>> that's what kept us going. >> brother west thinking this has been an amazing conversatio conversation. thank you for this book everyone will find it incredibly valuabl valuable. >> absolutely. thank you c-span always. god bless you my brother. >> good evening. before i introduce our speaker

i have a few announcements. please silence your cell phones. if you are taking pictures want to encourage you to go over social media. and then we'll have an author signing outside in the connector and then as well as upstairs. finally b will have a brief question and answer session and then to come down to the microphone and that if you

have difficulty accessing the microphone. >> now be well turned things over to our speaker. jess - - joseph rosenblum is an award-winning author and editorial writer for the boston globe and the documentary series on pbs. and as an editor's feature for inc. magazine please join me to welcome. [applause] >> thank you for the introduction. thank you to the public library for sponsoring this event. also to c-span books.

can everyone hear me okay? >> no and my particular gratitude to the columnist for the boston globe who will be joining me later in the program who still has questions for me and then we'll take them from the audience. . . . . so, on the mo3

of 1968, martin luther king jr. arrived at the airport in memphis tennessee as you see in this first photo. there were his close aides from the last to ralph abernathy and on the far right, bernard.

they had taken eastern airlines flight 81 from atlanta there had been a bomb threat was directed to king. passengers on the plane were evacuated, dogs brought in. it turned out to be a false alarm, but the plane arrived late in memphis and those were not only on a wednesday morning. as unsettling as that might have been, the arrival this was his third visit to memphis in 1968.

he addressed the city's garbage workers that were frozen out of a bitter strike. he was back ten days later. also in support of the workers barely had the march begun a small number had broken away from the march. they had broken windows, looted stores, the police responded with a in the aftermath, it was king who is being condemned for

the riot by politicians and newspaper editorialists. they were alleging that he had lost command of his nonviolent movement. some people even say that he was inciting violence. so, he decided he had to return to memphis and leave another march, which would be nonviole nonviolent. 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 poor

people to washington, d.c. to perform tests and demand a 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 had to somehow revitalize the 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 takes as its subtitle the time when he arrivewearrived at the airport 3 in the morning and until he assassinated six:01 p.m. the next day. that is 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 restore or deem his reputation as a nonviolent leader. second, it refers to a promise

that he believed the federal government have made to all americans to keep them free of poverty. this was an idea from the declaration of independence as it affirms the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. third, the title of redemption referred to a christian concept. as you know, jesus sacrificed himself in order to save or redeem all humanity of its sins. he adopted 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 read theredemptive value in the christian sense. so, how is it that he wound up going to memphis and intervening in a dispute between labor and management, garbage workers versus the municipality. it seemed like an odd thing to do when all the way to tennessee for that purpose when he was in the midst of launching the poor people's campaign. he was inspired by something called the bonus march of 1932. this was a protest of world war i veterans that converged on

washington. they were demanding early payment of a bonus promised to them and they were not supposed to be paid until 1945, but it was during the depression many of them are in dire financial straits and appealed to congre congress. hoover ordered the army for public veteran send them packing from washington. what he aimed to do with the poor people's campaign so the differences she was threatening albeit nonviolent civil

disobedience by thousands of people who would flood the streets and executive and congressional offices in the nation's capital and remain in washington until their demands were met. what they wanted was a costly far-reaching federal program that would end the poverty for african-americans on central. so, he would sit on the roads rd crisscrossing the country building a case for the legislation that he proposed and

soon exhibit a was the protest, sorry, exhibit a was the memphis strike in protest. this figure that the memphis strike would spotlight the very issues that he was raising in the poor people's campaign, a so what is happening with the strike in memphis, how did it start. the garbage workers in memphis were long agreed by low wages and dreadful working conditions. i had the first audio clip here these are two strike leaders,

joe morgan and taylor rogers who talk about the grievances that they have a [inaudible] so, the workers decided that they had to form a union. they start at the local 1733 of the american distribution. the federation. they brought their grievances to the city. they were not satisfied with the response. so, they were planning to strike in the summer of 1968.

but the weather had something to say about that as it often does about the timing. and on the rainy morning of january 302001, the black workers in the sewage and drain were sent home and not paid. they were kept on the job and were paid for a full day's work. on the next day, february 1, 2 of the garbage workers took. it was a mechanical malfunction that activated the compactor and

it pulled the two men individuals and killed both of them. so, those events and racial disparity in the treatment of the workers january 302001 and the death of the next day so outraged the garbage workers that the union leaders decided the time was right to strike so they called it on january 12 and 1100 state away from their jobs. it took a matter of days before what started as a labor dispute assumed the proportions of a major confrontation.

and the workers quickly adopted a slogan that seems a pretty mild slogan, but in the jim crow south that had a particular residence. african-american men were often not addressed by even mr. arthur last name. the complaint about the racial bigotry that invaded the workplace of the department of public works at the time the supervisors were virtually all white and the workers collecting in the street for virtually all

black. so, it was obvious the strike reached an impasse by march. the mayor in memphis took a very hard line we see here. his position was a simple. he said it's against the wal lan the state of tennessee for public employees such as the garbage workers to strike and i am not negotiating with a.

he had also been elected a few months before and he had the stance of support he was responding to what he thought is taking a hard line on the strike. they are meeting with the mayor during the strike. he suffered from a kind of tunnel vision that he meant to do the right thing but he was taking a very legalistic approach to the strike. he hoped that he didn't appreciate the there were large forces at work now that were

shifting the social and political and racial landscape and the strike itself was an expression of what was happening with those forces that he tried to persuade the mayor that he needed to take an approach to the strike and was frustrated in what he tried to do. here is his account. [inaudible] they deserve a fair shake and

they don't get a fair shake but they are breaking the law because it is against the law. you cannot strike against the city. once the replacement workers were on the job, the garbage trucks were rolling again in memphis picking up a large amount of the trash and it soon became apparent within the impasse, so some of the leaders in the african-american community of the support group decided they needed to bring king to memphis and they recommended that if he addressed the rally of the strikers that they would spotlight their plight and bring pressure on the

mayor. some of the staff aides were dead set against going to memphis. in particular, andrew young, you see them on the left again and bernard lee in the middle. he argued vehemently that it would be a mistake to go to memphis. he said they would distract him from the poor people's campaign at a critical moment the poor people's campaign was well underway and he said he was afraid one strike would lead to two and two strikes would lead to three and there would be an equivalent of the kind of mission seeing it wasn't persuaded.

he said i feel what's happening in memphis is something that is part of the poor people's campaign. i need to go down there and help these people who are impoverished he would say they do full-time work for part-time wages and they are just the kind of people i'm trying to help it will actually be kind of a stop on the way to washington. so, here is what andrew young has to say about the to and fro between king and himself whether he should accept the invitation. invitation. >> time to get involved in another movement. he said they just want me to

come down and preach and that the poor people's campaign is about people just like this. the least i can do is go down and his plan is as he got up at 4:00 in the morning and planned to meet us back in washington that same evening when the riot occurred, but is trapped us in memphis. >> after he arrives at the airport, they checked him into the motel and he starts meeting with people in memphis, the ministers, local black power group and others to try to build support for the march that he is

planning on the following monday. that night, he delivers the speech you may have heard of. it's known in part because it was the last speech of his life. you can wonder if he hadn't been assassinated the next day if he would be well remembered. i think that it would still be remembered because i think that it was one of his more smoothing speeches especially the finale of the speech, he talks about his dread of guiding a violent death and coming to terms and he does so more openly in an

emotional wav way than he had er done before. i'm going to play the last bit of the finality of death speech. the [inaudible] have seen the glory.

>> you may know that last line my eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord from the republic by julia ward howe in 1631 the cole did abolitionists to follow this and sacrifice for the cause of freeing american slaves you have to think that they had a particular on this night when you consider that his new was so mournful was thinking about his own mortality. meanwhile james earl ray arrived in memphis at the night when they didn't take much time to talk about james earl ray as i want to keep this introduction as brief as possible.

but i will say that the book profiles james earl ray, editkoa describes his actions in memphis on april 3 and april 41968, and it also describes the uncanny is the lucky breaks that enabled ray to murder king. so, the next date april 4, he is at the lorraine motel and meets with the aid and he is in a melancholy mood you have to suppose that he was sorting through the troubles and challenges to keep a stiff time, and you may know his room at the

hotel was on the second floor and it opened to the balcony before 6:00 he exits his broom and is invited to dinner at the house of a local minister and he goes to the balcony and pauses in talks to some of his aides were dowwho were down in the pat below. he is across the street in a rooming house, fires his rifle, the bullet strikes him on the right side of his face, he drops instantly to the floor of the balcony. the ambulance rushing to st. joseph's hospital and he was pronounced dead at 7:05 p.m.. what are we to make?

how shall we sum up his wife? there's a lot you can say about that i'm sure many of you have your ideas about how to do that. as i worked on my boat i was intrigued especially by what you might call his personal odyssey. he wasn't always destined in his mind to be a civil rights advocate at least not in a way he would dedicate his life to. when he accepted in montgomery alabama he was a lead with studies at boston university and

what he saw for himself at the time that he would be a preach preacher. he thought he might be a theologian in an ivory tower somewhere, but it wasn't something that he envisions giving to become a national figure or champion on the national stage of the civil rights movement. you probably know the story of what happened in montgomery. he was catapulted to the national spotlight. one events led to another and one campaign led to another. his commitment deepened and deepened so by 1968, he saw himself in different terms. he redefined and he was and at

the time in 1968, he was speaking out. and he was advocating what many people would consider a radical program to end poverty once and for all. he was doing that at the time that was raising his disability and a controversial figure all the while knowing he was risking his life to a greater and greater degree. andrew young talks about the death of king's commitment to the spring of 1968 [inaudible]

he wasn't going to take a sabbatical. he was going to push it to his death. he said very clearly the night before that he was not ready to die. his conscience wouldn't let him. he didn't know at any time anything you say and do the math. with reference to be sabbatical, he is being offered at the majestic riverside church in new york city that would fulfill the dream that he long had to be a

theologian in residence. because he was determined to push ahead. that concludes my introduction. so now we will have our turn to discuss. i would like to hear her questions and then as we said, we will open up the conversation to all of you. thank you. [applause] good evening. thank you for the great presentation. your book takes us to april 4 the night but he was assassinated. 50 years ago this coming wednesday.

for a lot of people it's something they see in history books and films but some of us remember that evening very vividly. talk about what you remember. >> i was in my hometown of jacksonville tennessee and this is a personal aside my sister was getting married two days later and actually supposed to get married in memphis. because there was a dusk to dawn curfew and there were supposed to be a wedding in the evening on april 6, i was preoccupied with that but i do remember feeling as soon as i heard the news i was shocked and

distressed and quite concerned about the implications for the movement but also helping to reorganize the wedding which was two days later. when i was 5-years-old and it happened to be my father's 36th birthday so 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 on the tv and it said bulletin but i was so young i i couldn't quite figure out what was going on at the same time i heard my grandmother downstairs screaming as well if my mother ran in from the kitchen and looked at tv and just sink down into the chair. it sticks in my mind and the way that it does because it's the first time i ever saw my parents cry into the house went into a kind of near hysteria where everyone was upset but it was

kind of winding silence that falls like it lasted for days and days. i don't know if my parents hadn't been so upset if it would be such a memory in a lot of ways it is probably the earliest and clearest memory that i have. >> so many books have been written about king. what made you decide to focus on this crucial period and his wife? >> they never looked in detail at what happened in america's way and i thought that it would bring part of the story to life if i did as he detailed close-up narrative in a way that no one else had done and also i thought

secondly that it would show and paint a portrait of king in a way that would make it more compelling the circumstances tell you something more than you ever really knew from these authors who is martin luther king in the beginning of 68 going into the early spring of that year? >> key is changed quite markedly. he is no longer as emphasizing

the kind of campaign from the civil rights activism which was desegregation and voting rights act in the south. he also had changed in his tactics were changing, tuna. he was willing to engage in mass civil disobedience for a long time coming up as he was planning in washington and gas in birmingham he have done that but he was going to the nation's capital.

the lawmakers in washington and a very direct way, and i think that is different from what he had been doing until then. >> there was a lot of dissension first in the larger civil rights communities people thought the opposition was a mistake. they were mixing the two causes and would undermine. it is a time of tension and

there were protests against the vietnam war. it might actually lead to the candidate's prevailing scheduled for that very year in 1968, so there was quite a bit of verbal discourse over what he was doing. >> lyndon johnson expected him to be loyal to him cause john same as you probably remember had shepherded legislation through congress. before the voting rights act of 1965 and so he thought king owed him the allegiance so she started speaking out against the

war and then it was lyndon johnson's war and he took it very personally and the fear was that johnson would no longer be an ally to the civil rights movement and that he was extremely unhappy with the outspoken civil war. but even in the black community, there was a sin not the movement was getting thwarted down and he was spreading himself too thin and the focus should have been with the christian leadership conference's mission was which was to eliminate segregation and people talk like now we are talking about the poor people's campaign that given the fact that poverty affects african-americans disproportionately in some ways was and always a part of the overall mission lacks >> he did talk about poverty and economic justice, but it wasn't his focus. his focus was more of the racial

bigotry in the south and now he was laser focused on poverty so that is what the difference was. there were supporters of the christian leadership conference who fought the mission should be tightly focused on the civil rights as it had been designed until 1967 or so. he had moved to the north which was fine. people wanted to proceed fighting for african-american rights and the more narrow issues of economic advancement for this kind of broad federal

results to poverty. what is the kind debate the point of getting a seat at the lunch counter if you can't afford a hamburger. >> joining those things together the civil rights is broad. >> that is the exact quote. if he can't earn enough to pay for a hamburger and a cup of coffee and that is typical of the kind of clever politicized and that he would have to make the point. and he had moved to the issue of economic justice. >> it is easy to forget that he was only 39-years-old, a relatively young man when he was

assassinated, he was tired by 1968. he had spent almost all of his adult life in the public eye. >> is exhausted. since montgomery had taken a toll and he'd been hospitalized he was especially worn out early april of 68 because he had been on the road to promote the poor people's campaign. he'd been all over the country speaking at a pace. he wasn't sleeping well and he suffered from insomnia. he was smoking too much and wasn't feeling well.

so he wasn't in good physical shape. something i found interesting in the book as you talk about the media savvy, and right now we have been seeing a lot of attention on the never again movement led by teenagers and that's been a lot of attention because they were so young that he had his own motives and mobilizing young people especially birmingham. talk about that. >> there was a brutal response from the police in birmingham so there is the risk of injury for mostly high school kids that join him in a protest in

birmingham, but. she knew that i would have an impact. the idea of the social movement being led by teenagers is not new. >> halfway through the book and chapter 13 we need james earl ray. why did you choose this in the

first chapter is very much about the background why did you want to devote up to james earl ray? >> i didn't think that you could really understand all of a sudden at the end of the book by hugh at burger king unless you do something about him. it's never been clearly established with his motive was. i think thbut i think the readee to know at least some background so they can judge for himself with thwhat the motive might ha. he came from an extraordinarily poor dysfunctional background and his family that crime everywhere.

he went to school and dirty clothing. his mother was an al aqua look t his father was into crime and left the family and so on and so forth. i don't want to draw conclusions from anyone's background but if it may lead to some intelligence so they try to evaluate for themselves where he came from and why he might have done what he did, he was a racist if some people saand somepeople say thae enough, but he hold people up with a gun and haven't actually injured anyone. i thought that was interesting to know because then you see what happens when he goes to

memphis and people ask how in the world could this enact criminal laws something to kill this extraordinary leader so i think it helps to know the one theme of the chapter so that he could actually shoot. >> it almost feels biblical in a kind of way. it's been swirling around for another half a century. the territory has been so by official agencies and the fbi

and the justice department and the u.s. house committee on select assassinations and investigated offers. i read the accounts. i don't know if we will ever know for sure if there were curators but they would say perhaps his brothers may have helped him in some way that they were never able to prove that to their satisfaction. i thought that it was kind of a rabbit hole and i did think that i would ever have anything particularly new to say about it. >> you mentioned the mountaintop speech april 3, 1968 and you would devote a whole chapter to the speech but you do no that yd it a great deal.

you talk about the details and what was going on in the speech and what was happening in the audience and some of the men like ralph abernathy. talk about that approach that we are going to try to go deeper. >> the answer there is in order to quote a lot of the speech i would have had to have the copyright is. >> they are tough. they are not very free in granting the copyright licenses. so i did ask for licensing and it was not granted so that i wasn't able to quote very many words from the speech. under the doctrine of the copyright law that is the explanation. i would have preferred to have the actual words you have heard here today in the banalit and tf the mountaintop speech. >> i have to paraphrase that.

some people have read early drafts and they thought that it had diminished the chapter that much. he was a master orator i would have liked to have his words verbatim but i couldn't. >> talk a little bit about what you had to find in those files. >> there were two things. first is by digging really deepe deep into the archives for instance the transcripts of the house select committee on the assassination some police files and memphis, some records in the library i was able to unearth some details others haven't printed.

i was lucky enough to have access to the archives that have only recently been opened and there were archives of the libraries in atlanta and one was the papers of william who did the last executive director of the southern christian leadership conference is working was assassinated and it was very helpful and what had gone wrong in the campaign because much was going wrong. what was happening was they were trying to raise a lot of money because they were going to house

the makeshift tests for weeks or months they would have to feed them and pay for all of the extent to maintaining a camp like that so they had to raise a lot of mone money and then alsoy were trying to recruit thousands of poor people from the inner cities of america and especially from the impoverished rural areas of america and the results were not encouraging. they were behind schedule in both respects and raising money and recruiting volunteers and so the papers tell you a lot about the problems that they were having. this was a smooth running operation. >> they would tell you things always came together at the end. we had trouble because it was

the nature of the campaigns. they often have to be quick on our feet and fingers were often not well settled before we go to the midst of the campaign but still there was an enormous amount to do. the poor people's campaign was to start on april 22 and you see him april 23 at things or not. he's going to be detained and memphis until he needs march so you can ask yourself whether the poor people's campaign would have unfolded smoothly or not at all of the problems that they were having. >> there's a version of martin luther king i refer to as refrigerator magnet margin where so many portions were reduced to "-end-quotes and he is has a pe

and a monument. what i got from the book is humanizing it and showing him faults and all, his marriage was having problems cummings was a smoker, he didn't sleep well, but even good things like he played practical jokes and did imitations of other speakers. that is the thing is bringing him back to us instead of pulling him back down off the mountain top. >> some people would like to think that he was a saint and perfect in every way and idealized human being, but he was a human being and had frailties of human being. i wanted to paint him as he was. i think that it actually enhances his importance at it shows him as a far more impressive person that he did

have frailties like everyone. >> when ralph abernathy wrote his book and talked about the fact margin over his affairs and people were scandalized, not less that he had affairs and the fact that abernathy was talking about them and you have them in your book as well. >> right, so i interviewed a mistress, georgia davis who was a woman of standing in the civil rights movement herself. she comes to memphis the night of april 3 actually the morning of april 4 to be with king and lend moral support to him and i felt i had to tow the story given my narrative in the last 31 hours of his life if you don't think i could omit his mistress showing up in the middle of the period. there is a chapter in the book which high-profile her and as i

so if she's kind of an eyewitness to history. she was there in his last hours until about what his emotional state was like and what is preoccupations. what he was trying to do so i was delighted she was going to talk to me but it did mean that i discussed he was having an extramarital affair but that is no secret. it wasn't only ralph abernathy many of the myths they did the best biographies written. >> there's all these great things that don't make it into the final edition. what is the best thing that you found out that you couldn't get intcould getinto the book lacks >> there's a couple stories in the book i don't want to repeat that i left out on purpose.

i use all of the best material. i can't think of anything offhand except things i really don't want to discuss. >> what surprised you most in your research that you learned? >> one thing was the failure of the memphis police to protect king and no one else had reported that. there was no protection on his first visit but then there were the riots and the so the police did provide a security detail to protect him from the moment he arrived at the airport until 5:00 on the first day that he was there, but was april 3, and then the police security was disbanded and the reason i

decided is the richest in different, the police director testified later they didn't protect him on the first two visits because they didn't see him as all that consequential instead she was just another person involved in the memphis garbage worker strike. they said we protected him for a day, but it's a good start but he's on his own now. that surprised me greatly that the police didn't do more. i think the police protection could have saved his life, and i got into that endeavor. another surprise for me is where we talk about how disorganized and what trouble the poor people's campaign was. i don't think anyone else has reported that as thoroughly. those were two surprises that i discovered. >> i think that we are ready to

take some questions from the audience. >> people ask you to come to the microphone if you could, please. if somebody could do a microphone. a ..

>> i don't think it is logical to infer to have security but that indicates that the memphis police play a part. >> and then to try to explain himself.

>> and most of everyone who has looked at this carefully. that it didn't exist and it made him a patsy and changing the tire hadn't been verified and there some question if that happened. >> did keying edward to announce those that were arriving cracks and did he denounce those? and for those who did those acts but he said it was wrong and condemned them from

rioting that they were victims of poverty and difficult lives and very dysfunctional families. and the answer to that was not simply punishment and with the underlying conditions so he did say both. >> i hope we have other people to step up to the plate did

mlk have any support from the white flight people? and then to see the climate for all workers. and was this just segregated? how was the impact that martin luther king had the factors in what part did they play. >> the united auto workers

king is a long supporter of unions and with the cause of poverty because he thought the answer to solving the problem and criticizing unions with those exclusive policies in african members to be unions and by no means across the board. >> other questions?

>> in response to the last point of the campaign in atlanta at the time it was organized and then they would caravan and then for poor white communities but then to

have a unified campaign so certainly we heard in the early months of 1968 it is incredible. if you think about they needed hundreds or dozens of communities across the country to send them hundreds of people to converge on washington, it is unbelievable organizing challenge. and whether it would have come together, i can't say it would not have but his work in

chicago was somewhat disappointing and it's probably probable with dad incentive to be halfway there. but then there was a gathering in washington. >> and there is one other element and people of different ethnic and racial backgrounds for the purpose of protest and some type of coherent message that we were delivering to congress. we had people love puerto

rican background with american indians, and people are from appalachia. and with those different racial backgrounds is yet another challenge that they face to make a successful campaign in washington. >> thank you. >> so you humanize keying in the book. and in those final moments so

with you saw the most personal connection to king? and then to feel emotions yourselves and when i began to understand his courage. and coming to terms with it and then to talk about it so open the. and to have that emotional identity and then those

enormous pressures he was under. and i think that is the moment. >> king abernathy they thought about their deaths obviously they were attracting death when king says the way it is different from teddy parker the century before so to suffer the physical death of bigotry and racism. one of the biggest elements of the speech and then say do not

be deterred the arc of the universe is long but what i worry about but to carry that free cognition and how that comes to a moment here that really echoes to it and to that moment and then to imagine what was ahead but here in this instance for becoming more constant and he had a bomb threat in atlanta that no doubt was weighing on him. and he must've been aware there was more and more

hostility. so you could say it was a premonition. but as you heard andrew young say it wasn't if but when. i think he was convinced his days were numbered. >> that speaks to his courage. thank you. >> that was very interesting. i was wondering if you wrote a book about the 31 days after his death for those five or six important things. >> another good question. so to speculate what actually happened or if he lived?

>> if there was a problem of the sanitation workers. >> the strike was settled and then to negotiate with the city council they could have vetoed those settlements and the increase of wages they got assurance that it would improve and also the union was recognized and it had not been recognized. that would happen very quickly within a week or two. >> so as you may recall marc mat

lyndon johnson announced he wouldn't run for the election. so he was less in the picture. >> was there short-term progress with the bore on poverty? >> know. you could wonder what would happen if king had lived that is a speculative question but no. the war in vietnam was draining the us treasury and the money was going for guidance more and more the administration supported in congress had approved even for the war on poverty that was underway for that demand for money to obfuscate the war so

eventually with progress in introducing poverty in various ways. >> so in that immediate response did anything get capitalized with that effort? >> they did not have such a bright future without keying in charge. and then became the face of the sclc. with the overall director. but he had a certain strength but he did not have king's strength. so he faded as a force in american life. and then there was a period

there was so much political upheaval in the country with the democratic convention you may remember inside and outside. so the short answer is there was in progress for some years after that. it took a while and some people would say it really didn't resume in the same way without keying - - king. >> i have not yet read the book but i wonder with your comments about the challenges

that were facing. in your meeting of the successors of the leadership of his notes and archives but going back to what had happened with the march on washington that it had been deemed impossible leading up to it. do his records reveal anything about the relationship in 1968 and a philip randolph for the team of people who put together the march? or anything about the sclc labor relationship? from the guy from the 63 march

or if he had done it before i don't know if there was anything in those records. >> the march on washington had universal support for african-american leaders a critical organizer of that but the march on washington had solid support of the leaders of the african americans organizations i don't think he was in favor of it but wilkins was in the public and they both thought the march on washington was a mistake for reasons that we discussed.

>> they were not supporting the poor people's march. it was to the march on washington in 63. >> so a lot of those leaders did not agree that it was a wise strategy. to have the poor people's march. other questions? thank you for coming. [applause]

>> we will get started welcome to aei for your constitutional studies here at aei is my great pleasure to welcome our great friend here his book the case for nationalism. the editor of national review for american conservatism edited since 1997 as a syndicated columnist and author with the study of abraham lincoln's