh and close. With beneful healthy smile food. With special crunchy kibbles and great taste. Its a happy way to a healthy smile. New beneful healthy smile food and snacks i am here today with you, because with you i share the view that the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for equal opportunity is not the struggle of negro americans, but the struggle for every american to join in. Welcome back to msnbcs live coverage of the 50th anniversary march on washington. I