>> good evening. on behalf of the boston public library, i'd like to welcome you all to the central library and tonight's author talk. before i introduce our speaker tonight, i have a few

announcements. first, i'd like to ask everyone to, please, silence your cell phones and other electronic devices. of course, if you are taking pictures and tweeting or facebook tonight, i want to encourage you to please tag the library @btlboston. following the talk we will have a book sale and author signing with our friends from trident booksellers outside in the hall connector. finally, if you're looking for a restroom, they are located across the lobby as well as upstairs near tech central. and finally, we will have a brief question and answer session following our talk. at that time we want to invite anybody who has a question to come down to the microphone where you can ask your question, and if you have a question but you have some difficulty accessing the mic at the bottom of the stairs, just raise your

hand, and i'm happy to bring the mic to you. so now i'm going to turn things over to our speaker. joseph rosenbloom is an award-winning investigative journalist. he has been a staff reporter and editorial writer for the boston globe, an investigative reporter for front line are -- the documentary series on pbs -- and a senior writer and editor's feature for ink magazine. his many awards include an emmy and peabody. please join me in welcoming joseph rosenbloom. [applause] >> thank you, emily, for the introduction. thank you to the boston public library for sponsoring the event. thank you to c-span books for covering it. they're here tonight.

and my gratitude -- can everyone hear me okay? [inaudible conversations] and my particularratitu to renee graham, a stellar columnist for the boston globe. she'll be joining me later in the program, and she'll have questions for me, and then she and i both will take questions from the audience. so that's the format. i'll start for 25 minutes or so with an introduction so that i can bring some of the book's highlights to you. then re may and i'll go at it, and then we'll open the conversation for your questions. i've brought a few photos of material that illustrates my

book, and i've also brought a few audio clips. these are brief excerpts from interviews that i conducted while i was working on the book. so on the morning of april 3rd of 1968, martin luther king jr. arrived at the airport in memphis, tennessee. as you see in this first photo. accompanying him were three of his close aides. from the left, andrew young, then ralph abernathy, and on the far right bernard lee. they had taken eastern airlines

flight 381 from atlanta. at the atlanta airport, there had been a bomb threat that was directed specifically at king. the passengers on the plane were evacuated, dogs brought in. turned out to be a false alarm. but the plane arrived late in memphis, over an hour late, and those were not king's only two worries on that wednesday morning. the bomb threat, as unsettling as that might have been, the delayed arrival. this was his third visit to memphis in 1968. on his first visit on march the 18th, he addressed the city's

garbage workers who were then in the throes of a bitter strike. he was back ten days later to speak and to lead a march through downtown memphis. finish also in -- also in support of the garbage workers. barely had the march begun before it turned into a riot. a small number of youth had broken away from the march. they had broken windows, looted stores. the police responded with tear gas and clubs and guns. and in the aftermath, it was king who was being condemned for the riot, condemned by

politicians, condemned by newspaper editorialists. they were alleging that he had lost command of his nonviolent movement. some people even saying that he was inciting violence. so despairing, king decided that he had to return to memphis and lead another march which would be nonviolent. he had -- and so there he is arriving back for that purpose. he had another worry on that wednesday morning. he was then on the verge of launching his poor people's campaign. he would bring thousands of or

poor people to washington, d.c. to protest and demand sweeping legislation to alleviate poverty in america. his poor people's campaign had gotten off to a slow start. the organizing and fundraising was not going well. it was behind schedule. and he, he had to somehow revitalize the poor people's campaign. so coming to memphis was not an ideal time for him because it was a detour from the poor people's campaign at a critical moment.

so my book, my book takes as its subtitle the time when he arrived at the memphis airport at 10:33 in the morning and until he's assassinated at 6:01 p.m. the next day. that's precisely 33 hours and 28 minutes. the title has a triple meaning. first, it refers to his resolve to return to memphis in order to, in order to restore or redeem his reputation as a nonviolent leader. second, it refers to a promise

that he believed that the federal government had made to all americans to keep them free of poverty. this is an idea that he derived from the declaration of independence as it affirms the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. third, the title "redemption" referred to a christian concept. as you know, jesus sacrificed himself in order to save or redeem all humanity of its sin. king adapted that idea and applied it to his own life. he believed that his sacrifice, even to the point of death,

would -- in the pursuit of economic and racial justice -- would have redemptive value in the christian sense. so how is it that he wound up going to memphis and intervening in a dispute between lay -- labor and management? the garbage workers versus the municipality, seemed like an odd thing for him to do, to go all the way to a tennessee city for that purpose when he was in the midst of launching the poor people's campaign. well, he was inspired by something called the bonus march of 1932. ..

the veterans from washington. nonetheless, he thought that a bonus march could serve as a model. so a couple more details about the campaign, he was a threatening assay of militant

albeit nonviolent and civil disobedience by thousands of people who have flooded the streets and congressional offices in the nation's capital that remained until their demands were met. it is a far-reaching federal program that would end the poverty, completely end poverty not just for african-americans, but all americans once and for all. he was soon on the road crisscrossing the country building a case for the legislation that he proposed and

soon exhibit a was the protest of the method strike. he figured he met the strike with a spotlight into poor people's campaign so, what is happening with the strike in memphis and how did it start? they were long ago reached a low wages and dreadful working conditions. i have a first audio clip bsr

strike leaders joe warren and taylor rogers who talk about the grievances that they have a. [inaudible] they got tired. >> the workers decided they had to start a union in 1733 of the american federation of the employees. they brought their grievances to the city and were not satisfied to the response.

but the weather had something to say about that. on the morning of januar january 302001, the black workers in the division of public works were sent home and were not paid for the day. workers were kept on the job and paid for a full day's work. the next day, february 1, 2 of the government workers took refuge in the back of a truck like the one you see here. a mechanical malfunction pulled

the two men individuals and killed both of them. on january 302001. the time was ripe to strike so they called the strike on february 12 and 1112 were away from their jobs. >> a labor dispute and the confrontation it was a mild

spoken but in the jim crow south that had a particular residence. african-american men are often not addressed by mr. or even by their last name. they were often called boy instead of man so this is the slogan that got at a deep-seated complaint about the racial bigotry that predated the workplace and the department of public works at the time.

they were virtually all-black. so, it was obvious the strike would reach an impasse by march. the mayor and memphis had a hard line you see here. his position was simple. it's against the wall in the state of tennessee for public employees such as the garbage workers to strike and i am not negotiating with the lawmakers.

a few months before there were african-american support so it was what they thought they were taking a hard line on a strike and one of his closest friend, a methodist minister who was meeting with the mayor during the strike. he came to the conclusion that he suffered from a kind of tunnel vision he meant to do the right thing but was taking a legalistic approach. he felt he didn't appreciate

there were large forces at work now shifting social and political landscape and the strike itself is an expression of what was happening with those forces so he tried to persuade the mayor to take a more conciliatory approach to the strike and frustrated in what he tried to do, here is his accou account. [inaudible] i said you are a compassionate person -- people were applauding him and i was one of the few voices.

they deserve a fair shake breaking the law you cannot strike against the city. >> once the replacement workers were on the job, regardless in memphis and picking up a large amount of trash it became apparent the strike was at an impasse so some of the leaders in the community have a support group decided they neede that td to bring him to memphis and recommended that he addressed the rally of the strikers that it would spotlight their plight

and bring pressure to negotiate a fair settlement on the strike. so the invitation went to some of the staff aides were dead set against him going to memphis. in particular andrew young you see him on the left and once again in the middle of the ride is hosea williams. they argued vehemently that it would be a mistake for king to go to memphis. he said it would distract him from the poor people's campaign at a critical moment the campaign was well underway. and he said he was afraid on the strike would lead to two and two with lead three and there would be the equivalent of a kind of a, he wasn't persuaded.

what's happening in memphis is part of the poor people's campaign. they do full-time work for the wages and they are just the kind of people we are trying to help in the campaign and it would be kind of a stop on the way to washington.

>> people like this and the least i can do is go around there [inaudible] to the motel he checks in and starts meeting in earnest with people in memphis, administrators, local black power group and others to try to

build support for a march on the following monday. that night he delivers the mountaintop speech and you may have heard it's a well-known speech. it is known in part because it was the last speech of his life and you can wonde wonder if he t been assassinated the next day if he would be remembered that it would still be remembered because i think it was one of his most moving speeches especially in the finale of the speech. she talks about dying a violent death and coming to terms with it into his life.

i'm going to play the last bits of the finale of the mountaintop speech. [inaudible] people would get to the promised land you may know the last time

my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord. how in 1631 to go to abolitionists to follow the example of jesus have sacrificed themselves for the cause of freeing american slaves. james earl ray had arrived in memphis. i'm not going to take much time to talk about james earl ray

because i want to keep this introduction as soon as possible. but i will say that the book profiles james earl ray and it describes his actions april 3 and april 4 in 1968 and also describes the uncanny series of lucky breaks and enabled him to murder king. the next day, april 4, things are at the hotel he meets with some aid and is in a melancholy mood. through all of the troubles in the challenges that he faced at times you may know this story.

his room at the motel was on the second floor. the room opened up to a balcony and at 6:00 he is invited to dinner at the house of a local minister and goes to the balco balcony. he talks to some of his aides in the parking lot below and james earl ray is across the street in a house, fires his rifle, the bullet strikes him on the right side of his face and he drops instantly to the floor of the balcony. the ambulance rushes him to st. joseph's hospital and he is pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m..

so what are we to make and how should we sum up martin luther king's life? there's lots and lots you can say about that. about how to do that, as i worked on my book i was intrigued especially by what you might call his personal odyssey. he wasn't always destined in his mind at least not in not in a e would dedicate his life to when he finished his phd studies at boston university and what he

saw himself at the time he would be a preacher. he would be in some ivory tower somewhere, but it wasn't something that he envisioned doing becoming a national figure, champion on the national stage of the civil rights movement. you probably know the story about what happened in montgomery. the bus boycott and he was sent to the national spotlight. one event led to another, one campaign led to another. his commitment t dp end and the pencil by 1968, he saw himself in different times he has

redefined who he was in his vision and at the time in 1968, he was speaking out passionately against the vietnam war and he was advocating what many people would consider to be a radical program to end poverty once and for all. he was doing tha that at a timet was raising his disability as a controversial figure all the while knowing that he was risking his life. to a greater and greater degree. they talk about the depth of the commitment.

>> at that point in his life there was no way he was going to stop. he wasn't going to take a sabbatical. back then he wanted to die but he said very clearly the night before that he wasn't ready. and as any time anything you say [inaudible] >> reference to the sabbatical, king being offered a majestic riverside church in new york city if what fulfill a dream team on hand -- dream he longed

had because he was determined to push ahead with the causes that were dear to him. now renée and i will have our turn to discuss -- i will hear her questions and respond and then we will open up the conversation to all of you. [applause] good evening. thanks for the great presentation. the night doctor king was assassinated 50 years ago this

coming wednesday, for a lot of people it is something they know from history books but some of us remember that evening very vividly. talk about but few remember in 68. >> i was in my hometown of jacksonville tennessee, and this is a personal aside. my sister was getting married two days later and was supposed to get married in memphis. they moved at the last minute to jackson in my hometown and because there was a dusk to dawn curfew and it was supposed to be a wedding in the evening in memphis on april 6, i was preoccupied with that. but as soon as i heard the news, i was shocked and distressed and

quite concerned about what the implications would be for the movement that i was preoccupied with helping to reorganize the wedding that was two days later. >> i was 5-years-old and it happened to be my father's birthday. my mother was in the kitchen cutting the birthday cake and my father was in the bedroom and i suddenly heard him screaming. i looked at the tv and i couldn't figure out what was going on. she looked at the tv and just sink down in to the chair. it was a common hysteria where

everyone was upset but also a blinding silence that falls like it lasted for days and days. how many books have been written about king every year there's dozens and hundreds of books about king was made you decide to focus on this small but crucial period? >> none of the other books, and i did read them, none of the other books looked in detail at what happened and i thought it would bring part of the story to life in a way that no one else had done and i also thought that

it would show or if he will paint a portrait that would make it more compelling to people if they could see his words in the last few hours of his life in this. and i also thought it was a revealing period of his life under enormous pressure and the way he was responding to pressurthepressure and the circs around him told you something more about him than you knew from some of these other works that were out there. >> we have these images of the eye of ihave a dream speech in e montgomery 65 but who is martin luther king in the beginning of 68 going into the spring of that year? >> he has changed quite marked

markedly. it was not only emphasizing the kind of campaign that have preoccupied him for the first decade of the activism that was segregation and votin the voting rights act and the south, so he had pivoted only that he was championing new causes and poverty and opposing the vietnam war but he also changed and his tactics were changing. he was becoming more confrontational and engaging in mass civil disobedience. that's what he was planning. in birmingham he had done that but he was going to the nation's capital to confidant the

lawmakers in washington in a very direct way and that is different from what he had been doing until then. >> that doesn't sit well with the supporters either. >> there was a lot of dissension first within the largest civil-rights community some people thought his opposition to the war was a mistake from the civil rights and it was mixing the two causes and it would undermine his influence in promoting civil rights. people who thought the campaign was a mistake or that it would backfire, these are some of his closest aides with the members of the board of the leadership conference. ..

to the civil rights movement and it might actually lead to lawn order candidates prevailing in the election which was scheduled for that very year. they are also concerned about alienating lyndon johnson as well. they expected king to be utterly loyal to him. they had shepherded that civil rights legislation through congress with the 1964 and the rights of 1965. he thought the king owed him allegiance.

so when i started speaking out against the war. he took it very personally and so the fear was that johnson would no longer be an ally of the civil rights movement and indeed he was extremely unhappy with the outspokenness on the war. even in the black community. there was a sense that the movement was getting torn down. the focus should have been what the initial mission was which was to eliminate segregation. and people felt like now you're talking about this campaign. given the fact that poverty affects african americans disproportionately isn't that always part of the overall mission. he did talk about poverty and economic justice it was not his focus. it was much more the racial

bigotry in the south. he was laser focused on poverty that's what the difference was. within the civil rights movement and the supporters within the southern christian leadership conference who thought the mission should be tightly focused on the civil rights as it had been defined until 1967 or so. and have moved to the north the people went in to proceed in fighting for african-american rights and for the more narrow issues of economic advancements for african-americans and not to

seek this kin oad federal response to poverty. it's interesting because you have that quote in the book work king says what's the point of getting a seat at the lunch counter he is joining those two things together and we have to fight for civil rights. but it is broader. a lot of people didn't see it and that was the quote. what does it profit a man to be able to set at a desegregated the desegregated lunch counter if he can't earn enough to pay for a hamburger and a cup of coffee. that is typical of the kind of clever political systems that they would have to make a point and yes he have moved to the issue of economic justice. it's easy to forget that. he was only 39 years old.

but he was tired by 1968. he had been through a lot. it spent almost all of his adult life in the public eye this is a warier martin luther king in this book. he is exhausted. these exertions for this point. have taken a toll and been hospitalized several times for exhaustion. he was especially worn out in early april of 1968 because he had been on the road to promote the campaign. he had been speaking at that pace. he wasn't sleeping well. he was smoking too much.

he often was not feeling well. he was not in good physical shape. i think he was going to forward given the conditions. something i found interesting in the book was that we talked about the media savvy. women seen a lot of attention on the never again movement which has been led by teenagers. they are so young. but the king had his own motives in mobilizing young people especially in birmingham. talk a little bit about that. that was a tough decision for them because they were afraid in birmingham that they might expose these children to real harm they expected a brutal response from the police and so there was a risk of injury to the mostly high school kids that joined him in the protests in birmingham.

birmingham became a kind of morality play in a sense because you saw these young people who were being attacked by a police dogs and being sprayed by fire hoses and that was on the evening news on television. it was a risk they were willing to take. they actually did have a powerful influence. on the american public to watch those scenes. it's also the reinforcement that the idea of the social movement being led by teenagers is not new and then about halfway through the book somewhat ominously we meet james earl ray. why did you choose that.

it's definitely about the background. in prison centric -- sentences. why did you want to devote that to james earl ray. i didn't think you could really understand all the sudden why he would murder king unless you do something about him. it's never really clear why he serves this. it's never been clearly established. what his motive was. i think the reader deserve to know what his motive might have been. he came from us poor dysfunctional background. his family was messed.

he was penalized as a kid himself. his parents and his mother wasn't alcoholic. and left the family and so on and so forth. i don't know. i don't want to draw any conclusions from anyone's background but i thought if the reader knew all of that they would bring at least some intelligence so that they could try to evaluate for themselves where this guy came from. that was motive enough. he have not shot anyone. they held them up with a gun.

i thought that was interesting to note because then you see what happens when he gets to memphis. how in the world could this inept criminal pull off this extraordinary leader and so i think it helps to know you realize how lucky you have to be. how lucky he have to be to make it all fall into place. so that he could actually shoot king. all of these things fall into place. what you don't do is get into the conspiracy theories. it has has been swarming around for a half-century. that territory has been so thoroughly mined by some

people. the u.s. house committee. with some authors. i just didn't think i could bring anything new to it. i read these accounts and i am satisfied that ray kill king and enough we will ever know for sure if there were conspirators and the house select committee. you mentioned though the mountaintop speech that is able in 1968 and you read the whole chapter of the speech.

you talk a little bit about the detail and what was happening in the audience. and what was happening with king. talk about that approach. the decision that were not just can replay the speech but we will try to go deeper. the answer there is in order to quote a lot of that speech i would have had to have a copyright license they are tough. i did ask for a license and it wasn't granted. i wasn't able to quote very many from the speech. i could quote only a minimum amount which is allowed under the fair use doctrine. that is the explanation for that. i would've preferred to have more of what you heard today here in the finale of it.

i have to paraphrase that. some people say that early drafts said they thought they have not diminished the chapter that much. i hope that's true. he was a master order. i would've liked to have more of his words and his verbatim in that. you had access to archives. that previous authors have not. what were you able to find in those files. there were two things there. by digging really deep into some archives the transcripts of the house select committee. some police files in memphis records in a library i was able to unearth some details that others have at least not printed. i think it brought to the the story to life and also

revealed some new facets of what happened in the 1968. and also i was lucky enough to have access to some archives of that have only recently been opened and there were archives into libraries in atlanta one was the papers of william rutherford which would've been the last executive director of the southern christian leadership conference before he was assassinated. the material was very helpful. in telling me more about the poor people's campaign. and what have gone wrong with the poor people's campaign. what was happening there they were trying to raise a lot of money because they were going to house the poor people in a makeshift camp of tents in

washington and they would have to house them for weeks and maybe months and they would have to feed them and they would have to pay for all of the expenses and logistics of maintaining a camp like that. they have to raise a lot of money. and also they were trying to recruit thousands of poor people from the inner cities of america and especially from the impoverished rural america. the results were not encouraging they were behind schedule in both respects and raising money and in recruiting volunteers and so the rutherford papers tell you a lot about the problems that they were having and memos and so on within the sclc. plus this is not was not a smooth ride operation. things always came together at the end. it was the nature of our

campaigns they often had to be quick on our feet and they were often not will settled before we got in the midst of the campaign but still there is an enormous amount to do with very little time left the poor people's campaign was to start on april 22 and you see king detouring to memphis. he is going to be detained in memphis. you can ask yourself whether the poor people's campaign would have unfolded smoothly or not with all of the problems they were having. there is a version of martin luther king and referred to as refrigerator magnet martin it was reduced to uplifting quotes what he really got from

this book was humanizing at and taking the lacquer off of martin luther king and showing him the faults and all. there was a smoker. he didn't sleep well. he played practical drugs. -- practical jokes. it was kind of bringing him back to us and set upon him a point him down off the mountaintop. some people would like to think that king was a saint and he was perfect in every way and idealized human beings but he was a human being. he have some have some of the frailties of a human being and i wanted to paint him as he was. i think it actually enhances it shows him as a farmer impressive person that he did

had frailties like anyone. and talked about the fact that he have affairs and people were scandalized less that he have affairs then he was actually talking about them. you have that in your book as well. i interviewed a mistress georgia davis he was a woman of standing in the civil rights movement herself she comes to memphis on the night of april 3. to lead -- lend moral support to him. i felt i have to tell that story. given the narrative on the last 31 hours of king's life i did not think i could admit that his mattress -- mistress shows up in the middle of that. there was a chapter in the book where i profile her in as

i thought there is kind of an eyewitness to history she was there in kings last hours in could tell what his emotional state was like and what his preoccupations were and what he was trying to do then so i was delighted that she was going to talk to me but it did mean that i discussed that he was having an extra marital affair is no secret. it wasn't only ralph. many of his best biographies written about his affairs as well. >> because those exist. there's always really great things that don't make in the final edition. the interesting thing you found out that you were able to get to it. there are a couple stories i don't want to repeat.

i use all of the best materials. i can't think of anything offhand. except for things i don't really want to discuss. what surprised you most in the research. one thing that surprised me. was the failure of the memphis police. briefly the story there is there was no protection by the memphis police on the first two visits. there was the right and all the more threats against king. the police did provide a four-man security detail protected from the moment he arrived at the airport until 5:00 on the first day. and then the police security

was disbanded at that point. there was no more security for him on april 4. and the reason i decided was they were just indifferent to king. the police director testified later they didn't protect them on the first two visits. he was just another person involved in the memphis laboratory strike. we protected them for a day. he's on his own now. that surprised me greatly. i think police protection could've saved his life. i go into that in the book. even though he was so disorganized in the poor people's campaign.

we will ask you to come to the microphone as you would or maybe some capacity. the conspiracy crackpots have and to talk did talk about that. how the protection was stripped. are you aware of that. you're saying it's not previously revealed though. i don't know of anyone has reported as i did the secret of events that led to the

police detail at being stopped on april 4. i don't see any reason to assume that there would be less police for part of the conspiracy. i get so convincing why would they have bothered to give him police security at all. it only raises questions. they been part of the conspiracy they would not had been security for him. i don't think it is logical to infer that he didn't have security on april 4 but he did for seven hours on april the third. that indicates any kind of security. and raising that alan by that he was chasing the tire. you have seen those interviews no doubt.

his alibi is tile total nonsense. he admitted and most everybody who has looked at this carefully has invented this character named raul that did not exist. they have made him a patsy. and changing the tire is another story that has never been verified i think there is some question about whether that actually happened. no one at was ever able to document that. they would announce those who were rioting on his behalf. did they call for the arrest and prosecution for those who did those acts. what he did there he said it was wrong of the people to riot and he condemned them for

writing but he also went on to say that he thought that those young people the victims of poverty and difficult lines and often very dysfunctional families and the answer to that was not simply punishment but the answer was to do something about the underlying conditions that caused these people to act out in that way. he did say both. >> i admire him and i hope we have other people who step up to the plate like he did. but i have a question about the poor people's campaign. in the garbage workers. did he have any support from

the laborers like the unions they were so separated and they couldn't see the chronic good for all workers. do you know what i'm trying to say with that. with the unions and how to the impact and what impact did they have with the white laborers at the time. any money coming in from the unions at the time. they did have some union support a staunch supporter of king. and his union contributed to this southern christian leadership conference.

he was along the supporter of unions he was the coming increasingly supportive of unions and once he embraced the cause of poverty with greater attention because they thought that unions would be part of the answer for solving the problem of poverty. he also criticized unions especially in the south but for the exclusive policies where they didn't allow african-americans to be members of the union and the even excluded them from various training programs in and that kind of thing. it was somewhat of a mixed message. but he have some union support by no means across the board were all that union supporting him. are there other questions. come on down.

in response to that last point about the poor people's campaign. i was living in atlanta at the time that it was being organized. and the vision of the poor people's campaign they would come in caravans from all over the south from all over the country. from poor white communities in the south. everywhere to try to produce a

unified campaign as they compared it to the bonus marchers of 1932. we heard that this was not going well. they needed hundreds of communities or at least dozens of communities hundreds of people to converge on washington and some kind of organized way. it's an unbelievable -- unbelievable organizing challenge. whether it would have come together if dr. king had lived.

his work in chicago had been somewhat disappointed and i think it's probable there was a gathering in washington. i haven't been doing that well. there is one other element they were bringing people of many ethnic and different racial backgrounds back together to try to unify them for the purpose of protest and some kind of coherent message that they were going to deliver to congress. good african-americans and the

people of puerto rican background you have white people from appalachia so the idea that you can combine all of these different ethnic backgrounds into one unified message was another challenge they face. i am interested in a civil rights question. you get into all of the dimensions of him as a human.

as a writer what would you say would be a moment where you felt the most personal connection to king i think i would say that one i can't that while i can understand his courage i think it's towards the end of the speech you see his courage facing death and coming to terms with it and being willing to talk about it so openly and billy felt a great emotional identity with him. or compassion with him. and i think i was thinking about that and the enormous pressures he was under.

the night before he was killed i think that's the moment it was a very good question. interesting. they used to do eulogies for each other. they thought about how may they would be harmed. i'm king says in the speech. from the century before. we will have to face horse in the physical death so others will not know the psychological death bigotry. and one of the most famous ones of the speech. the crowd sort of says the

champion has dropped it. with the arc of it all. i think par o what i wonder about if the noise carried in a way that is precognition of his own death. how that comes to a moment here especially when he really echoes it and speaks directly to it in public at that moment i'm not sure some people say he imagined what was ahead. but clearly he felt it. he didn't feel it deeply. the threats were becoming more constant and more menacing. no doubt that was waiting on him. i think he must've been aware

that there was more and more hostility towards him. what he was saying and doing it was a premonition but as you heard injured young say. he knew he was going to die. it wasn't a matter of if it was only a matter of when. i think he was convinced that his days were numbered. >> it speaks to his courage. i wondered if you are writing a book about the 31 days after his death was there before would there be for a five or six important things that we should know about. that is another good question. i have to speculate. what would've happened if he would've lived.

was there a turning point in the immediate problem of the sanitation workers. the strike was settled in the mayor never agreed to negotiate with the union but the city council took it upon himself to negotiate. that would happen very quickly within a week or two. as you may recall they went on

national television to announce that he was not going to run for reelection he was sort of lesson the picture. it really fell by the wayside. what would've happened if king would have left. it is a speculative question. it was draining the u.s. treasury. and money was going for guns more and more. so actually there had been a war on poverty. they had supported and congress have approved. and they have to cut the funds even for the war on poverty that was underway. because of the demand for money. to prosecute the war.

with immediate response to his assassination did anything they did not have a bright future. they became the face of the slc. he have a certain strength but he did not have king's strength. so the slc. faded as a force in the american life and then there

was a. of time when they were so much political upheaval in the country over the vietnam war and other causes the democratic convention and you may remember how chaotic that was. inside the convention and outside the short answer is there was a progress. it really didn't i have not yet read the book with the

poor people's march. in your reading of that success. his notes and his archives. thinking back with a march on washington. how successful that was and how it had been deemed impossible leading up to. but has been such a success. did they reveal do they reveal anything about the relationship and 68 and the union's and all of those that team of people who had put together the 1963 march. and is there anything in there about the sclc's later relationship who actually was

the mastermind behind the 63 march. deftly could have a plan pull off the poor people's march. the march on washington had universal support. it was a critical organizer of that. but the march on washington head nothing like that kind of solid support of the leaders with the organizations i'm not sure at this point. i don't think he was in favor of it. i know he was opposed and they both fought that the march on washington was a mistake for the reasons that they discuss. that was one important difference.

i don't think they were supporting the poor people's march. because a lot of those leaders did not agree that it was a wise policy. it was a wise strategy to have the poor people's march. thank you very much all for coming. [applause]. [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] >> joint us live today at noon eastern for our year-long special "in depth" fon edition. featuring best-selling fiction writers, contemporary novelist gish jen will be our guest. >> i would have to say it we're talking about creativity, i know many writers and so on, that people who have a lot to say are completely undaunted by the perspective or storytelling. the whole idea that there is a storytelling, that there is a triangle, you must learn to do this if you're going to going to be a a fiction writer, it's necessary but not sufficient. it's not going to make you a great writer. you sit down with everybody and

you discover actually they could all do it. there's nothing about learning to do those things that impede creativity. watch our special series "in depth" fiction edition with author gish jen today live from noon to 3 p.m. eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> this practice called change hearts and policy, and it's all about the ways that movements, not just filing lawsuits, pushing for policy reform and all of those kind of hard edge advocacy techniques, how they do the softer stuff come how to change minds, attitudes? the thing is it takes just as much strategy and thought to change the social norms as it does to do these other things. and to kind of give you a flavor

of why some of the winning movements have been so good at this i i want to share a couple social media ads to show you how they think about changing hearts and minds. i can think of no one better than the tobacco control movement. because when tobacco control was realizing they are up against a powerful industry they also were up against some pretty powerful social norms. so they had to equally powerful messages so we're going to queue this slide from truth initiative which is an antiochene smoking -- anti-teenage. [background sounds] ♪

♪ ♪ >> thank you. all right, so what do you notice about that ad? it's funny. what else do you notice? it doesn't tell you not to smoke. when i first saw this ad i came across this, not because of any serious research i was doing but i was driving with my kids on way to camp in the summer of 2016 and i was telling them about this book i i was startig to work on, and they said what's it about? i said it's all about how change

happens. smoking, everybody used to smoke but now nobody does. my 11-year-old son said to me yes, smoking is really bad. it's like that cat video. i was like what cat video? [laughing] like unknown person on earth would never seen that video. we catto now we searched on youtube and, of course, it had millions of views. it works. like my some will never smoke. not do so because i told not to because kids care about their pets and they realize the punchline, if you smoke, your cat could get it get cancer, no pet. >> and more important no stupid pet videos. that's what kids care about. it sounds silly but the millions of dollars in research and lots of evidence behind this campaign that was put together because they got into the psychological profile, the behavioral economics, how do kids think to make decisions. what do they care about?

rehired up a big ad agency out of madison avenue to come up with something that would be a hit. the reason why it works is it's the appealing. it makes smoking uncool. it sells it the same way the tobacco companies were selling you marlboro man and joe camel. >> you can watch of this program and others online at c-span.org. >> good evening. bruce jentleson is a professor of public policy in political science at duke university. reprieves and served as director of the stanford school of public policy. he holds a bachelors degree from cornell university, a masters in the london school of economics and political science and a phd also from cornell. he's a a leading scholar of american foreign-policy and a certain number of use