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y politics from inside the loop. >>we tackle the big issues here in our nation's capital, around

the country and around the globe. >>dc columnist and four time emmy winner bill press opens current's morning news block. >>we'll do our best to carry the flag from 6 to 9 every morning. >> michael: the supreme court issued its historic brown versus board of education ruling in 1954, declaring segregated schools unconstitutional. but many southern states acted like it meant take your sweet time. in arkansas nine blacks were registered. they were picked because of their excellent academic

records, but when the first of the students showed up she was barred from entering the school on orders of the governor. he said . . . not falling for the pathetic argument, president eisenhower ordered federal troops into little rock. >> this challenge must be met, and they have lawfully protected rights in a climate permitting their free and fair exercise. >> michael: on september 24th paratroopers escorted the nine students to the school. they were screamed at and spat upon but they made it to school

that day and in the days that followed. the students became known as the little rock nine and they became a powerful symbol in the fight against discrimination. we are privileged to be joined by minniejean brown trickey. she was just 15 years old when she faced those mobs she continues to inspire people with her work now as a historian. >> thank you. i'm pleased to join you. >> michael: what do you remember about that first day of school? did you show up to school in a military vehicle? >> well, there were three almost first days of school. the first day we were turned away. the second we moved from the school because the mob was planning to storm the school, and then the 25th surrounded by the 101st airborne so that was

a very special day because i wasn't sure we would ever get in. but we did. >> michael: right. when you got there though did you see anyone from your community who was protesting? people you knew? any familiar faces? what exactly were they yelling? if you remember one thing that sort of hit home. >> kill them. integration is communism. integration is an abomination against god. the same phrases we here now and again for various reasons in our society. very frightening and awful and violent, mean-spirits things were being said. and lots of spit was flying and -- so it was pretty wild. >> michael: yeah, it had to have been. it's unimaginable to so many

people today, so many young americans. explain why it was so -- aside from the integration, let's talk about the schools themselves. what were the conditions like at central high compared to the schools you had attended previously in little rock. >> had gone to an all-black school. that was the way it worked so i hadn't ever been hated. i hadn't been mobbed or harassed or ridiculed, ever in my life. so it was quite a shock. i -- i didn't know that that was possible. i couldn't have imagined people thinking that way because i thought i'm smart. i'm beautiful. i'm talented. who couldn't like me? so it was quite surprising to me. and demoralizing. and horrific, and horrible and disappointing, and all of those

things. >> michael: and how close minijean did it come to breaking you? >> i think it probably did break me in a very surprising way. i was involved in a chile incident which we won't go into here, but there was a bit of paying me back for that, and i always assumed that breaking meant crying so we never cried, but i guess it turned out the way -- for me breaking meant getting mad and answering back, and i did that and for that i was expelled. so -- >> michael: you know -- >> it wasn't fair. >> michael: part of where we're doing this march goes on revisiting that period in american history is to teach it to younger people have people talk about it, and know some of the anecdotes that were so

unbelievable at that time. so i would love it if you would share that chile incident with us. >> well, i'm going to do a little more than share the chile story, i'm going to express my disappointment that the whole story is not known and when i work with young people or am with young people, which is what i like doing best they are very thrilled to hear the stories about young people leading -- in fact leading so much of though civil rights movement, and their fascinated and encouraged and inspired. so let's talk about the chile and get that over with. the chilly involved two boys slamming against me in the cafeteria, and although in every media it says i dumped a bowl of chile on a dude's head. however, i dropped the

chilly -- the tray the cutlery the whole thing, and it landed on two boys and for that i was suspended. but you don't know about the three chile or soup incidents against me. so we only tell the part of the story. we leave out quite a lot, and that disturbs me and that is unfair to our young people. because little rock is an inspirational story, about self determination of young people, and we do them a disservice by not telling them about it. because they long to know. >> michael: let's keep talking to the young people, because one of the people that always strikes me and i think a lot of young people when they see children in the face of adversity -- one of the things that always struck me about this is who goes back the next day?

what was it in you, that after that first day, said i'm going to go right back in there and keep my head up high. what can young people learn about that? >> well, i -- i think what i say is that we have it in us to do hard things; that we are much more capable than we give ours credit for and little rock desegregation crisis inspired the world, and it -- it -- it's very easy to go back to resist hatred, opposition. it's a very -- we have that capability, so i -- i see the little rock story as very -- both -- i see it as a positive story, because it is about persistence of the human spirit. it's about what we can do; what we must do when things call upon us to change. so i think it's a great story,

and i regret greatly that it's so minimized in the united states history text books, and it requires a good teacher, but it's the complete united states text, constitution, courts mob violence segregation, all are things that we do have done and continue to do so obviously it's a valuable story. >> michael: yeah, and we're going to continue hearing this story, and i'm going to let you minijean when we come back from the break, tell us a little bit about the part that you think is under taught, and how we can change that and how we can get people to continue learning. we'll take a quick break and then we'll have more with minniejean brown trickey after this. >> "viewpoint" digs deep into bs'ing them with some hidden agenda, actually supporting one party or the other. when the democrats are wrong, they know that i'm going to be the first one to call them out. they can

question whether i'm right, but i think that the audience gets that this guy, to the best of his ability, is trying to look out for us. >> "viewpoint" digs deep into the issues of the day. >> has the time finally come for real immigration reform? >> with a distinctly satirical point of view. if you believe in state's rights but still believe in the drug war you must be high. >> only on current tv.

you know who is coming on to me now? you know the kind of guys that do reverse mortgage commercials? those types are coming on to me all the time now. (vo) she gets the comedians laughing and the thinkers thinking. >>ok, so there's wiggle room in the ten commandments, that's what you're saying. you would rather deal with ahmadinejad than me. >>absolutely. >> and so would mitt romney. (vo) she's joy behar. >>and the best part is that current will let me say anything. what the hell were they thinking?

>> michael: we call our series the march goes on because we're here reminding everybody about everything that happened in the 50s and 60s during the civil right's movement. and what we can to do to continue that, so the march does go on. minniejean brown trickey joining us, she was one of the gang of nine welcome back. minijean you appeared in the hbo documentary, little rock central. how did you feel when you were back there? were you satisfied with the progress? >> well, i . . . i -- you know little rock is the symbol for the country. so as much as there's a level of

segregation at central high school, that's part of the american way so let's not indict central for what is one of our primary ways of being in our nation. it's desegregated for sure. integrated? maybe not. but i think, you know, the idea is that social change is propet pro -- perpetual. it goes on forever. we have on obligation to continue what we really want in the final -- maybe forever from now, so little rock is in process as well as many other places. but the supreme court is turning back the first for desegregation. it's a hard road. it's a hard road. so central is symbolic in its way, but it's also a -- a true picture, just as it was 55 years

ago. we didn't know who we were as a nation. central showed us, and we -- i hope we learned from that. so let us continue to learn from what we see, what we experience every day.% >> michael: yeah, and that's what this -- this conversation is about in many ways. you are essentially a teacher to all of us. we're all your students because of the way you lived your life at that time. what is it that american youth, children, and students at any level are not learning? the one thing you want them most to know about 1957? >> well, that it was a dramatic struggle. i mean you can teach united states history, civil -- any possible thing about american history with little rock because it has all of the components. it has the constitutional components, the legal aspects,

but it also has the human components. silent witnesses the ellie rozzell concept whereby many of the white students stood by and said and did nothing. those who were the primary fertilizers, and the 20 good kids. we need to know that we are similar and different in so many ways, and that we have to look somehow at the past so we stop making the same mistakes. from '71 central high school was more than a half sentry ago, but it has permanent lessons for us so when i talk to young people they find this story fascinating, because it speaks to their experiences now. it speaks to the things they are

puzzled about. it speaks to the things they want to change. so it's a -- i think it's an amazing, wonderful event in the united states history. and it can resinate. i mean i see it resinating. we have epidemic bullying. well that's the bullying story to look at. >> michael: right. >> what do you do? how do you respond? what are -- how do we stop it? how do we change it? so it just -- i'm fascinated by the teenagers who are the little rock nine have great admiration for them, the older i get, because i understand it better what they were up against, and how they persevered so i want -- when -- when i meet with young people, i say -- i know who you are, because i know who i was. you are bright. you are worried.

you have problems you don't know how to solve. so you are not fooling me that you're not interested in learning. and that really changes things and they respond to me in a way that i'm really happy about. >> michael: yeah well, everybody -- everybody's education should start -- or should at least stop at a place like little rock and to learn about all that you did, minijean with -- the nine of you did. thank you for sharing your story. and we hope you continue sharing. minniejean brown trickey from vancouver. up next did fdr do enough to prevent the holocaust? it's the subject of alan lichtman's latest book. the chill of peppermint. the rich dark chocolate. york peppermint pattie

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>> michael: few presidents have had a more profound and lasting impact on the word that franklin delano roosevelt. his new deal is credited for getting america out of the great depression and laying the foundation for social welfare. but if argue that fdr should have done far more to protect jews fleeing nazi germany. joining us now is the man who quite literally wrote the book on this, presidential historian allan lichtman.

he joining us from washington, d.c. where he is a professor of american university. welcome. was he in any way anti-semitic. >> he was not anti-semitic. now most people of his class certainly had some degree of anti-semitism. but fdr's father did business with jews counseled him against bigotry. his mom was involved in charity work. in her 80s she traveled to give a talk to hadasa. she won a medal for her work. he was certainly not anti-semitic although from time to time he could talk loosely

given the anti-semitism that was so rooif during the 1930s and 40s. >> michael: yours isn't the first book on the subject. many have taken a more accuser to tone. why is your book more forgiving? >> i think the problem with books like that and many others is they tend to read history backwards. in light of what we know today, and believe today, rather than attempting to recover the contemporary meaning of history at the time and that's where our book differs from other books on fdr and the jews. we're not uncritical but present an balanced view, which shows at times fdr truly did not

do what he could for persecuted jews, but at other times he was very active for developing measures for rescuing jewish ref few gees. of course he did not do everything possible. but he was far better for the jews than his political opposition at home which was isolationalist, opposed to america entering the wars and he did far more than any other world leader of his time including prime minister winston churchill who talked big but did little and his government tightly restricted jewish immigration to palestine during the war. >> michael: yeah, a lot of being

president is about playing defense. it's about what you aren't. people even today who complain about barack obama, if there was president romney right now, the complaints would be of a totally different nature. so that always fascinates me. my father always used to say he didn't understand why america and the allies didn't just bomb the railroad tracks going to the concentration camps. that addressed in your book? >> it is very much addressed in our book. and you read that quote about fdr. jews revered fdr at the time. they voted for him in overwhelming numbers even after the horrors of the concentration camp were revealed they still loved fdr. they understood his limitations, but they understand how much better he was for the jews. this issue of bombing the rail

lines was not an issue at the time. it became an issue decades later with critical books like the abandonment of the jews. the problem was the rail lines could be repaired almost instantly in a matter sometimes of hours certainly of days. the problem with bombing the death camps were you would have killed jews, and a lot of jewish leaders didn't want jewish blood on american hands. moreover, even if you had put out the rail lines, even if you had put out auschwitz this was very late in the war, 1944. the bulk of the jews had sadly already died. the germans were infinitely resourceful when it came to killing jews.

they killed hundreds of thousands of jews before they opened the death camps and killed hundreds of thousands of jews after the death camps were closed down. one of the tragedies of human history is that the nazis, the killing of jews was not a diversion from the war, but a primary aim of the war. just yeah, it's an amazing amazing story. tell me this you know, you wrote this book with a co-writer. roosevelt left a pretty thin paper trail. how do you go about researching something like this? >> richard brightman is a great historian of the holocaust, i'm an american and presidential historian, and we had to scour manuscripts all over the country, because you have to

find out about fdr through other sources, through people who knew him well. and as the reviewer in the "new york times" put it we did a mountain of research. >> michael: i can only imagine. most guys would rather have a beer with lebron james. i would rather have a beer with len kasper. thanks so much.

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[ ♪ theme music ♪ ] >> cenk: you know how from time to time i tell you we're going to have an awesome show?

well, this time we're really going to have an awesome show. i've got a panel that i'm so excited about its ridiculous. so welcome to "the young turks." look at this, david sirota, now