attorney general for civil rights. one of the wisest people i ever knew. was very cautious, very concerned with making federalism work. as you know, if you followed the dealings with governor wallace on the dealings with the governor of mississippi, and getting the -- mr. greyhound to carry the bus to the next stage and seeing it through, and seeing the -- all the force of the federal government through. they did everything they could to get the local police and the local government to -- >> harris, why was the freedom rider that violent? why was that such -- >> it isn't just the freedom riders, it's all the sit-ins. it's the four little girls in birmingham being killed. it had an enormous impact. it's the fire hoses and the birmingham experience. all of that changed them from not having civil rights as a top priority.

john kennedy's draft of the -- of his inaugural address, after this campaign, to the great disappointment of louie martin and me and many others, in the first draft that we saw two days before he gave it, had no reference to civil rights. now, we didn't notice then, because we were focused on civil rights. he had no reference to any domestic issue whatsoever, until louie martin and i got two words added at the last minute. "at home." the quote we heard at the beginning of the day, we're going to support, committed to human rights at home and around the world. it was about 24 hours before he spoke that he added "at home."

his main interest in life until then had been foreign affairs. wrote a book about it in 1920 why england slept. i never had any doubt that he wanted to end segregation, but i had plenty of doubt as to what priority he would put until the protest movement in blood on too many occasions stirred him, which is a huge historical fact. >> i've got a couple of -- >> one quick thing. >> i've got a question -- >> the media. i've been a moderator, too. >> give me one second. i'm going to let you say it, but hold on one second. i've got to move this, because we've got questions here. i need to get a couple of conclusions that need to be made here so people can follow this. one is that, so what you have said is he came cumulatively, after all these incidents happened to move toward civil rights, moving away from foreign affairs as his priority. i understand that. >> so did his brother. >> got that. all right. >> but for different reasons. >> let me just finish.

okay? so that people who don't know the history understand, that after the brutality was made on the freedom riders, is when he made his famous speech to america saying this is a moral issue. the first time a president said that. this is a moral issue. this then put into place the push for legislation. now you may speak. >> it follows on to you, because i have to say that it was the activism of the young people and some of the older ones, but it was also media. because it was the -- and this is what -- and you see it goes back to this foreign thing. it was still the cold war. and when those kids got on that bus -- and i have a picture of them in this book -- [ laughter ] -- with the bus burning, and then sitting on the road choking to death from the smoke, it was the first time that the international media got onto this story. and that's when the world got

involved in this. and that's where the foreign issue of, again, the cold war took place. and one final thing, and i'm finished. they still were reluctant to support those students, and it was the maneuvering of the kennedys, they secretly got the voter education project to fund a voter registration drive so that they could stop these embarrassing to them and the world activities of the movement, and although some of snik was very much opposed to it, but that's when the kennedys moved the civil rights activists over into voter registration. and you still had a lot of violence, but it wasn't the same kind of overt demonstrations like you have with the freedom riders and the sit-ins.

so you still had the kennedy administration slowly being -- trying to manipulate something to their advantage so that they would look better in the eyes of the entire world over and against the soviet union and communism. >> one more thing before you speak, roger wilkins. and that is just to put a button here to follow the history because it has said, kennedy and johnson, we have not mentioned his name, in passing, is that to say that when he pushed the civil rights in 1964 legislation through -- >> johnson you're talking about? >> no, kennedy. and then after he died, it made it possible then for president johnson to be able to push forward the 1965 voting rights act, and the '64 civil rights act, he had teed it up, in other words, at that point, based on his cumulative understanding of what was happening, based on the pressure from the streets andbased on the inside pressure from the administration, based on the understanding that there was an

international force to be dealt with as well? and now you may speak, roger wilkins. [ laughter ] >> my mother told me there would be moments like this. [ laughter ] "don't be on a stage with colored women" that's what she said. [ laughter ] but the point that i would like to make is, that from inside, i don't tell the story often, but here we are in the down and dirty, so i'm going to tell you something. john lewis of snik was beaten by officers on horseback and trudgens in their hands. and they really beat him.

and i always believed from those years that john was the bravest man i'd ever seen in my life. with just unbridled courage. and a quiet man. not a flash, not a big shot. and at a small meeting in the attorney general's office, the attorney general's name was nicholas belleville katzenbach. i think he had been a professor at chicago law school, university of chicago. in any event, all the leaders in the department of justice who

were involved in race at the time this conversation took place, because it was about the freedom riders, it was about kids thrown into parchment prison in mississippi. it was the hard time. and the attorney general of the united states looked up and quipped, well, you know, some people say that john's been hit on the head so many times, he just doesn't have any sense anymore. and there were some people who tattered and laughed. i was the only black person in the room. and i said, nick, that's just wrong. that is just -- you can't say that, and you can't think that. these are american citizens. they want their rights. they're doing what americans should do.

and you shouldn't denigrate them that way. oh, i didn't mean it, roger. i didn't mean it. and as we were walking out, his pr man said to me, congratulations. i said, congratulations for what? i didn't win nothing in there. he said, you got black people -- you got nick to discuss black people as human beings, not as legal specters out of the old books. it wasn't terrible in the administration, but it wasn't easy either. and you really had to go after it, and you had to go after it hard.

and you had to go after it to keep the faith with ernie. i didn't know ernie. well, i did, too, a little bit. but i didn't know ernie. you had to keep the faith. brave children. and the united states government is not prepared to move all forces on this kind of stuff? so, period. >> okay. the incident in which john lewis was beaten on horseback was in selma, alabama. it was the voting rights campaign. he is now congressman john lewis, for those who don't know. i have some questions here, beginning with professor mack. you noted that both president and robert kennedy were comfortable around african-americans. to what would you a tribute the level of comfortability displayed by both, especially robert kennedy, who often rallied in urban neighborhoods and traveled to south africa, et cetera?

>> one thing, not to discount about both the president and his brother, is that they came from boston. needless to say, it was a place where there were many white people who were not comfortable around black people. that would be an understatement. and they were. it's hard to say why that's so. but there are many things in which we can be maybe less than satisfied with the early years of the kennedy administration. but that's one thing that distinguished them from many people who were around them here in massachusetts. and certainly distinguished them from most of the predecessors in federal office. so i don't know where it comes from. i would say robert kennedy probably felt it more.

back to the time when he was -- he went to the law school at the university of virginia, of course, which was a southern law school and i think he had a confrontation, i think it was the president of the university over racial segregation at the university of virginia. so i think robert kennedy clearly felt it. john kennedy felt it in a certain way, too. and even though they didn't always do as much as they might have, that feeling that the ability to interact socially with black people was something that they had. and they thought it was a moral issue. that black people couldn't get served at a lunch counter. it just seemed inconceivable to them. and certainly that's part of what finally moved the president to condemn segregation in moral terms in the middle of 1963. >> i think you also have to say

that the difference -- the change in robert kennedy was enormous. made enormous by the murder of his brother. he really became a different kind of person. and the one thing i'll say, as i said to marion elman, who was a black woman who was doing very good civil rights movement in mississippi. when robert kennedy started running for the senate -- i don't remember what he was running for, but she supported him. marion supported him. and i said, marion, why do you support robert kennedy after all the stuff we've had with him?

she said, roger, we were down in a very poor place, a poor black place in mississippi. the black people were so poor, and the kids were dirty and they were -- they just kind of were gooey. and he came in there, and he walked around and he picked up those children and he patted their heads and he gave them water and he held them to his chest. she said, i wouldn't do that. she said, and that's why i'm for him. and when marion said that, that's a good thing. >> is there not a dichotomy between those who have many responsibilities and who must be elected, i.e., presidents, and those who are pushing the issues, i.e., the ghandis, as those championing as those you would want them to? >> the answer is yes.

i was present when kennedy -- you know the joke about franklin roosevelt being persuaded, some big move needed to be made, and he said, i agree with you completely. now go out and force me to do it. >> that's a good one. >> kennedy didn't say that. i was present when he gave the bad news in a private session with king. that they would not be introducing civil rights legislation in the first congress, contrary to the platform. and it was a major moment. and for a long time they argued reasonably. king never made kennedy comfortable. roy wilkins did, though roy wilkins may have pushed harder than king did. it was a remarkable exchange on just the point you made. kennedy said, look, we know there's no chance for the bill to move. the southern opponents have far,

far more votes to keep a filibuster. and make it impossible to pass. to push it now would lose our capital for the civil rights idea, and for ourselves. it doesn't make sense. so we need to do everything we can do to short of legislation. and king pressed for a new emancipation proclamation that would be across the board, a set of actions of the boldest kind. and kennedy wasn't ready for it. when we left, kennedy said -- i mean, martin luther king, as we went out of the white house grounds, he said, you know, i had hoped that he was going to be the president that had the understanding to understand this problem. the political skill to solve it. and the moral passion and urgency to see it through. and he said, i'm really convinced that he's got the

first two. and we'll have to see about the last one. and hamilton -- alexander hamilton said the constitution wasn't adopted because of the argument of the federalists, it was adopted because of the harsh logic of events. and you could say that the kennedys started way down toward ground zero in terms of understanding, or commitment to priority to civil rights. by the time john was killed, and even far more, by the time robert kennedy was killed, they were way up there. and they were committed in ways that no president had really been on the firing line committed before. but there was a thing in that administration that really -- in the beginning, they were dumb. i mean, just really almost ignorant. now, wait, wait. >> i think so, too.

>> they thought -- they started talking to me, but they thought i was roy's kid. they didn't know roy didn't have any kids, and that i was roy's nephew. so they'd send messages to roy. and i have to say, johnson tried it, too. and they came to me, and they said, why are they doing this stuff in birmingham? and kids are out of school, and getting beat on heads -- cops beating them. and so a major kennedy domestic issue and civil rights guy came

to me very quietly at a party. i barely knew him. and he said, is there any way to talk to roy wilkins -- he said, your father, to get them to stop this in birmingham? he said to me, he said, it's a terrible thing. it's a terrible thing to put those kids in the street. and they should be in school. i said, you know something? these kids are learning self-involvement. they are learning that they can control their own world. they are changing the world. and it's more than any lesson they will ever treat those kids in those crummy segregated schools that they prepare for them.

i'm telling you, that was the way they were. [ applause ] >> so let me ask a question -- hold on one second. let me ask this question then. because i've got to get lyndon johnson's name in this conversation. okay. before we end, and we're at the end, and that is, is it fair or accurate then that lyndon johnson receives, i would say most of the credit for civil rights -- i don't want to say hero, but president associated, affiliated with civil rights, if president kennedy, however dumb he was at the beginning, came around at the end and teed up this legislation? is that accurate and fair? >> no. i want to say that kennedy -- if it was anything, he wasn't dumb. but on this issue, chris matthews' book, i recommend you'll see that he stresses how irish he was. it was not southern legislators primarily that slowed them, or made them very cautious. it was their assessment of what the white backlash in the north and west -- >> we're going to see that. i want you to answer my question

about lyndon johnson. >> lyndon johnson, when he signed the first civil rights johnson was wonderful. he deserves the most total respect for the achievement of piloting it through. kennedy was scared and south boston's reaction to segregation was not quite as violent as birmingham but it was shocking and they liked lincoln about emancipation proclamation. i think it's not fair to the responsiveness of the kennedys. johnson was wonderful, but he coasted on the tragedy of kennedys with all of his skill, he deserves the most respectful

achievement for piloting it through but it was all those events that happened before including the kennedy's commitment. >> roger if you would answer it and then i want kenneth to answer that. we are at the end, so i'll ask you to be brief and pithy. >> recap your question. >> is it fair and accurate, or accurate or both, that lyndon johnson pretty much gets the credit for being the civil rights president on legislation, or that was teed up by the kennedys, some would say? >> when lyndon johnson became president, it happened that my uncle was with me in washington. and he said, this is going to be good. i said, are you kidding me? what do you mean it's going to be good? old southern guy, he talks all that southern talk. i said, that guy is not going to be -- roy said, you're wrong. you're just wrong.

this man cares. i've worked with him through the civil rights bill that we got, the first one since the civil war, and his heart was in it, his spirit was in it. he cares, roger. he cares. you're wrong. my uncle rarely said you're wrong. because i says, beloved brother's only kid. he was really sweet to me, but he said, you're wrong. this man cares. he's got a heart. and he can be pretty mean to get what he wants. >> so it is fair that he should be called the civil rights president? >> i think it's very fair. i think he really cared. >> kenneth mack? >> i would say it's fair, but i would say for slightly different reasons. johnson was a political pragmatist like kennedy. and i don't think that if johnson had gotten the nomination in 1960, that he would have moved with any more dispatch with kennedy.

johnson took office at a different time. i would give johnson credit, though, for his legislative acumen. i mean, he had experience in the senate that kennedy did not. and of course, as most people know, it took a lot of work to get the '64 act through. you had to get it out of the house without it getting amended to death in ways that would cause it to not pass. and you had to get it through the senate, where no filibuster had ever been broken with the closure of motion. you had to accomplish that. and johnson worked tirelessly behind the scenes to accomplish that. he met with richard russell immediately upon taking office and said, russell, i'm going to

run over you. kennedy never said that. so i would give johnson credit, not for an additional commitment, because i don't know that his commitment was any greater than the kennedys, but i think for having the legislative acumen to get the thing passed. and it was really, really hard to get the thing passed. five months of debate to get it through. and nothing else was going to be considered while this thing was being considered. and johnson did it. >> i think -- >> roger, if i may. we're at the end. and i want charlayne hunter-gault's voice to be the last on this. i want you to answer the question from the audience. this person writes, i read your book many years ago and was moved by your story. how did what happened to you shape your decision in years to come and shape your career? >> it's all in this book. [ laughter ] but on lyndon johnson, i will say -- no, it shaped me -- i couldn't be an activist as a

journalist, but i could be a passionate reporter for the things that i was seeing, and at the time that i entered, black people were portrayed in ways that were unrecognizable to themselves. and throughout my career, i have tried to portray all people in ways that are recognizable to themselves. now, on lyndon johnson, very quickly, in my book, it's written for young readers. those of you in this audience, it's for you to understand everything that we've been talking about. because there isn't anything that we've talked about today that isn't in here. but it's in your -- in terms that you can understand. and there is lyndon johnson's speech, which is a wonderful piece of oratory when he passed the civil rights act. and i would encourage you to go back and read it, because you'll get some sense of the heart that he put into it. because this wasn't a speech that was put together by a committee. he wrote it. and so i think to go to your point, he believed in this.

but he was also, like all of these politicians, you've got to realize, politics is about reale politic. you can read that word, you can google it. you >> thank you all to my panel.