scholarly work in other areas. so thank you very much. we also thank morehouse college for being able to make this happen, and we look forward to moving into the next year as we look at the impact of dr. king and his mentors on not only us here in atlanta and morehouse but on the world. thank you very much. [ applause ]

there's a new web site for american history tv where you can find our schedule and preview our programs. watch video as well as access some american history tweets, history from the news, and media from facebook, twitter and four

square. listen on line at c-span.org/history. we continue our look at black history month on c-span3's american history tv. up next, the national civil rights museum, and after that, use of the n-word in u.s. literature. on washington journal tomorrow morning, we'll talk about women's rights. our guest is eleanor smeal, president of the feminist organization. steven law joins us to discuss campaign spending. and we'll look at gq magazine's article at the 50 most popular people in medicine with reid ch

cherlin. each week, american history tv's american artifacts take people behind the scenes at museums and historic sites. earlier this year, historian richard norton smith led a ten-hour bus tour to ashton, texas. the group stopped at presidential and historic sites along the route. one of the stops was the national civil rights museum in memphis, tennessee. the museum is on the side of the lorraine motel where martin luther king, jr. was assassinated in 1968. it opened as the national civil rights museum in 1991. and 2011 marks its 20th anniversary. the museum's director of governmental and political affairs, gwynn harmon, led the tour. welcome to the national civil rights museum, the the lorraine motel where dr. king was staying in 1968. what you're looking at is a part of living history.

as you walk through, we'll be explaining to you america's civil rights story. not just the south story or the memphis story. this is about the american civil rights movement. because of that, and we are a national site, we start our tour experience in the year 1619. and as you walk through the space, you're walking through history and through eras. when you finish on this side, you will end on april 4, 1968. we believe here that america's civil rights movement did not stop with the death of king. he was a strong influence and strong impact on so many nations and so many other people, we want to close the tour with the impact of all of us and the call to action that we all have. the highlight of the tour is the actual room, 306, where dr. king was staying. it's been preserved as it was in 1968. okay? let's go inside. the lorraine motel was owned by walter and lori bailey, an african-american couple, one of the few black-owned businesses in the deep south in the '50s

and '60s. on the day mr. king was assassinated, mrs. bailey was on the switchboard. she heard screams outside, and she ran out and was told dr. king had been shot. that was at 6:05 p.m. she called her family and warned them not to come downtown because things were going to be pretty dangerous. she told them dr. king had been shot and they didn't know how serious it was going to be. mrs. bailey came home and had a brain aneurysm. so mrs. bailey died the day after mr. king. in 1991, we opened as the national civil rights museum. this is our 20th year anniversary. so we're celebrating 20 years in 2011. as you walk this way, we're going to start our experience -- as you walk this way, on this particular wall, we wanted to highlight the people who actually have been to visit us in the past 20 years. if they're on the wall, that

means they have taken the same steps that you're about to take as part of your tour experience. this is our first gallery, like i told you outside, we start in the year 1619. this is the documented struggle of america's civil rights struggle when the african slaves were brought to the british isles. we learn about harriet tubman, so we wanted to lay down the foundation for america's story in the 1600s. as you walk through the space, as the eras change and become more and more intense, the exhibits actually become who and more intense as well to demonstrate just what the movement was like in america during that era. and we tell all of our first-time visitors that you know when you first get here you think you'll be walking through the exhibit space looking at someone else's story. but when you finish, you would have found your own.

and that certainly rings true for everyone. and people at first don't get it. but by the time their tour is over, they have a story they want to share. something triggers a memory or something in the heart and they want to share it. that's why this place is so special. it's about everybody's history. we're going to move into our next gallery, which is the 1800s. this is the 1800s. this is called strategies for change. what you're looking at in the case is an authentic robe of the ku klux klan. the klan was actually formed in polas polaski, tennessee in 1866. at the height. k -- height of the klan movement, we were told they had 600 members. we consider them to be the first terrorist group because of the way they terrorized, murdered and attacked people. this is the 1900s skpch.

and this is a part of the era where black people and the organization started to become more visible to promote unity and civil rights for people. this is the era where the naacp came into being at this time. ida b. wells, roy wilkins. this part of the movement kind of symbolizes different agendas as well. you had people preaching for better equality when it came to jobs and economic development and education, and then you have people like ida b. wells here who, at a very young age, at 14, was already a schoolteacher. but her passion was to actually publ publicize the atrocities. she would write stories about the lynchings and she would public photographs about the black men who were lynched throughout the south. in this particular segment, we

learn more about the passion of phillip randolph, that whole movement to get the sleeping car porters decent wages, the black men who worked on the trains. they would work about 400 hours a month and would bring home about $70 a month. they were basically on call 24 hours a day on these trains. and mr. randolph was passionate about getting americanized for fair labor wages and they became the brotherhood of sleeping car porters. what you see here is a uniform from the marccus garvey movemen. this is marcus garvey in this photograph here from liberia. margaret thune was an educator. she was an educator who i would consider ahead of her time. took like a couple of dollars to start her own school to educate african-americans. was for midable, didn't stop and

started gaining momentum and support until she got that school started. we're going to move into the 1950s. right now we're going to get into brown versus board of education. this was the landmark decision that ended segregation in our public school system in this country. the brown in the case was seven years old. linda brown. there's a photograph of seven-year-old linda brown. that's part of that class action lawsuit. this wsion there were a lot of communities that absolutely did not want this to be the law. one of those communities that we highlight is in little rock, arkansas central high school. some communities tested the waters by sending a select few members of the black community into these white schools. in little rock, they were called the little rock nine. these are the nine students here at that particular time. it was a black community effort that was pretty much led by the naacp and daisy bates from little rock created such turmoil for the state of arkansas that

the governor called in troops to block the students from entering. the president sent in troops to protect the students to go to class. it was like a new form of a civil war, because these students had to have protection every day walking to school, going to class and gein 24-hour protection for their safety. it was the most traumatic thing that a 12, 13 or 14-year-old if you look over here, i'm sure you're looking behind me at this bus. this is 1955. this is montgomery, alabama. at this point we ask everybody to get onto the bus. this is an interactive bus. it transports you back to 1955. so now you're on the bus. so what happens next? mrs. parks, who came here in 1991 when we first opened the museum, she was one of the first people that we honored as the museum opened, well, she says to us that the day that this happened with her being arrested when she got up to pay her fare a couple months later, she just

said her soul spoke to her and said, today's the day. and you're going to be the one. and she takes a seat. she's sitting with a black gentleman in her seat. the bus gets crowded. a white man comes in and he doesn't have a place to sit, and he just stands as a signal to move. the black gentleman moved, and the black gentleman across the aisle moved because you can't even sit in the seat. the other black people moved to the back and she scooted over. she said, i was tired. i was trying to get home. and the bus driver stopped the bus and said, are you going to move? and she said no. and he says, i'm going to have c arrested. and she said, do what you have to do. this time he didn't physically a cost her, but he called the police, they took her off the bus, took her downtown and had her fingerprinted and arrested. that's when all the calls went out to the neighborhoods, the boycott has begun. they knew that for this to be a

successful boycott, it was going to take someone to lead this movement who was not really montgomery entrenched because there was so much violence that was going to be involved. they wanted someone on the outside who could come in with fresh eyes but who didn't have a lot of ties to montgomery to succumb to the pressures. they had been talking with a young minister from atlanta who had just moved to montgomery with this new baby and new wife. all he wanted to do was be a preacher. but he started getting involved. he started going to the movies. he was asked, will you please lead our movement? he said yes. he was 26 years old. his name is martin luther king. that's how his movement started at the aim of 26. so rosa parks was arrested. 70% of the bus riders were black women. 70%. that's how they made their money. with none of those people riding the buses for 13 months, the first thing that happened was you're going to have to start

laying mr. bus driver off because he's driving an empty bus. that is when the negotiations took an ernest turn. before that, churches were bombed, dr. king's house was bombed. if you even knew rosa parks, as a neighbor, you got fired. it was just the worst times in montgomery. it was a lot of pressure to get her to call this boycott off. people just refused. eventually what happened was because most of the black women were maids, their white women bosses started carpooling for them. they got together and started driving the maids where they wanted to go. i love this movement because it became the first, i think, women's movement that was so grassroots. it was about the basics. the right to sit where you want to sit and then the right to do that without being put in jail, and then some of the white women who were the women of privilege defined the husband, defined the white citizens' council. back then the ku klux klan became more sophisticated and

they called themselves the city councils. but to defy a new different rule for the white women to join with the black women made that a successful 13-month boycott. and it was. and they had to rescind the city rules after 13 months. we're going to exit off the rear doors. there's some steps, so watch your step going down. watch your head. very good. and you can see dr. king who was arrested at the age of 26 in that panel, his first time being arrested because of that boycott. this is 1960. this is called the sit-in movement. five years after montgomery. what happened here was very simple. it was all about networking, organizing, and youth. you started a movement in 1960 with four young, black college men in north carolina who walked into a woolworth's that was

segregated, sat down and were refused service. nothing new about that. it happened every day. what was new was the next day 12 students showed up at the same woolworth's. within two weeks, you had about eight to nine different cities, not just in that state, but all across the nation with these students showing up and sitting down. where did they come from? they were part of an organization known as snicc, student non violent coordinating committee. but you didn't just show up at a lunch counter and sit down. why is this so important? it was a lunch counter, but it was a symbol of everything segregated, from libraries to movie theaters, parks, even the zoo. in memphis, tennessee, blacks could only go to the memphis zoo one day out of the week. that was considered the black day. okay? you could not go into a restaurant, sit down and order a coke and a hamburger if you were

black. you had to go to the back door, knock on the back door, order your food from the back door kitchen, and they would hand you the food and you would pay. you weren't allowed to go in the restaurant and sit down. in the theaters, normally the balcony was restricted for the black patrons and it was always a small, cramped space where down below was the spacious seats for everybody else. well, this generation of young people said no more. so snicc started training people, getting them ready to go in and challenge these laws. you just didn't show up, though, and sit down and order a hamburger. you had to go through training to be a part of snicc. because non-violence was the key factor. you could not fight this movement being violent. once you passed the training, then your honor allowed to participate. you were trained on what to wear. and if you notice the statues here, you notice that there are two white students. unlike montgomery where they had to sneak to pick up their maids,

these college kids took a front row seat with the black students. it was the first time the movement became integrated visibly. young men were taught how to dress. shirt and tie, young ladies dress like you're going to church. bring your books, because be prepared to sit for eight hours and be ignored. so while you're there, do your homework. if you are snatched off the stool, which you will be, and beaten, you were taught how to cover your head. you were taught how to cover your midsection when you were being kicked. you were taught who to call to be bonded out of jail. once you passed the training, only once after you passed the training were you allowed to go. but remember, montgomery took 13 months. this movement took four before their first victory. so this network of snicc students, everywhere there was a college campus in a city, there was a sit-in movement going on. this movement to me symbolizes what a network can do if you're prepared, if you're like-minded,

and if you've got courage. i also tell my college students today who come through that during this era, the movement, this was the first time that the older generation, my parents and grandparents, saw that the young people respectfully -- respectfully -- defy mom and dad's rules, both black and white. parents didn't want their kids to be a part of this. it was too violent, it was too dangerous. but students actually told their moms and dads, i love you but i'm doing this. this was the first time that the generation gap started to really widen. with our move to 1961, this is the freedom rides. the freedom riders were again part of snicc. same concept. because the bus stations throughout especially the deep south was still segregated. colored only waiting room, colored only water fountains. these 12 students got on the bus in washington, d.c. heading to

new orleans. and every time the bus would stop at a bus station, they would get out, defy the law and go into the white only section. you can look at the panels here and see, they had a target on their backs because the local press would pretty much give their whole route of travel. so if you ever wanted to see them or harm them, you could pick up the paper and they would tell you where they were going to be. they got as far as aniston, alabama. a crowd was waiting for them on the side of the road. this is a replica of the bus. as the bus is burning, the passengers started flowing out of the bus and the klan started beating the snicc students. one of those students was john lewis, congressman john lewis. there's a photograph of him right here. shortly after with his friend jim zwerk. nobody was killed but they were severely beaten. when the national news caught wind of that, folks who never had joined snicc before wanted to join now. and that's how the movement kept

going. we're going to move down this way. we're now in washington, d.c. 1963. march on washington. you know, everybody wanted to speak tofor this march on washington. john lewis told us how there was many, many hours of meetings trying to decide this agenda. who would be part of the actual program, who would be part of the pre-program. guess who got to be part of the pre-program? they didn't want john lewis to speak as part of the pre-program because they felt was too young. the man had gone through snicc, he had gone through the freedom riders, and they said, no. we have to have our man represented, so he made the cut as one of the 12 speakers for the program. it was heavily male, minister led, and so that was the part of

the time. this is where, of course, dr. king did "i have a dream" and these are some of the placards that people carry as part of that march. different organizations, different backgrounds, very religious group. we're going to 1964. you're in mississippi. the idea was, the comment to ce in 1964 and register black people to vote. very simple plan. it did not go as planned. say i'm a black lady and i'm not registered to vote, and i've got a student -- she's tutoring me, she's mentoring me, we've gone through the registration form backwards and forwards, and we show up first day to go to the courthouse so i can register to vote. we show up, the door is padlocked. we don't know where everybody is, but the door is padlocked.

we can't get in. okay, we'll come back the next week. next week we show up, and there's a sign that says the courthouse has been moved to an undisclosed location. you don't know where they are, they disappeared. i'm getting disheartened, but my student from new york, oh, miss harmon, it's okay, we're going to get this done. the third week we showed up, they were there, lo and behold. i fill out my form and i give it back to the registrar. she says we're only taking ten applications today, you're number 11. that was the magic number all week. so we go back home again. this time we come back, and i fill out my form and i give it to her, and she says, you have to answer one more verbal part of this registration. you have to interpret state code 123-j. and my student, smart as she is, because she's going to be a lawyer in new york one day. she says, you can't ask her that. that's a violation of civil

rights. guess who shows up? the sheriff. takes me to jail because i sassed the clerk. show up again, i give my form to the clerk and the clerk says you still have to interpret a verbal part of this form. how many bubbles in a bar of soap? and i looked at my student like, i told you. what's the answer to that one? and my student goes, this is not even a fair question. how dare you ask her that? guess who shows up. the sheriff. gain. that's how it was the whole summer. those were the good days. the bad days they documented in these sheets of paper every time that they were beaten, threatened or put in jail, they dated it and put the city wre h. they were only able toeg1300 pe summer, but the combination of the death of goodman, cre put a

complete pall over the entire summer. the nation between mourning when they found this young man murdered. these were two of the sheriff's deputies thathre fbi. they were never charged with murder, they were charged with violation of civil rights. the -- this is the hearing.f being convicted. so it took years and years, and they did go to prison on federal charges of civil rights violations. again, never murder. we have to get to memphis. on the. this shows the march on bloody sunday. this is the first time cameras went live actually showing the brutality as it happened during the dinner hour on abc national television. the media really became a part of this movement during this

particular time period. sel selma, alabama. we're going to go to memphis right now. what you're seeing here is an actual sanitation truck as it looked in 1968. the black man, there were about 30 of them, who worked for the city of memphis had asked the mayor to discuss a better wage for them. i think they wanted a 30-cent-hour-raise which would put them at $1.30 and the mayor refused. that's when they called in dr. king to lead their movement. the first time he came was in march 1968, and he was going to do a peaceful rally and it turned violent. some local young people got involved and they took the opportunity to break windows and loot. police responded to violence. a lot of people were shot and killed that night.

king felt totally responsible and totally depressed because of that. so he went back to atlanta, regrouped -- what happened between the month of march and when he came back? a lot of people don't know. i was lucky enough to speak with jesse jackson a couple of years ago, and he says that before dr. king came back to memphis on april that he had called his closest associates to his home in atlanta. that would be jesse jackson, abernathy young and some others, and that dr. king had told them that he was considering stopping his work, that perhaps america just was not ready for the change that he wanted to see. he was just depressed. he just felt -- you had the black panther party coming into its own, you had a new group of young black people who didn't believe young violence was the answer. it was a lot of push and pull. he just said he was tired and maybe it's time to stop, let somebody else take the lead, because he didn't think he was doing a good job.

and he had a migraine headache for three days he could not get rid of. so jesse jackson says -- they started arguing among themselves. half wanted to come to memphis, half didn't, said, no, leave it alone. and he said, i've made my decision. i've been thinking about what i've done. i hope one day i can thank the people who did for me, lake harriet tubman. what am i going to say when she asked me what happened? am i going to say i had a headache. i can't tell harriet i had a headache. let's go ahead and go to memphis. two weeks later, he came to memphis. he was still depressed, though. he was just fatigued. you have to understand that b biographers had researched his life. he had three kids at home in

alabama. every dime he made, that money had to go back into the movement to get kids out of jail. people lost jobs, he gave money for food, he was constantly trying to refuel the movement financially. so he had no money. he was not a wealthy man. he also had offers to be presidents of universities. he could have made a lot of money had he stepped away at that particular time. but he came back into memphis and he came to the lorraine motel. and everybody was going to do a mass rally that evening at mason temple. his mountaintop speech, which was his last speech, was to us his speech of prophecy and sort of his self-preached eulogy because he started in 1955 with his first movement as a 26-year-old young man in montgomery, alabama. and he walked the crowd all the way up through his entry in memphis, tennessee where he says, like any man, i would like to live a long life. longevity has