greatly wounded and he shot and killed a sniper and when i came back from vietnam, for several days there were a number of them and i often think of those days, it was a critical time in my life. that was a battle that changed

vietnam. and i knew major decisions were going to be made and i knew that we had them then. i knew we would. and i'm glad but i've been back there twice, once with joe, and

i wanted to spend the night on the battlefield. and the helicopter, the russian helicopter flown by two vietnamese pilots, they took the first person out but then stranded and spent the night there. i was able to walk over to my command post and visualize and commemorate that we were unable to get out and i conceded in my

mind and then to sit there, what was left there and i remember as i walked the line -- i knew then that night in the middle of the night when i looked at all of the dead bodies in the process, i knew that it had been 36

hours. but it ended up that night, after we on the ground was me, and my crew and there was just a few of us. and we were drying out and then the night birds, of the monkeys,

there was no life. millions of don't you think there has to be a supreme being that created all of this? the thing that happened and then suddenly we were shelled by a whole bunch of meteorites. showers of them. now, i have seen and had seen every now and then a shooting star but there were hundreds of them and it went on for about 40

minute. and it had to be an event and there was dead silence looking at this magnificent display of showers. and then it started quieting down, and i don't know who started it, but it had occurred to usll the spirits are

incredible. they died by the hundreds. and now he can rest in peace. he can go now. but that is an event that should never have occurred before or after and i have been in dark canyons and back to the battlefield, i've been in other battles in vietnam in the quiet of night on occasion. never have i read about or seen such a sight.

so i don't know who you're going to interview but i hope they follow my guise of telling the truth. good or bad. this is history. and i don't know who is going to watch or listen to all this

history. >> what would you like to say to these people who will be listening 100 years from now? >> not much to say except these oral history tapes which are occurring, i hope that the measure and lessons you hear and whatever walk of life you're in, military, civilian world, political world, that's my message. i've got to go. >> thank you, sir. >> yep.

>> join us next weekend for more oral history from the vietnam archives saturday at 8:00 a.m., sunday at 3:00 p.m., and monday at 4:00 a.m. eastern. for more information, visit our website. c-span.org/history. >> congratulations to all this year's winners of the video documentation. a record number of middle and high school students joined the contest showing which part of the contest is important to them and why. join us mornings in april as we show the top 27 videos on c-span. >> you're watching american history tv. 48 hours of people and events that help document the american story. all weekend, every weekend, on

c-span 3. [ applause ] >> good evening, everyone. >> good evening. >> 1955, i was 12, and i had hair. my dominant impression of those times and myself as a young man were best expressed, i think, in the accuracy of the supreme court's decision in brown versus the board of ed. separate and unequal. african-americans my age often reminisce now about the cohesion that existed at those times and someone were acting inappropriately. we talk about the strong unity of purpose, the bonding over the

rightness of the cause. the strength of our institutions, then, in the community like the church or the social organizations and we were separate. for instance, i have never been to the home of a nonafrican-american. baltimore was ending what had been two separate school administrations and i had met dr. jackson headquartered in a white frame house on the property of washington junior high school, not on 25th street. residents lines were sharply drawn and, for instance, my family living in an apartment on madison avenue in a townhouse, we children did not dare play with the children of the appalaichan families who moved into the unplumbed garages with no matter, no plumbing, on utah place and right across the alley

on madison avenue. we were unequal. when i was younger i visited dad as a window dresser and he was told that he would never be able to rise to a higher level of unemployment and that's how he migrated to be the youngest person on the police force as it integrated. i remember passing the cafeteria and i can see the crystal chandelier but we went to eat lunch with dad by going down into the basement and walking among the pipes that led to the colored cafeteria. going to city then and being the class that entered in the fall of 1956 after that supreme court decision was a watershed in my life because it opened up the doors to new worlds, new come pain johns, new experiences. i believe that our youth today still have a strong sense of the

disparity in society. they have, thank god a. far weaker sense of the boundaries that can separate but that can be a deceptive sense of weakness. because we are still working toward a post racial society. we are not there yet and those of us in the room, all of us, really, who do not think or live within a racial pear dime must not think that any or even most others are where we are. not yet. that's still our work. if our youth know our stories, not because we went through it but because it highlights our journey as an american family along a continuum, then they can better plot just where they are now as we move towards this wonderful goal of an absolutely inclusive society and an absolutely unified american

family. the people in front of me have far more expertise to share on the topic we are discussing tonight. dr. eleanor hicks and other students were denied to they decided to stage a sit-in. one of the earliest in our country. it was completely impromptu, she says. it said, now serve all. the impact of that sparked a new hampshirestorm of protests that resulted in not only segregation of greed but the where patrons cross the lines. and ladies in baltimore attended howard university from 1960 to 1964 where he was elected for

chairperson of civil rights. i've always known him to be an advocate. his long career as attorney and professor of law includes the serving as the maryland state chairman as the clinton-gore presidential campaign. most recently he's traveled internationally, president of liberia and africa's first democratically-elected female president. barry landon was one of the original interviewers with the history project. police commissioner of baltimore in the '50s, former deputy superintendent of the state department of education and governor mceldon's son. dr. landon received his doctor

rate from temple university, served as the first chair of the auto history association's committee on education and founder and past president of the oral history in the mid-atlantic region. dr. michelle scott, an associate professor and her work specializes in race and ethnicity with emphasis on african-american history. black musical culture and women studies. dr. scott is contributed to the martin luther king jr.'s paper project and the guide to african-american history from 1939 to the present. and william sorsy, he was a reporter and son for nearly 23 years before leaving the newspaper to right for television in 202. a baltimore native wrote for the last three seasons of "the wire"

on home box office, hbo, and also acted in the series. if you remember an ill-tempted reporter in the sun newsroom, that was he. he and his partner, david simon, are now developing a menu series about the event surrounding a desegregation case in yonkers, new york, and the drug culture in baltimore, using pennsylvania avenue as a vehicle to tell the story. i would say we're in for a wonderful evening. now it's my pleasure to turn the microphone over to my colleague, john.

john? [ applause ] >> all right. good evening. for all intents and purposes, i'm your captain. exits are in the back. if we lose pressure, masks will fall from the ceiling. but my name is john and i'm the archivist and i've been asked this evening to be the moderator for this ill loose industry yous panel and hopefully not only will i learn more about the topic of study that will be discussed this evening but you will as well and we hope that, if nothing else, you can take one thing away from this discussion tonight. what that is is entirely up to you. but we don't want the words to fall on deaf ears and to not have an impact on some one this

evening. and so, to start, i was asked to discuss the role on the collin murphy, the long-time publisher of the aphro. as an archivist, there were researchers looking through some things and they came across this letter and i think it's appropriate as far as what the role the afro serves, in particular, in this culture. it's dated september 5, 1935 and it's from david e.lankin.

. and although baltimore had a branch beginning in 1912, only three years after the naacp founded and established the early '30s saw relationship waiting. it saw the anticipation waiting. and so this letter would -- mr. murphy, dr. murphy, when we talk together in baltimore during april of 1935, you suggested that we have our campaign in october. i plan my schedule accordingly. within the last few days, mr. thurgood marshal called mr. white's attention to the fact that the community campaign would be conducted in late october and november and suggested that we give him a head. because i depend on your guidance to a very large degree,

i would like to know your opinions on the following. i shall arrive in baltimore september 25th, complete the organization which the committee selected. we shall then be ready to officially launch the campaign and complete it within two weeks of the opening date. would you send me the name of the committee to those i should help and the preliminary work. you can secure the place for headquarters and let the downwoman serve as my young woman and will get in touch with you. now, here's where we can sort of solidify what we'll call most of these employees. i'm depending on the afro so give a background and create interest in our campaign.

please write me as soon as possible. sincerely yours. essentially what this letter is saying is we're depending on you and the afro to draw up membership and they so did. they were able to include over 2,000 new members within the course of a few weeks. and this is on the throws of 1935 and it took place in early 1935 and so in many ways, call murphy and the afro are sort of the axis upon what the civil rights era resolves around and i could go on and on.

and so we will begin our conversation and that is what this is, a conversation amongst us. with dr. michelle scott and i don't want us to take for granted that anyone in this audience really knows what the civil rights movement is. okay? so my question to you, dr. scott, is, if you could sort of define as best as you can what the civil rights movement is, particularly because maryland was such a hot day of activities. >> okay. well, of course he starts with a very easy question, like define civil rights. can you all hear me? >> no. >> which microphone?

the question was, the origin for the civil rights movement and when did it begin and when did it end? thank you for the easy question. i'm actually in the midst of teaching a class called civil rights in america and i would normally be teaching that class on this evening. some of my students are there in the back hiding out. before i talk about the civil rights movement and they also begin with how culture baulks about it a little bit in. beginning in the 1940s, naacp, with cases like shelby versus cramer, moving on to more direction action plans, dr.

martin luther king, jr. as a public figure, shifting on to the 1960s with a greater involvement of youth activists and a coordinating committee and there was the swag of the civil rights movement and in the last two decades, historians have begun to look at the civil rights movement. over a longer period of tinme, really beginning and i would argue looking at the first attempt to fight for civil rights of citizenship among african-americans during the time of reconstruction and emancipation in 1865. but really looking at that period fighting a legal battle and maryland is an interesting place to do that.

when you think of the civil rights movement and i ask my question this all the time, what images do you think of when you hear civil rights movement? >> it interactive part? >> it is. marches. >> radicalism. >> radicalism. pirk kets, lynching. so those things don't just all of a sudden occur in 1940 and end abruptly in 1968 when we come to the period of black to you power. and so historians have termed the new way of setting the civil rights movement, the long civil rights movement. looking not just at the black white binary but also looking at how women are looked at, religion, if it's an issue of sexuality. trying to be a little more

inclusive. maryland's place in the civil rights is intriguing because maryland is a border state slaves were free. half as many free black living in baltimore as there are enslaved labor at the same time. and it's the combination of looking at things that rule. so in that very confused, complex border state, you have other more movements that are looked at. so we look at something like the sit-ins that happened at greensboro at 1950 north carolina and we're not looking at what is occurring here in 1955. we're looking at how events are involving the southern christian leadership conference but we're not looking to see how women, teachers were organizing to receive equal pay in baltimore

as early as the 1930s. so baltimore and maryland, it's a new wave of studies saying they really predate a lot of the earlier struggles that are popularized. and we will talk about that today. is that a good way of getting it the hard question? >> that's good. >> i'm sure the audience will agree based on that 23u7bd mental level fundamental level of understanding that come to mind that so often what gets overlooked is the industry social bottom-up history that often times gets overlooked and you're sitting down the counter in a place where you're not supposed to be. so i'll be bringing forth the definition of civil rights and get closer