operate in ways that are helpful to the pakistani government. >> guest: exactly in the pakistanis have got their own major challenges inside of their own country with the radicals operating there. so to come out pakistan before you are able to leave behind a relatively stable, and i used the term relative because they can still probably go either way but at least leave the central government in charge that can protect itself internally and externally is to say pakistan may fall shortly after afghanistan does. >> host: before we conclude they want to say a word about carolyn. there is a book that i was really fond of and circulated in the pentagon by stephen pressfield called the gates of fire. one of the best historical novels about the battle of thermopylae where you had 300 spartan warriors defending 100,000 or more persian shoulders -- soldiers coming through that gap. those 300 warriors, spartans were picked not only for their

courage and capability because all of the spartans were basically capable. they were picked based upon the courage and the stoicism of those spartan wives. i think about carolyn. she has been with you for -- >> guest: 47 years. >> host: 47 years from the very beginning by your side or behind you virtually from every moment. in europe look you spend all of the years he spent in the military, you had 23 moves. that is not on typical of what we require. we have to say, you may say another word about carolyn but i want to just say one final words to you. there is a quote that you sent him to me one time from william tecumseh sherman to grant. i knew wherever it was you thought of me and if i got in a type lacy would come for me if alive. i just want to say bad every

soldier who has ever served with you, any person who has had the privilege of working with you knows if they ever got into a type place, if they were ever in trouble, you would come to them if alive. thank you for a wonderful contribution to the security of this country. you are a patriot, a warrior par excellence and a friend who i couldn't have a better one and the country couldn't have a better one then you. this book. everyone should read this, without hesitating. go out and get "without hesitation" because it is the story of a life of the great patriot. at thank you for being here. >> guest: thank you mr. secretary and it is my pleasure. ..

and we have seen our leaders, all their words, we have seen

them fail. we have seen the kind of cynical maneuvering for political advantage and for monetary advantage and so forth. but hair with them, i believe, is one of the most important elements of any social progress. and by sheer wisdom i don't just mean a few great men are a few great women leading the masses behind them. but i mean a much more everyday version if you're with them. there is no better movement, no butter moment in history that you find real history and the march on washington where all the filler byte of us were gathered really for the first and only time. this was a sprawling vast movement, involving diverse group from all over the country, north, south and east, west, oral, irvine.

both laborers, farmers and everybody you can imagine not involved in the civil rights movement. and many of them, thousands of them in fact became heroes. and i think when you go to the mall on august 28, 1963, you're going to encounter literally thousands of them if they are. i want to talk about a few of these heroes and what made their great deeds possible. and i want to start off by talking about a young man named james lee pruett. he was 18 years old at the time. he was from greenwood, mississippi. and james lee pruett, jimmy pruett came to the march with a whole contingency with people from mississippi and they got some of the biggest part of the whole day. now, james lee pruett carried a sign. they were homemade signs and one of them said don't prosecute people for signing up to vote.

the other signs that a free vote for everybody in mississippi by 1964. for this effort, hampered in his own sign, he was approached by security officials that you're not allowed to have your own phone. the march on washington committee had specifically set standards for how the funds would come out. in fact, the united autoworkers paid for the sign. they have been made and there was a group of people come in the big ten, the organizers of the march on washington have to approve every single finder with. along the march from the washington monument and the lincoln memorial. and so there was reason for a security guard to approach jimmy pruett. jimmie lee pruett was probably a little bit scary. he was probably a little bit intimidated. he was probably a little bit surprised and so he frozen the moment. and finally someone caught out saint jimmy, showing the know.

it's a jimmy or out of this pocket unfolded it and gave it to the security officer. and this is what the security officer read. back in may, jimmy pruett was arrested for taking part in demonstrations. he was convicted and sentenced to four months in prison plus a $400 fine for marching. he eventually ended up after a few days at the notorious prison just outside jackson mississippi one person in prison, for those of you who know the psychohistory was one of the most inhumane places to be held. he was held for a total of 52 days. he was stripped make it for 47 of the days. his body was covered with grease for much of the time. his prisoners told him that it was poison and it would kill him. he was giving to poultry meals a day and then the ration was cut

in half. he was held in a six by nine-foot cell, with 13 other people. at one point he was in solitary confinement in the heat, which reach 106 degrees made in pastel. and as i said, he was finally released after 52 days of this. and so the card cover the security guard let them know. and he said, mr. pruett, you can carry your sign. let me tell you about another person without the mall that day. during that there was a student at jackson state. she was a protége of mentor others, who was the mississippi leader of the naacp. toward the girl puts her sister in a rural town in mississippi, where the only access to a late news was when the medicine men came and he would leave behind a magazine or a newspaper. now, dorie ladner sungai

recruited to join the naacp and started to make trips to this big city of jackson. notts wishing that matter. she got more and more involved in the movement. in the summer of 1963, she was a major fundraiser for the civil rights movement. what they did in those days as they would take people who are active can take them or to new york and boston and chicago and los angeles in different places and they would tell their stories about activism throughout the south as a way of raising money to pay for all the activities of the movement. along with her sister, she also worked in the movement. she also worked on the march on washington. she enjoys ladner shelled rachelle horowitz and a regular visitor at the apartment in new york was a young singer named bob dylan, who was kind of sweet on dorie. they met at an event in mississippi. but dorie was not only active in the movement. like many other people, she was

going to put her body on the line, like james lee pruett, she was going to put her body on the line. when she was fascinated on the morning of june 12, his followers and the major figures in the civil rights movement gathered for a major moral service and funeral. and then they wanted to a funeral procession down north capitol past the capital of mississippi. the police wouldn't let it, but dorie and her fellow activists decided they were going to do it anyway. and for that impedance, she and others were arrested and turn into jail. now, dorie ladner and james pruett were not the only people who put their bodies on the line during the civil rights movement. in fact, 1963, it was the busiest year of the civil rights movement. after the birmingham campaign in spain, there were more than 2000 demonstrations across the country. more than 50,000 people were jailed and there were some big mac drivers anyway postman named

william moore. now, why is it the ordinary people like this would be willing to put their body on the line? why is that they would expose themselves to so much physical danger, lethal danger. well, one of the major reasons and one of the major causes the civil rights movement's eventual success with the man named issa philip randolph,a philip randolph was the man who brought mass demonstrations into the civil rights movement and incidentally he is also the person who turned the march. it was his vision throughout this mass gathering before the lincoln memorial. now, around the time thata philip randolph got involved in politics in new york in 19 teams in the 1920, the civil rights movement basically had two different approaches to promoting the cause. one cause is what you might call the booker t. washington approach.

booker t. washington was a major educator. he was the first black figure invited to sign at the white house with president theodore roosevelt. and booker t. washington essentially argued that blacks, in order to thrive coming to accept segregation and build their own institutions within their own world. he was futile to fight the massive structures of segregation and of course you have to understand this is a time when lynchings were quite common. another figure, w. e. b. to bully disagreed vehemently with booker t. washington. he argued that? the civil rights definite general had to be much more aggressive, they had to become troublemakers, they had to organize everywhere they could. it was the boy who came up with the concept of the talented attempt. and that fight he meant the civil rights movement in the black community as a whole needed to identify the cream of the crop, the very best and

brightest among the black community. and get them to be a vanguard for the movement to leave for the charge to decide what happen when you say the tactics and strategies and so forth for the movement. he hit two models. both of them are really almost. web dubois focused on the attempt. a pretty washington on a small group of black leaders within the black community working in the confines of segregation. but along came a philip randolph. he was born in crescent city florida. he moved to new york because i want to be not your enemy. in many shakespeare plays, but his father, reverend james randolph didn't approve acting. he didn't think it was a moronic tv. so a son, philip randolph gave in and gave up back in. his soon to the streets and gave

classic soapbox about all the issues of the day, economic issues, savo. , want peace, you name it, he talked about it and he drew a large crowd. he got involved in organizing. kid a couple failed efforts until he finally exceeded after many years organized the pullman sleeping car porters. now in this day and age, we don't remember much about the pullman car porters. at the time, the biggest single employer blacks in the united states. organize and be a major coup. he had to endure violence. he had to endure threats. he had to endure his own people getting kicked out of their job. hundreds lost their jobs for cooperating with him in this organizing drive. and he was even offered rides. he took a blank check and then set the check box of you without

proof of the pride they were trying to make. but he eventually succeeded and he became a folk hero within the black community. nonetheless the philip randolph cut from all of that wisdom was the only thing that would help the black community overcome what he called a slave mentality or an inferiority complex was to get bodies on the street, get bodies on the town square. get them out on the picket line to thrust themselves forward, to give themselves or to assert their identity. only by giving them physically into the mix could they ever overcome the inferiority that they suffered in the american system. so, where did james lee pruett, where did worth ladner get the courage and where did the hundreds of other people get the courage to come out there and put their bodies on the line? one of the main reasons thata

philip randolph, who by the way at the time was called the most dangerous in america by the fbi, a label that they would later decide to use a martin luther king. now, it's not enough to put your bodies on the line. you also have to think intelligently, strategically, you have to think creatively. there were a number of people who movement, many of them on the mall that day, who thought and acted very creatively. the civil rights movement was above all a highly intelligent movement. it was created in all kinds of ways that invented a lot of the everyday strategies and tactics of politics that we now take for granted. one of the strategies that the civil rights movement uniquely broad to american politics, they didn't invent it, but they brought it to a mass scale, was the part take of civil disobedience and nonviolent resistance. now, the reason this is so

important is quite ample. the state, according to max weber and others has a monopoly on the use of force. it is a monopoly on the use of violence in society. and so, if you try to meet the state's power with violence, you're going to be vastly overmatched and thrown into jail. the only way to make the power of violence is with nonviolence. in one of the major theories that this was a man inspired reston. and fired reston a protége of a. philip randolph who organized the march on washington. he was randolph deputy for the organizing of the march. some of randolph argued was that nonviolent resistance was critical to any kind of success for the civil rights movement for two reasons. one of them is what christians are aware of, which is christ inclination to turn the other

cheek. but the other one is much more strategic. what you do when you resist our company do it nonviolently and when you accept the consequences of it is you essentially withdraw consent from the state. you are saying i do not accept the legitimacy of his power that is putting me below. and so, if enough people withdraw consent from the regime, the regime crumbles or at least that part of the regime, that law or the practice of the regime can crumble. the only way that the apartheid terrorist system from which existed for the black community for much of american history, the only way that it could crumble as if enough people withdrew consent from it. now of course you don't have to participate in a constitutional convention to consent to something. we consent to things every day. anytime we stopped at a red light or agree to pay our taxes

or do anything that involves cooperation with the local government, state government, federal government. anytime we cooperate with the system, where essentially given a tacit consent. in the genius inspired reston was to feel as if you withdraw the consent, the state loses its very powerful hold over you. and there were a number of other people at the march on washington who understood those and who acted on this. and i want to tell you about a couple of them. one was a man named jerome smith. he was 23 at the time of the march. he was from new orleans, louisiana and has been involved in civil rights activism of this time for 13 years, since he was the grand age of 10, growing up in new orleans. now, the way that the buses operated in new orleans and many other cities at the time was they had these things -- they have these things called screens that they put between the seat and they fit into a slot.

and if more whites, the bus, they moved to slide further and further back towards the back of the bus. and anytime a wave moved to to slide further back, blacks had to give up their seats for whites. one of the everyday indignities of being black in the south for much of american history. now, jerome smith in 1950, when he was 10 years old picked up one of those lives on through to the ground and said i'm not going along with this. the driver threatened to have jerome smith arrested. but a kindly old woman took him aside and said don't worry bus driver. i'll take this boy to see his father and i'll make sure that he gets a spanking of a lifetime. and she took them off the bus. and as soon as the bus driver drove away, she embraced him and said keep on doing what you're doing. and that's exactly what he did. he was one of the freedom writers in 1961, his greatest

contribution to the happened in may of 1963. the eventual confess and the march on washington. jerome smith was one of a handful of people invited to the apartment of attorney general robert f. kennedy in new york city. as a group organized kind of at the last minute as the author james baldwin. and it included some of the leading lights of blacks intellectualize like lorraine hansberry, lake kenneth clark, like lena horne, kerry belafonte. they all showed up at rfk's apartment to give him a kind of state of the nation for the black community in the united states. and after welcoming his guests to his apartment, robert kennedy kind of recited some of the games at the kennedy administration was claiming for civil rights. he went down the list that

included the hiring of more blacks than any previous administration. and included having more executive orders for civil rights. it included support for a number of different civil rights initiatives. the money was finished, he opened the score for discussion and for questions. the senior members of this group turned to young jerome smith and some luck, mr. attorney general, we want you to hear directly from someone who is in the line of fire on this. in jerome smith was sitting right in front of robert kennedy. robert kennedy was sitting in the chair the middle of the living room and jerome smith was right at his feet. the first thing that jerome smith told the attorney general was mr. attorney general, you make you want to. needless to say bobby kennedy was shot, but that was just the beginning. jerome smith receded to tell him that if the u.s. had gotten involved in a war with cuba, he

wouldn't say. the attorney general was aghast. this concept of conscientious refusal for military service was still a little bit foreign to him. and he looked around the room at the older members of this gathering for a little bit of support. he wanted him to put the young man in the place. they all nodded and said that's right. he is speaking what we want to speak, too. this meeting lasted three hours. at the end of it, robert f. kennedy was out physically shaken. so did james baldwin, the author who organized the whole event. not, i talked with a man who took him to a tv station for a live interview, henry morgenthau. and henry told me that james baldwin was so shaken not. he was so physically disturb that he just said henry, you need to take me to the bar and get a drink.

but henry refused to do it and we need to take this interview. he was still physically shaken up. this is a pivotal moment for this summer. it was only a few weeks later by president john kennedy announced his support for the most overreaching civil rights legislation since reconstruction. and in a speech on june 11, he gave the most far-reaching statement of support for the civil rights movement as a moral cause as an american cause. the civil rights in american history by a president. now, jerome smith was speaking intelligently. he was giving the parts of the manner which was for segregation and all people systems in fact depend on the consent of the

people. it may not be that blacks voted for segregation. they didn't. they didn't vote for anything most of them. they didn't have a chance. it may not be that a lot of votes voted for segregation. half of the country with kind of aloof for the whole issue of segregation and right. but by going along with the system that allows it to happen, you are giving tacit consent to it. and what jerome smith was telling robert kennedy was i am withdrawing my consent. and this is very much along with the teachings of byard rustin. when we tell you about somebody also acted with extreme intelligence. these are ordinary people, by the way. there is a young girl named barbara johns who barbara johns who lived in a town called farmville, virginia. now, farmville, virginia was in a county called prince edward county. and in the years following the brown v. board of education decision in 1954, all of the

south organized for massive resistance to integration of public schools. and no one was more massive or more resistant than the state of virginia. and in fact, virginia closed down -- virginia passed a law in 1959 and no county or city needs to allow -- needs to provide public education for anybody. if you want, you can shut down your whole school system. now back in 1951, before brown, barbara johns was concerned about the inequality of school facilities with black and white schools. see what happened was in virginia at the time, you are only required if you are a school district, you are only required to provide schooling from a k2 eight. after that, you could send the kids to work in the fields of farms and the fact tree were to do nothing. but there was one school system

in virginia that did offer k-12 education for blacks and those in prince edward county. and that's when the schools were so overwhelmed. school built for 180 people at four and 50 students enrolled. and so barbara johns intelligently organized a boycott of the school until blacks would get equal facility. and she went with her group of supporters. she went to the naacp asking for support. after that, we'll support you, but were not going to support you. probably going to support up to join the lawsuit do you think is going to make it to the united states supreme court and become a litigant in the case that would become known as brown v. board of education. so a 15-year-old girl helped to unleash a whole series of events that eventually led to the crisis of the school being shut down in prince edward county. they were shut down in 1959 till

1964. many of the people in to the march on washington -- not many, about 100 or so people who went to the march on washington volunteered in prince edward county that summer to create kind of summer schools for all the kids who had never been to school before or haven't been there for years. there is some kids had to know how to live a pencil. note the above list. they hadn't been exposed to even the most asic teaching and learning that they needed. and so a number of people ended up on the mall that day, sleeping for most of the day it turns out. they were exhausted from their trip and end of the summer committees. but many of those people were essentially children that barbara johns helped to create. the civil rights movement first had to get physically involved. it had to get people to put bodies on the line.

and i had to come up with really intelligent strategies for overcoming extremely long odds against them. they were after all a vast minority and they had no opportunity to use any power at the ballot box. when they try to exercise any kind of rights or privileges of citizens, they were terrorized. there were thrown into jail, thrown out of the homes, they were beaten, they were terrorized semiregular basis. so in order to overcome the situation, they had to first put their bodies on the line. at the second second, but the smart, strategic approach, whereby rustin was a leading figure four. but that wasn't going to be enough. to talk about what else is needed i have to study but a couple other figures who were at the mall that day. one wednesday is the babes. daisy bates is one of the leading supporters and organizers and hope for the

little rock nine. when little rock central high school is desegregated, the national guard was sent by president dwight eisenhower because governor orville silas did not want to see central high school desegregated. he did not want to see black children enrolled at central high. but daisy bates was there kind of everyday advisor, counselor, teacher, comforter. she had been involved in politics in little rock for many years and she became kind of the point person to help these nine children get through the terror of walking to school everyday confronting physical physical and emotional abuse on a daily basis. and she become one of the heroines of the movement. now daisy bates could have been excused for being hateful. when she was -- just after she was born, her mother was and murdered by three way races.

and she was put into the care of a couple of stepparents. and as she grew up, she saw her stepparents taken an enormous amount of abuse themselves. she saw with their own eyes. one time she went up to her stepfather. this is on her telling. she went up to her stepfather and said why do you accept this abuse? why don't you hate these people who do this to you? and he said quite simply and this is a comment you hear pretty much of almost anybody who was involved in the civil rights movement. he said daisy, you've returned hate with love. and you can hate the -- you can hate the violence. you can hate the intimidation. you can hate the unfairness. you could make the lobbying on the side of the races. if you hit up i get to do something about it. she dedicated her life like so many people did to work in the

civil rights movement. but the key point there is to return hate with love, which is a profound concept when you think about it. it was someone else at the march that day. the guiding carol pride. he came down from kent, ohio to go to the march. he came down in a vw bug with his wife and i sat out on the mall and listen to the days activities. he held an umbrella over her throughout the day. the sun was intense. and when martin luther king got to a certain part in his speech, where he said what i think of the most important forward to that speech, not i have a dream come on boy the passage, but honor and suffering is redemptive. harold writes later told me he felt the surge of electricity go through his body. it was as if you've been touched by the most profound thing in his life. any remember back to the story has bodies to tell him about his

grandfather, who was a landowner in alabama. and when they were sitting on his horse, on his own property and he was shot dead off the horse by a white farmer who was jealous and angry that a black man could possibly own anything. and when harold bride's father told them the story about how his father, his grandfather was shut down in cold blood coming essentially told the herald the same thing, that daisy's stepfather told her, which is that you cannot hate a trade. you cannot fight featured with patriot. you can only fight it with love. and harold lakeway's took that to heart. now, for a lot of people, the highlight of the whole march on washington was the famous, i have a dream, speech. and i agreed was the highlight. as i said before, i would like to emphasize for different

words. unearned suffering is redemptive , rather than the other for magical words i have a dream. and when king uttered these words, he was trying to do something as he would say soulful. he was trying to hold the movement together. in the summer of 1963, this movement was splintering. and he was facing unprecedented pressure from the outside. this was the summer that the fbi decided to go after merck at the king with everything they had. this was the summer when literally tens of thousands of black's are being thrown into jail. someone conditions as bad as james lee pruett for the temerity to march and stand up for their own basic human rights. and this was a summer also when the younger blacks in the movement were starting to get impatient with martin became in his emphasis on nonviolent resistance.

and they started to listen a little bit more to people like malcolm x, who talked about by any means necessary. and also again named robert williams whiff of the country, but he was one of the leading apostles of fighting violence with violence in the black community. and they were a number of people who were involved in monroe, north carolina, some big titles they are for robert williams was a major figure. and he was finding an malcolm was finding a lot more followers who are arguing no to nonviolence and no to integration, which were the two pillars of the civil rights movement. and at the same time that there was this movement on the left, if you want to collect data. at the same time there was this movement on the left, the more radical edges of the civil rights movement to repudiate the very core of the movement. the result of growing pressure from the right. probably the fbi was developing

plans to go after the movement with all a tad, but there were movements throughout the south among the governors and among the state legislators to essentially pass constitutional amendments that would take congresses right away to legislate anything on civil rights. it would essentially -- these constitutional amendments, which were slowly moving towards passage of the time, would have essentially created a new confederate states of america. and so, there was a lot going on at this moment. the prolific and wanted to do was hold emotion together. he wanted the center to hold an center of the movement, the core of the movement was of course nonviolence and integration. not to do that, he had to somehow reaches followers who have been so abused for so long, who had walked into billy club the water cannons and cattle

prods, would've been carted off to jail, left there, start, terrorizing countless other ways. he had to somehow appeal to them to stick with it. and in what i consider to be the core of his speech and the core message of that day, he said i know you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. some of you have come out but narrow jail cells. some of you have come here having suffered suffering physical abuse, economic abuse and every other kind of indignity person can endure. and he said, but i want to tell you this. unearned suffering is redemptive and think about that for a second. he was a leader. he was a very later list talking truth to his people. he wasn't telling them that was going to be easy. in fact, it was going to be heard. he wasn't telling us in a safe place to go. in fact come he told them to go back to mississippi, go back to alabama, go back to georgia. he was telling them to go way back into the middle of the violence in the terror.

and he was telling them that if you do that, there will be redemption at the end of the day. you might not see it, but there will be redemption at the end of the day. and think about it. he was telling them in a sense that progress cannot come from the primitive sense of the people in power. you have to take it. and they're going to fight back when you take it away from them. if he was going to be easy, there was no need for the movement in the first place. this is hard, hard work. but he insisted that unearned suffering is redemptive. and that adds what i think is the third core elements of this great movement, seoul. he called the sole force and he contrasted it to physical force. he said sole force is always much more powerful because it taps into things that once it's there, nobody can take it away. and he took seriously the jesus'

command to love they neighbor as thyself. he sometimes joked, that doesn't mean i have to like them, but i do have to love them. and there was this extra element, this third element, sole force to go along with putting bodies on the line and thinking with high intelligence, anti-intelligence as ever has been brought to bear in american politics. it's these three elements that made the civil rights movement so successful and that were on display at him and his company and 63. i want to close with a couple quick comments. i started talking about here with them. and i would argue strongly that everyone of these people is mentioned as a hero and there were thousands of other ordinary heroes on the mall that day. i've only told you a few of those stories here this evening. and one of the most important things to remember about here with them is that it has to come from ordinary people.

it cannot come from the professional activity. mark luther king was a professional actor. by her and with a professional activist. a philip randolph was a professional activist. they did all kinds of grief things for their people and for this country. but it had to be the ordinary people who were sprawled out in front of them on the national mall. and i just heard a talk last night at philips abbado, who's a psychologist. and he argues about ordinary everyday here with them. he says in order for good to happen in this world, you have to prepare to be a hero. ordinary people have to prepare to be a hero. he had to teach themselves and they have to be ready for whatever extreme situation confronts them, so when the extreme situation comes and it's almost always going to be an unpredictable moments, they are ready to jump in to do the right thing. if you're not ready, you're probably not going to be a hero. and this mall, which contain upwards of 500,000 people, the

official estimate is 250. more independent estimates say it's more like 400, but it's doesn't matter. that's what the civil rights movement succeeded. not for the march on washington was so important. because for the very first time ever, all america got to see the glory of the solar rights movement. now, i understand we've got a little bit of time for questions. and the way this works is that because c-span is keeping us, you have to talk into a mic, which the dude is going to be passing around. you ever see the great lebowski? the dude. so the dude is there with the mic and anybody who wants to ask a question, i'd be happy to entertain any.

>> i was going to ask you, for that title comes from? >> nobody turn me round. well, there's a lot of great anthems of the civil rights movement. that is one of them. he cannot let nobody turn me around. i thought that it really kind of capture the determination to move forward the matter what. at the matter what came down in the year 1963, there was no going back. there was no going back to terrorism as a way of life. there was no going back to anything except for basic equal rights for everybody. and i thought that song kind of capture the defiance and determination that hundreds of thousands of people displayed that summer and throughout the movement. and one over here. >> i love your book. i think it's brilliant. i'm wondering what you as an author went through in terms of

a changing or non-changing image that you personally held off mlk. what you thought when you can see this project, which he thought as he reported it and went out and brought it. and then what you think now. >> well, if you know, i've always been an off. i remember when he was shot was seven years old. i looked in philadelphia at the time. and the "philadelphia inquirer" included as a semi-answer, if it off the cover of photographs. and i take it my bed. i don't know what it was because i was too young to really understand much. i don't know what it was that was so captivating about this man to a 7-year-old white boy in suburban philadelphia. it's always been this great source of inspiration. i also have always known at least, something to munch that

that he was human, that he had his own frailties. yet his own flawed. he did not do the right thing. he wasn't always as courageous as perhaps he should have been. but to me, the thing that is most great about martin luther king is not that he had so many great qualities, but that he was able to overcome his own inherent limitations. when he was a boy -- he went to college at the age of 15. when he was a boy, his teachers -- emmerdale bunch of interviews and listen to a whole bunch of taped interviews with his teachers. and they said there wasn't anything special about humans actually. he couldn't write at all. he almost never spoke. but you could tell that an anyhow this determination to do something. and he didn't know what it was. his daddy wanted him to be a preacher, but he wanted a bit of distance from his daddy, so he talked about being a lawyer or a

doctor. and it wasn't until after he finished college and went to the seminary, just outside the adelphia as a matter of fact. it wasn't until then that his vision for himself as a leader in the civil rights activists really job. was also not in oakland that he stopped, by his own account, stopped hating white people. and it's hard not to hate people who are oppressed. growing up atlanta, even in the porsche last circumstances very corrupt, indignities were all around them. what amazes me so much about king is the intense craving to go to the next level, should not be satisfied with how much you know, not be satisfied even with your own philosophical point of view. and a lot of people don't know that around the time of the montgomery bus boycott, 1955, there was a nonviolent movement.

but king didn't really totally understand what nonviolence was. in fact, he had armed guards his porch. there were pistols line around. and it wasn't until by her dressed and came down from new york, the real thinker on nonviolence in the united states committed he was called the american gandhi. he wasn't told by her dressed and came to his house, moved his basement to live for a couple months. it wasn't until i got there that came with the understood not only attacked ex, but power of nonviolence. he was always learning. i'll tell you one more thing about king because i loved this man. i typed a guy named floyd mckissick junior, whose father was a speaker for the congress of racial equality at march. the leader of the congress of racial equality, james farmer was in jail and pac-man, louisiana at the time. so mckissick stood in for him. young floyd mckissick told me

he's not a state legislator in north carolina. young floyd mckissick told me that his image of martin luther king continues to take you by the hand, walking down the street, play with him, tickle him, put them on the shoulder. pesticide to think a lot of people don't either. i think he was always, always interested in growing beyond whatever he was at the moment. upfront. >> do you see -- two questions. do you see of dubois's hair with them and if so why? >> that's two questions ratepayer. you know, it's hard to say. you know, the cynical part of me wants to say yes, there's nobody

like this walking around. but i don't know that. and on the quiet deeds of heroism that are going on. i do know the result of the people doing all sorts of creative things. these people starting school. i know colleges like el in fact all of the country, people are dying to work for teach for america. they are dying to go into the inner-city teacher $20,000 a year or whatever they get when they first start. so there's an idealism that are there needs to be patched. if a little bit about teach for america and uzi is a résume padding? i suppose. but that's a pretty time-consuming way to pad your resume. it think there is a real wellspring -- it will desire to do something to make the world better. but i think we live in an age where it's kind of hard to do the right thing. it's hard to have the time to develop yourself so you're ready for here with them when the chance comes. and i think we live in a society

of great distraction. i think we live in a society where we are so unbelievably materially well-off, we have no idea how well off we really are. and so were dissatisfied we don't have a new card or were dissatisfied we don't have the latest computer or flatscreen tv or whatever, none of which really matters. but i think that these things are really distract team and they take your mind off of how lucky you are on a day-to-day basis and how much great work there is to do. and so i think, you know, above all else we live in the age of destruction. and i think that undermines that really powerful urge that people have to do something good. yes, sir. and by the way, this man was at the march as a high school -- [applause] student. >> my recollection is that coming out of the 50s, the whole concept of protest was not

legitimate and was regarded as subversive. do you think the 1963 march played an important role in beginning to change that, so that you could actually organize demonstration without the feeling that you are being subversive and you may end up in jail or be beaten up by the cops? >> well, you are ending up in jail and being beaten up by the cops when you do it. >> i do believe -- the kind of of -- the kind of conventional wisdom about the march on washington is that it didn't make that much of a difference. there's a nice way for the different together. there was this great speech come of this great man cave. a lot of people remember it fondly and warmly pure put in the long run it could make much difference. and that was kind of my point of view to be honest at the beginning. what i've come to realize is they made a huge difference. and your questions can exactly

why. this was the first time. think about that. this was the first time that all america got to see the civil rights movement unfiltered. it was the first major, i'm at racial event covered live by national tv. cbs covered by comments from morning to night. and when america was able to see who these people were and how decent they were and was palpable. i watched every clip i could get my hands on. it was palpable. when america was able to see how decent this movement was and how uncomplaining this movement was and how determined to put their own bodies on the line and how determined they were to love their neighbors themselves. i mean, this is all corny, right? but when america saw this, i believe that transformed peoples

understanding. did he do it instantly that day? for some people coming out. for other people it took a little while to sink in. i think you made a major difference. it began a couple of important impacts to peer behind the scenes there is a battle over whether there was going to be a woman speaker at the march. there were 10 official speakers. they were all men. there were a number of women who complained that they weren't represented in that watcher on. and they had spent in tcp and casey hayden and a bunch of other people. then they were told by byard preston, who above all else were human by anybody. they were told that, you are represented. where wilkins is here from the naacp. james farmer from the core, he represents he appeared at john lewis from the slt c. walter reuther from the uaw, he represents the rent that one.

there is eventually a compromise for daisy bates would like to speak for the women. she was given a short little speech to read and a group of eight women were asked to stand up and bow and accept a pause. i believe that played a role in a major women's rights movement because there was this really strong pop a blood notion, hold on a second. how is it different for blacks to be claiming their rights, which they deserve? how is that different from women claiming their right? it became pretty clear pretty quickly to the smartest people in activist politics that it wasn't right. and there was another incident that happened, which i think of a major impact. it's never been covered by anybody is only speculation on my part. but i believe the march on

washington was a major influence in creating the free speech movement, which began that next year at the university of california at berkeley. one of the main leaders of the free speech movement was involved in the sole rights movement. i still have been able to figure out whether he was at the march. estimates of people and nobody can tell me, so i assume he wasn't. but in any event, there was a big battle behind the scenes over john lewis speech. can the catholic church threatened to pull all of the present on some followers out of the march because they consider john lewis' speech to be too incendiary. effect of a revolution. he talked of having a second march, but a second sherman's march throughout the south to shatter the system of segregation. and i was just too incendiary. i was too radical for the catholic bishop of washington. and so he threatened to pull

out. no eventually lewis did change his speech. i have to think it was better at the end. and it was more critical. but there was a big free speech issue. and i was very much on the mind of every service on the mall. they knew what was going on. they knew exactly what was going on. and i believe that john lewis' first beach, which he didn't give, was felt every bit as much as a second speech which he did give. and i think it contributed greatly to the free speech movement and as a result of the whole student movement and eventually the peace movement, the antiwar movement. and so, this thing spawned all kinds of things. can i prove that? no, not yet. but hey major influence. this was american politics at its absolute best unfold here, not only of the u.s. by the way, but the whole world. because for the first time this event was covered by satellite throughout the world. and so they sought in africa, sought in asia, southern europe.

they were going to the soviet union, but it went too well for the communist party ticket off the air. anyway, it was seen across the world. and that in turn had a major impact on people and colonial systems in africa and asia and elsewhere, who are thinking about their own struggles. martin at the king was a major influence for the democracy movement in south vietnam, which had a very interesting role on the tree of the vietnam war. so this is a single moment in american history i believe. anything else? yes. why do we go to braun and then over here. >> yeah, you touched on it a bit, but how much do you go into it in your book on the clash of the clashes between the leaders and the people who they are supporting the leaders?

just be there to support civil rights in their own way. >> you know, when you say class, you need? >> classes. >> okay well, one of the saddest things i came upon in this research was a memo that kind of summarize with the planning was at the time. i've got all the records from the march on washington organizing committee. and i went through them page by page. one of the saddest moments that i had during this research was finding a memo where they were listing all of the speakers at the march. some of the lines that unemployed worker and it was crossed out. and there were a lot of people who felt really be trade at the speakers represented, you know, pretty much an elite group these are well-connected folks. there were a lot of people in the movement who wanted -- you wanted ordinary people to get a chance to get up there and

speak. and then not sense there was some tension. and there were some people who were boletus appointed that it was becoming kind of a slick reproduced operation. on the other hand, i guess i agree with byard preston, the primary organizer of it. anytime he made a compromise over the particulars of how things are going to happen, his own staff was around him in the office in harlem and is a traitor, sellout. i byard said now children. he had this kind of british way of talking. he said now children, the only thing that matters is having as many people on them all as possible, for all america to see that this is a grand movement and were not going anywhere until we get our basic way. and i think that was probably a correct decision. what i have loved to have seen an unemployed worker get up there and speak from the heart and speak from the experience,

from the fact tree or from the field? that would've been a a sight to behold. i was one of those compromises the organizers need to keep moving forward. it was heartbreaking for me to see that line go right through unemployed worker, but there was. and these little tensions existed throughout. it was 10 people against the old people. it was the kind of traditional civil-rights approach to the more radical approach. there are kinds of tension, but they were really all united because they wanted to make this happen. they also realize that the united states was really in danger of kind of blowing up. we kind of think that our times are bad. but there's a lot of tension, ugliness, he chaired. but it was the least amount generally exceeded by those times. what enabled them to get through it was really the heroes that we all know about, martin luther

king and philip randolph and all these other people, but also the thousands of other heroes. and they were really ready for anything. and they acted with incredible intelligence when danger approached them. over here. in the center. >> will start with uaw. given that time, carthy of them died. i'm just wondering, how -- to what effect, what role they played in the last socialist communist -- we have these awful stories that they were kept to the back. >> yes, it's very interesting. when the idea for the march 1st to develop in december 1962. and what they were thinking of doing is having a centennial

march with the emancipation proclamation. remember, the emancipation proclamation took effect january 1, 1863. is that they were thinking 1863 assists greyson tenniel year. we need to do something to market. philip randolph and byard preston got together and they agreed they would get some kind of march on washington going. select randolph didn't through because caved in to his demand for an executive order banning discrimination against blacks in wartime anyway, randolph wanted to do this march and the worst way for

>> andn we'rgoing to lose control of this thing before we even get it going. he told ronwits to go out to the most left oriented labor unioning and get money and feeling out who might be interested in doing this kind of thing. now as it turned out, it was the mainstream guy, walter ruther who was a critical part. he was a moderating force. he was on the side of the catholics bishops against martin

luther king's speech. he pressured them, because he didn't want to see the whole group of whites leave. he was a liberal by any stretch and definition. he was also terribly concerned to have a whole faction leave because of the phrases and speech. organized labor was lily white. walter ruther, although he was talking about white membership, there was no white membership in the uaw at this time. he had -- i don't want to say he had clay feet. he didn't. but he had not come through on his promise to integrate the labor movement. it was a hard thing. but he hadn't come through at this point. and a lot of labor was really conservative and much of it was

racist as well. is -- anything else or? yes. up here. up front. got to wait for the mike. >> okay. i'll wait. you described yourself as a seven-year-old white kid from suburban philadelphia. >> actually, at the time of the march, i was a 2-year-old from chattanooga, tennessee. >> that doesn't matter to my question. it is what made you so interested in the subject? >> you know, i really don't know. i'll tell you about something. i was already interested when this event -- when this incident happened. when i was young, i was born in hamilton county hospital in chattanooga, tennessee. and i was born in the white persons ward of the hamilton county hospital.

one time my mom gave me a baby book that she saved after i was born. i remember looking at it and seeing, you know, white ward. what? i was -- you know, i knew it. i knew it intellectually, i knew it factually, i was a child of segregation. but it didn't really, really sink in until i saw that. and the feeling that i think i've had my whole life and it just swelled as i did the research for this book. but the feelings i've had my whole life, thank for these people. because they saved me from growing up in a society where it was not only okay, it was better than okay. it was the law to think that i was better because i had white skin and to think that i deserved better facilities because i have white skin. you know, we have lots of problems in this country. we have problems of race, problems of poverty, problems of

class. i don't mean to minimize the problems that remain. but i did not grow up in an officially racist, partide society. it was because of the people. i think i've always been grateful for that. my gratitude, it just overwhelms me at times as i was doing this research. because, you know, this is -- you know, civil rights movement is sometimes referred to as a black movement or something like that. but it was really no such thing in one sense, anyway. it was a way of redefining what it means to be a citizen of this country. it was redefining how we look on our fellow citizens. where i grew up anyway, tennessee, pennsylvania, iowa, new york, where i grew up, i did not hear people using the n word. i did not hear anybody ever make the argument that whites are better than blacks. i know people say that. but i didn't hear it.

and i did not grow up going to a white school. in fact, i went to a school with a lot of blacks and a lot of hispanics. and so grows up in a kind of postracist society even though it hasn't solved all of it's problems, to me, that's an incredible gift. and i think i knew that all along. i think it's what tugged me and pulled me towards the subject in the first place. but it only grew intensity as i worked on this research. >> do you get involved in the civil rights movement if something happened in this country? >> you know what, there's a lot happening in this country. i think -- here's what i think about the civil rights. after the march on washington, and i think this is how i would like to think about the civil rights going forward. it's going to take a couple of minutes to get it out.

it's very important topic. right after the march on washington, mr. rustton was interviewed about who's going to happen to the movement now? he wrote a famous article in '64 or '65 called "from protest to politics." in the article for i think commentary magazine, he said as soon as basic rights were granted, as soon as the civil rights passed in '64 or '65, the movement itself was over. now that black people, now that everybody if you will were given basic official equality under the law, now what politics was about was bargaining were your piece of the pie. rather than needing to demand the thing that should have been had all along, which is basic rights as humans, the politics shifted from making universal

demands to bargaining for your share of the benefits. and as soon as you move from universal to a bargaining style politics, you lose a lot of the moral power. you lose a lot of the moral electricity. that's not to say those issues don't matter. those things you bargain about. grants for job training and school and bilingual education and housing and all kinds of other things. it's not that doesn't matter. it's a give and take kind of politics as opposed to a universal demand, no compromise kind of politics. that's what we have been since this period. since, you know, roughly '65, '66, '68, however you want to trace the end of the civil rights movement. we've become a nation of bargainers for benefits. now what i believe is we need to make a move back towards a discussion about what are the universal values that we need?

we need to think about politics and policy. not just about bargaining over i get this and you get this, we need to think about it in terms of making sure that everybody has access to certain basic things. let me give you one example and then we'll close. education. i know it's controversial among some people. particularly among the teachers union. but i believe that the single most important thing that we can do for civil rights is have free and open school choice. there is no reason at all that a black child or poor child or hispanic child or any child should not have the same access to education as somebody coming from a world of privilege. when my family moved from iowa to new york, my father went about three or four months ahead of time, specifically to find the very best school district he could for me and my brother and my three sisters. in other words, he had school choice.

my family, because we're, you know, relatively privileged middle class folks, we had school choice. now why should the euchner family or other aflaunt well to do families have that choice and other people not have that choice? i believe if there was a real full fledge movement for real school choice where every single child, every single family in the country could select whatever school works best for them that we would see an unparalleled thriving of educational excellence. that's just one example. you could pick other examples too, where universal values, i think, need to move up front again. we need to get away from the back and forth bargaining, splitting the difference. that's gotten us into a position where frankly, nobody is satisfied and where also people are kind of confused about what the goal is. is the goal to get a few more

benefits or is the goal to create the greatest possible education system? and so i would like to see us move not from protest to politics back to protest again, although if needed, that makes a whole lot of sense. i'd like to see us move from protest to politics toward universal, basic access to basic needs. [inaudible question] >> you are talking about what are you doing with that? are you pleased with what you've done with your education? [laughter] >> yeah, no i -- >> i mean civil rights and everything. you want to educate the world. make it better for everybody. what are they doing with the education as far as civil rights go and all of the things that are happening in the world right now. i don't know a lot about politics. but i know a lot about a lot of things because i've been through a lot. and um -- >> i will tell you this on every economic survey, every

socioeconomic survey, the people with education make far more money, not that it's not the most important, but it helps the pay bills. they make more money and more choices in the careers they can have. you know, i've made more mistakes than i care to admit with my own life and career and so forth. but i've made them out of my choice and i've also done a lot of things right and a lot of it has to do with me getting a good education in public schools through high school and then getting a scholarship to college and being able to go to graduate school. so i am eternally grateful for the education that i get. basically what it gave me is choice. the more education that you get, the better it is, the more doors that open. the less education you get, the worse it is, the more doors that close. to me, that's the big thing. >> would you get involved in the civil rights movement with your education? >> well, i'm trying to do it as a teacher. for example, let me tell you about one thing i'm doing now.

i've developed a system of writing which i call the writing code which i believe can transform anybody's writing in a matter of days. i'm talking to some people in boston about getting a group of high school dropouts together so that i can teach them what they didn't get in high school. writing is not as hard as some people make it out to be. that doesn't mean that everybody can be a hemmingway, steve larson. but everybody can enjoy the basic skills and benefit from the basic skills of writing. too many people can't. one the my motivation for new writing code is putting my power and tools in people's hand. does that involve me protesting some place? no. it involves me putting more tools into more peoples hands. >> you stole the words out of my mouth. bad things can happen when