welcome to amanpour on pbs. we're looking back at some of our favorite interviews this year. tonight, this past spring the world marked 50 years since martin luther king junior's assassination. we asked as racism rears its ugly head again, what will it take to rekindle his dream? a former obama official who helped launch a mentoring initiative for young black men and a civil rights activist joined us. the publisher of dr. king's papers, claiborne carson.

good evening, everyone, and welcome to the program. 50 years ago, on the balcony of the lorraine hotel in memphis, a man who dedicated his life to non-violent protest was brutally assassina assassinated. martin luther king junior, cut down at the age of just 39. and just a day after he delivered his final and prophetic speech in which he worried about his own survival and that of his movement. >> i've looked over, and i've seen the promise land. i may not get there with you, but i walk to the northern nights that we as a people will get to the promise land. so i'm happy tonight.

i'm not worried about anything. i'm not fearing any man. mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord. >> indeed, in the 50 years since his death there has been progress in black america. there is a black middle class and the country has elected its first black president. and then came this anguished reaction on the night of donald trump's election by the renowned political commentator van jones. >> this was a white lash. this was a white lash against a changing country. it was a white lash against a black president, in part. and that's the part where the pain comes. >> dramatic words, indeed. a year before he was killed, martin luther king junior worried that the vast majority of white americans are racist, either consciously or unconsciously. my two guests tonight are well placed to discuss all of this.

william juwondo who workedn the obama white house on the initiative called my brother's keeper, designed to help young black men climb up the ladder of life. and he is now running for local office in his home state maryland. and also brie newsome. she removed the confederate flag from the grounds of the south carolina state house. she's a civil rights activist and she's with us from memphis where she's been attending the commemoration for dr. king. welcome both of you to the program on this 50th anniversary, which is actually a sad day. can i ask you, brie, what it means to you to be a black american today? you heard us quote what dr. king said a year before he died. >> there are some things that are new and then there are some things that are very familiar in the history of america. we have a long history in this country of taking two steps forward and one step back. we have seen progress with the

election of the nation's first black president. but we have also seen steps taken backwards. mass incarceration, incident after incident of police brutality. so these are the same conditions that are contributing to what we see now. in some ways they there aare ne what is old is new is again. >> first you, you worked in the obama white house, the first black president. it stunned everybody. it was a moment of great hope. you heard what van jones said on the night that president trump probably even surprised himself by winning. this was a white lash he thought. given your experience in the white house and now, what does it mean to you? what does it mean to be black in america today? >> to be black in america is to know that you are in a precarious situation in that freedoms that have been recently won or acquired or progress that

had been made can be taken away in an instant. think of the post-civil war reconstruction period where you had state senators and congressmen who were african-american and how that was snatched away violently so through lynching and through jim crow laws and segregation. so the step backwards that brie was talking about is really the story of being black in america. so you have to remain vigilant. you have to remain aware. and i remember i was working in ohio when president obama was elected on the campaign and i was so elated. we won ohio. we knew we had won the presidency. i walked outside and a middle-aged white person was talking his trash down the driveway and said, i guess racism is over now. kind of disgruntled. so i knew even then that we were going to have a tough time ahead. that's really what it is to be black in america. so be sober, understand history and to keep pushing forward even

when you have some success. >> so let's take this excerpt of a speech dr. king made about a year before he was assassinated. these are pointed comments he ma made about the state of blaks in america. >> let us be dissatisfied until the tragic laws that separate the outer city of wealth of comfort from the inner city of poverty and despair shall be crushed by the battering rams of the fortunes of justice. let us be dissatisfied until the dark yesterdays of segregated schools will be transformed into bright tomorrows of quality integrated education. let us be dissatisfied. until men and women however black they may be will be judged on the basis of the content of their character, not on the basis of the color of their skin. let us be dissatisfied.

>> it's really an amazing rallying cry. brie, you mentioned the issue of segregation. new reports today show that the promise of brown versus broad of education, linda brown the center of this, the little black girl died last month. yet we hear reports that schools are going back to segregation in parts of the south. >> yes, absolutely. in my hometown of charlotte, north carolina, which at one point was really heralded for its efforts to bus students and to integrate the school, what we now see is our school system is as segregated as it was in the 1960s. i think it's important to recognize that as soon as legal segregation ended, it wasn't as though everyone embraced this idea of integration. there were people who moved forward with that effort. but there's always been a consistent effort to re-segregate. what we have in many ways is a de facto segregation. i think sometimes it's a false understanding of what happened in the '60s if we think it ended

in victory and that everything that we are dealing with now is simply reaping the benefit of the '60s civil rights movement. >> i want to pick up on the issue of economic justice. the i have a dream speech in washington was as much about economic dreams that martin luther king had as about integration. i was stunned -- i was stunned by the contents of a recent report that suggest that even a young black man who -- a boy who grows up in a well to do black family, living next door to a well to do white family, despite the father or the parents' wealth, that boy -- particularly boy, is likely to end up poorer than his white neighbor. >> if you are in 99% of american communities, if you are a black boy, you are going to have a consistent and persistent income gap from your white male peer,

even if you were born with the same economic circumstances. if you were born in the top 1% of families, as an african-american boy, you have just as much likelihood of being incarcerated as a white boy born in a household making $36,000. if you are a millionaire black boy, your chances of being incarcerated are the same as a white boy that has $36,000. you are just as likely to fall out of the top income bracket as you are to stay if you are an african-american boy. just stunning data. it's also -- once you control, for every other circumstance of the excuses that have been used, family structure, household income, level of education, when you control for all those things, that gap is still there. it shows us in really stark terms the legacy of institutional racism and discrimination. >> just to -- not to put too fine a point on it, but basically paul ryan the house speaker maintains anyone could work their way up out of their

situation. this is not a race thing. it's a poor thing. poverty knows no racial boundaries. but this study in fact does debunk that theory. >> it does. it's something that we as african-americans knew for a long time, because we experienced it. this puts hard data in that if you take a white boy and black boy from the same income bracket, same level of education, same circumstances, there's going to be a consistent income gap of 10 points or more all the way up the economic ladder. i was fortunate, i'm one of the rare -- i'm in the 1% of african-american boys that made it from the bottom to the top. i'm a rare story. we need to make sure that we are changing policy so that i'm not such a rare story. >> so brie, you really came to prominence when you decided to remove the confederate flag from the state capital in south carolina. this was after dillon roof shot up a church full of black worshipers. what gave you the courage to do

that that? you recited the lord's prayer as you were being arrested. was there anything of dr. king yes, absolutely.mind at that in the lead up to the time that i scaled the pole, of course, i was aware of the dangers that i faced, really even more so than being arrested, my primary concern was a vinl lgilante com by with a gun. i reflected very much so on king, on non-violent civil disobedience, on the courage it took for everyone who participated in that movement to do what they did. and i also recognize that the rights that i have today i wouldn't enjoy were it not for people who exercised the courage they exercised in the times in which they lived. for me, it was very important to make that statement at that time. there was south carolina processing the casket through the streets of columbia, south carolina, the united states flag was at half-staff. the state flag of south carolina was at half-staff.

the confederate flag was at the top of the pole. that moment just incap sue lat d ed everything when we said black lives matter. part of why i became involved in the modern movement, i grew up in a very solidly middle class family household. i'm the third generation in my family to graduate from college. what i recognized, however, when the u.s. supreme court struck down voting rights in 2013, when i saw the trayvon martin case unfold was there was no level of education, no level of income that could protect me or my child from being the next trayvon martin. >> the violence, the latest is stephon clark in california. you heard from the white house, i believe, they called it a local matter. the press spokeswoman at the white house. i guess william, i want to ask

you. it really matters to boys. i hear and i read these chilling reports that fathers have to have the conversation with their kids as young as 11 years old, how to behave in white neighbors or if you go past white law enforcement. you are the father of girls. but was that conversation ever had to you and the fact that it's still necessary is terrifying? >> that's a conversation that every black parent has with their child or parent of black children has with their child. boy or girl. it's something that's going to need to be continued, unfortunately, for a long time. dr. king said the soul of the nation cannot be redeemed until we irreradicated racism in all

for forms. when we are dealing with these police-involved shootings, when we deal with economic justice issues and wide disparities between black boys and their white male counterparts, these are all velegacies of slavery. these conversations need to happen continually in black households, and they will. we're going to need to make sure that we're continuing dr. king's mission, continuing to put policies in place that get at the heart of these types of things. we're not helpless to this. it's implicit bias training required and necessary for law enforcement officers who when they see a black boy are much quicker to pull their gun from data and research than they are to seeing a white boy. there are things we can do. we're not helpless to the data. one of the things that was in the report we talked about earlier is that one of the bright spots, even though that 99% of america, black boys do worse economically than white

boys, we learned even if you don't have a father at the home, which was my case for my early live, if you have mentor-like figures in the community, you benefit and have a better chance of moving up the economic ladder. that's why programs like my brother's keeper, which i was proud to kick off at white house and be a part of are so important. >> what do you make of the anger amongst the black community, the black lives matter community after the shooting at parkland when a white school was -- mostly white school was targeted in a mostly white neighborhood and there was a mass mobilization, huge amounts of celebrity money pledged, marches and all the rest of it? emma gonzalez has reached out and spoken about, yes, how we need to both be in this together, both communities. how does that sit with you, brie? >> i think it's important to recognize, anger is often a secondary emotion to hurt. i think that what many of the black lives matter protesters

have been expressing is a deep sense of hurt. what has been expressed by young people, not only black lives matter protests, but even black youth have been protesting over the issue of gun violence in their communities, protesting over this issue for years, has nothing to do with the students in parkland. they completely empathize with the students in parkland. what they are speaking to is how pervasive racism is, that racism is so pervasive it man fiifestsr how people show empathy. another example is the bombings in austin. we had a white terrorist sending bombs through packages in the mail. there seemed to be as much or maybe even more empathy for the terrorist than for the black victims. again, it's really just highlighting the pervasive really insidious nature of racism in america. >> and if i could chime in on that, just because brie is hitting such an important point.

the racism is so embedded into every institution in this country, just give you two examples. when tamir rice was shot, within ten seconds of a police officer pulling up to him, the officer called in, we just shot 18-year-old with a gun. tamir was 14 years old. there is data from the american psychological association that shows that when people see young black boys, they think they are four to five years older than what they are. they think they are a threat. they think they are dangerous. i will give you another example. the opioid crisis that's going on in this country right now, african-americans have not been as affected. it's actually -- because of racism, we're not doing as bad in this indicator. partly because it's shown that doctors, because of the lack of empathy that we are talking about, prescribe painkillers to african-americans at a lower rate. they have not gotten hooked to some of the opioids because they think that we have a higher tolerance for pain, there's less

empathy. so the racism, the stereotypes that have been pervasive and are a part of a legacy of slave trade to today are so embedded into our system that we have much, much, much more work to do to break those things down and make sure that we're moving forward and understanding our biases. >> much work to do. thank you so much to both of you on this anniversary. thank you so much for joining me. >> thank you. >> thank you for having us. martin luther king's famous dream for america resonated all over the world. indeed, many said the dream died with him, that awful night, april 4, 1968. when news of the assassination reached robert f. kennedy, who was campaigning for the presidency over in indianapolis, he knew that he would have to try to keep the peace. so he went to a black neighborhood there to share their grief and try to inspire hope that the dream was still possible. here is some of what he said

that night. >> it is not the end of violence. it is not the end of lawlessness and it's not the end of disorder. but the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land. >> do they though, all these years later? we turn to the historian and professor of american history claiborne carson. he was at the speech on the mall in washington when he was just 19. later, king's widow asked him to publish his papers. he joins us from stanford university. welcome to the program, professor. >> good to be with you. >> i just wonder what goes through your mind all these years later as you heard those words of robert f. kennedy, you know, 50 years later. >> i think that for me, it was

hearing the same news. there was a deep sense of loss. i had actually left the country in 1967 for a variety of reasons. but partially because i refused to be inducted into the military. so when i came back in 1968, it was a shock, because just within days of getting back in the states, martin luther king was assassinated and then back in las vegas, a couple of months later, robert kennedy himself was assassinaassassinated. so, it seemed that i was returning to a country that was coming apart. and it was a shock. the years that followed were an indication of how much hadn't changed because of civil rights reforms.

the areas i was in, these reforms had very little impact. there was still segregation, lack of jobs, poverty. so i think that in some respects, the passage of civil rights legislation made us complacent about the parts of martin luther king's dream that hadn't been achieved. >> just walk me through -- you were 19 as i said when that famous speech on the washington mall took place. you were there. and then how did martin luther king's widow choose you to gather, edit and publish his papers? >> well, when i entered the historical profession, i wanted to focus on the question of, how does change take place. and i wrote a book called "in struggle" about the emergence of

grass-roots activism in the '50s and '60s in the south. i was a bit surprised when she called and asked me to edit martin luther king's papers. i had emphasized the bottom up approach. he, of course, was the main national leader of the movement. after talking with her, she had heard about me from another historian who was her adviser. she felt that because of my background of being in the movement, studying the movement for civil rights reform in the 1960s, that would i would be an appropriate person to look at martin luther king. for me it was telling the other part of the story. >> i want you to talk about another part of the story. that is, we read, of course, that towards the end of his life, there was pressure from the more militant side of the black rights movement and that

at one point, dr. king, who was a committed integrationist, had said temporary separatism. tell me about that and how serious was he about that as a cure for what wasn't happening in the integration front? >> the thing i discovered about martin luther king that is most important is how consistent he was throughout his life. i don't think he ever went over to being a separatist. he was simply saying that we have to recognize the reality of that many black people are segregated. his own organization was an organization primarily of black baptist ministers. the churches that they pastored were pretty much black churches. they had very few white members. that was a matter of history and choices.

and i think that's still the case. he pointed out that sunday morning is most segregated hour in american society. we have to look at american society as it really is. he was trying to make it into something that was his ideal of -- last book he wrote was, "where do we go from here, chaos or community"? he wrote that after the passage of civil rights laws. decide to bea nation, we have to a community and really come together. that's what he meant by integration. it was not just on the surface but at a deeper level. or there's going to be chaos. >> we're still pondering the choice, chaos or community. >> i don't think we answered his question. >> exactly. just finally, awe long wilong w,

chose the words that were going to be on his memorial, the big white statue that's in washington right now. what were the words you chose? what was particularly meaningful for you? >> well, the words that were supposed to be on the side of the memorial were the words from the opening of his i have a dream speech, where he talks about the promissory note. what he meant was that promise the nation had made in its own declaration of independence, that there were these rights of life, liberty and the sur supurf happiness. those were human rights ideals. i thought of the monument as martin luther king looking across the tigdal basis at thoms jefferson and talking to the architects of the republic and saying that, you have not lived up to this ideal that justified the creation of the united

states. and i think that that was his primary message throughout his life, is that we have these ideals as christians, as religious people, as americans. and perhaps thought the world we have these ideals that we profess. but we're not living up to them. >> all right. >> i think that's always the job of the minister. >> indeed. it's good to leave us with that thought, that ideals are there to be realized. professor carson, thank you so much. that is it for our program tonight. thank you for watching amanpour on pbs and join us again tomorrow night. >> you are watching pbs.

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