there's a mob behind her. she's trying to get on the bus. by way of running us up to this point in time, there's a wonderful book now talking to both elizabeth and the woman screaming at her. you should read that book. now going back to the streets versus the court. what we have going on here are people who have become black history like shar lane who are wants to be a part of the energy thatter knee green talked about. and you become a pivotal part of this story of pushing the kennedys toward looking and dealing with civil rights and to that point john. if kennedy had not. tell us the story. >> thank you.

>> and it was young people i just did all this research. i'm living with this now in a way that i didn't even live with it when i became the first black sturpt at the university of georgia. that was to me a solitary thing. but i was encouraged by what else was going on with the students in the movement. we have the president of ernie and the little rock nine and ruby bridges who would over in new orleans who was even in a way more poignant than you guys. she had to walk through this mob. we talked about the continuity of history. when barack obama was running for president he went to selma. and one of the things he said there was i stand on the shoulders of giants.

and i was so happy to hear him say that. asser knee said and others have said, black people have struggled for equality since they were brought over here in chains. it built and it built. as i was writing my book about the students who actually did change the minds of the kennedys, i had to go back to all of those people in the naacp and other organizations who had been quietly working since those guys came back home including my father who was in the truman army who held the heads of black soldiers who were shot on the battlefield. and yet they couldn't come back home even injured and enjoy any of the privileges of the other whites. so all of that has been going on and germinating and simmering. so when these young people hit the streets starting in

greensboro in 1960 when they sat in at the lunch counters, that unleashed young people all over the south and eventually in the north because in order to get the attention of the kennedy administration they got white kids from the north to go and study nonviolent protests in i think it was ohio and some of them went south to do sit ins and demonstrations et cetera. some of them were sent to washington because they were white. and they thought that they could get the attention of the white administration with a couple of exceptions here. to protect those young people who were demonstrating for equal rights in the south. now all of this was happening as i applied to the university of georgia. i don't think it was necessarily the school desegregation stuff at that point. when i entered in '61 it was the

first successful desegregation of higher education at that point in the south. and robert kennedy came to my college, university of georgia, i desegregated in january of '61 the desegregation order was given by a white republican judge william boodel. kennedy came at '61 to speak at the lay day ceremony. by this time there has been a consciousness of the administration had been raised to a certain extent. so the state representatives, none of the top officials of georgia would attend because they were afraid of what bobby kennedy was going to say. and so here i was one of two black student tons campus of 20,000 who had rioted when we went into the university, but that calmed down after about three days.

we didn't have to haver knee's troops come -- have ernie's troops come in. kennedy is coming and i'm saying, i really want to hear what he has to say. especially since all of these georgia legislatures were so concerned about what he was going to say. i spoke to a sympathetic professor, most of whom didn't speak to me at that point, but he did. so he got me into the room. and sure enough he started with the whole notion of the cold war. i was sitting somewhere invisible in the class of room of 200 or 300 students. and all of a sudden i heard bobby kennedy had talked about

how the south had helped deliver his brother and a few other things, i think i quoted part of the speech in my book. and then i heard him say because i'm just sitting there saying this is very interesting. it's cold war, soviet union, communism, democracy and then he said, the graduation of sharlain hunter in hamilton holmes from this university will be a major step in our war and then he went onto articulate in the clearest terms that any official at that level would say that the law would be supreme in this country and you are going to have to obey the

law whether you like it or not. and when he finished we were applauding wildly. so i said to my professor, i have to meet this man. he said come with us. afterwards i was introduced to him. it was friendly nice to meet you. when john louis left to go on the first freedom ride he level his while behind. because he thought there was a real possibility and he was

right. he wasn't killed. but those young people left their wills behind. they were trying to get them to go back to the decision. i can't remember all of that. the book. but, there had been decisions going back to the 40s that ruled out segregation on interstate commerce. it took these young people

fearless and ready to die in order to get attention of the federal government. i did research in in order to young people living up to america. you talk about martin luther king. they didn't want to listen to the naacp. important because they were winning cases but that was a

slow process. they were saying, we got to move faster. they said we are all separate but eqequal. these young people were saying the time is now. the time is right to do right. they forced king to be a militant. when king was arrested, he didn't plan to get arrested, but he did. >> but there were a lot of black older people you had courageous black people who were fighting for generations and you had

those people who had been beaten and killed and when they looked for good man cheney and swarner and they found them in the river, in the process, they found black people murdered and nobody new where they were. all of those unknown giants were nameless people fighting. but the young people in the south, in the 60s were the ones who forced the kennedy administration to do what was right. you mentioned the freedom

writers and how did a man say, if you got to go for freedom, sometimes you have to sit down. how does you go from there to be pushed, pushed, pushed to the freedom rides made him then move to do something in terms of k concrete legislation? >> it wasn't just the kennedys that had to be moved. the legislators had to be removed or moved and charlene -- i want to read the book. i'm sure i'll love it. >> oh, you will.

>> buy her book. >> i will buy it. >> the documentary has been shown. the freedom writers is an excellent movie. >> kennedy did. and sent a message saying. the new way you have shown that, the new way to stand up for your rights is to sit down. they learned the mississippi judge was a terrible mistake.

the president looked to him for civil rights. he looked to his brother robert. he liked very much dealing with the uncle of roger will kins. when i went to see the uncle. head of the naacp. roy willkins to support kennedy, don't let it take you all the way to lbj. he said if i'm honest, i will tell you that the one person that i think who has fire in his belly to end it is linden johnson. he said don't worry, my wife is not only a row nman catholic, b in love with john kennedy and wouldn't sleep with me if i

didn't support john kennedy. robert kennedy, marshal is the third key person for civil rights. one of the wisest people i ever knew. very concerned with making federalism work. and getting mr. greyhound to carry the buzz to the next stage and doing everything they could to get the police and local government. >> why was the freedom rider that violent? >> it was the sit in, the four little girls in birmingham being

killed, having an enormous impact. all of that changed them. to great disappointment in the first draft that we saw two days before. had no reference to civil rights. we didn't notice then. he had no reference to any domestic issue whatsoever. committed to human rights at home and around the world.

it was 24 hours before he spoke that he added at home. his main interest had been added to economic affairs. he had to i never had any doubt that he wanted segregation. and blood on too many occasions, huge historical fact. >> one quick thing. >> hold on. >> the media. >> one second. >> i have been a moderator too. >> hold on one second. >> i got to move this. we have questions here. i need to get something a couple of conclusions that need to be made here. so that people can follow this.

what you said is that he could move away from civil rights and foreign affairs. >> so did his brother for different reasons. so that people understand after the brutality was done to his freedom riders, this was put into place to push for the legislation. now you may speak. >> and this goes onto you, because i have to say that it was the young people and some of the older ones, but it was also media. it was still the cold war. and when those kids got on that bus and i have a picture of them in this book with the bus bur g

burning and them sitting on the road choking with the smell of smoke, that is when the world got involved in this. and that is when the foreign issue of again the cold war took place. and one final thing. they stick were reluctant to support those students. and it was the maneuvering of the kennedys and got the voter education project to fund a voter registration drive so that they could stop these embarrassing to them in the world activities of the movement and that is when some were

opposed to it. that is when the kennedys moved the civil rights activists into voter registration. it wasn't the same kind of overt demonstrations like you have with the freedom riders. you had the kennedy administration trying to look better in the eyes of the entire world. >> one more thing before you speak. and that was to put a button here. kennedy and johnson, when he pushed the civil rights legislation through, and then after he died it made it possible for johnson to push forward the 1965 voting rights act and the 64 civil rights act.

he had teed it up based on his cumulative understanding and the pressure on the streets. based on the understanding that there was a force to be dealt with as well. and now you may speak roger will kins. >> my mother told me there would be moments like this. don't be on a stage with colored women that is what she said. >> the point that i would like to make is inside, i don't think we start it often, but here we are down and dirty. john louis snick was beaten by

officers on horseback with things in their hands. and i always believed from those years that john was the bravest man that i had seen in my life with unbridled courage and a quiet man. not a big shot. and in a small meeting in the attorney general's office, his name was nicholas hasselback. i think he had been a professor

at chicago law school, the university of chicago, in any event, all of the leaders in the department who were involved at the time of this conversation took place because it was about the freedom riders about the kids being thrown into the prison in mississippi, it was the hard time. and the attorney general of the united states looked up and equipped you know some people say john has been hit on the head so many times he doesn't have any sense anymore. and some people who laughed i was the only black person in the

room. i said that is wrong. you can't say that or think that. these are american citizens and they want their rights. they are doing what they want to be doing and you shoutn't denigrate them that way. his pr man said to me, congratulations. i said for what? i didn't win nothing. he says, you got people discussing black people as human beings not as spectors out of the old books. so, it wasn't terrible.

but it wasn't easy either. and you had to go after it and after it hard. and you had to go after it to keep the faith. you had to keep the faith. and the government is not prepared to move on this kind of stuff. >> okay. um the incident in which john lewis was beaten on horseback was in alabama. he is now congressman john louis. i have some questions here.

to what would you attribute the level of comfortability displayed by both? >> well, one thing was that they came from boston, it is a place where white people were not comfortable around black people. and they were. it is hard to say why that is so. but, there are many things on which we can be less than satisfied with the early years of the kennedy administration.

and distinguish them from those in federal office. so, i don't know where it comes from. i would say robert kennedy probably felt it more. even at uva, he put himself out i think he had a confrantation over racial segregation. i think he clearly felt it. john kennedy felt it in a certain way too. that feeling that the ability to interact socially with black people was something that they

had. black people couldn't get served at the lunch counter was inconceivable to them. that is part of what moved the president to condemn segregation in the middle of 1963. i think you have to say that the difference, the change in robert kennedy was enormous by the murder of his brother. he became a different kind of person. and the one thing i'll say is this. i said to marion who was a black woman who was doing her civil rights work in mississippi. and when robert kennedy started running for senate, i don't know

what he was running for. but, she supported it. and i said marion, why did you support robert kennedy after the stuff you have had with it? she said roger, we were down in a poor place in mississippi that black people were so poor and the kids were dirty and they dim up and gave them water and she said i wouldn't do that and she said that is why i'm for him. and that is a good thing. >> is there not a dichotomy between those who are elected and people