this some more than 700 activists. we will begin with robert moses, who was one of the leaders of the student nonviolent thing -- nonviolent coordinating committee. then we will turn to a conversation with award-winning filmmaker stanley nelson. that film airs here on june 24. we are glad you joined us.

♪ >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪ bob moses was just 25 when he began his lifelong commitment to civil rights in

mississippi for the student nonviolent coordinating committee. he was the architect of the .ummer object -- project. he is prominently featured in freedom summer. moses is also the recipient of the macarthur jesus -- genius grant. conversation our looking at a clip from freedom summer. >> we hope to send in upwards of 1000 students all over the country who will engage in community center programs and in designed toogram

open up mississippi to the country. us fromoses joins boston. it's an honor to have you on this program. somethingstart with that always struck me as interesting given that i was born in mississippi. when you are in mississippi the rest of america doesn't seem real and when you are in the rest of america mississippi doesn't seem real. know what you meant by that. unpack that for me. mississippi during the congressional -- second congressional era of this country. i'm thinking of after the civil war right down to the civil when mississippi atually established itself as

rule unto itself, as a law unto itself. in 1875 when the democrats actually terrorized and murdered republicans. white peopleto be murdering and terrorizing blacks, but you are really looking at democrats who were republicans. it's interesting. during that constitutional era, why people in mississippi were all democrats. thatign of the shift is white people in mississippi are now all republicans. and actuallyvement the mississippi democratic party that and went to the convention and forced the national democratic party

structure to get rid of its version of jim crow. tavis: we were celebrating freedom summer five decades ago. what do you make of mississippi and the south today? becameissippi indistinguishable from the rest of the country. yes, they may be at the bottom in education. they may be poorer than other states, but in terms of being part of the country, mississippi is no longer a state which is a rule unto itself. that, which isr there was no fbi office

in mississippi. mississippi was going to send it message to hoover on its own term. one symbol of it becoming like the rest of the country is they actually had the names of the three students murdered that summer on a big plaque in front of the fbi office in mississippi. tavis: one of the things i find fascinating -- it's another sign of the work you and these other courageous americans did. while you are right about the fact that back in the day the white folks in mississippi were democrats. now most of the white folks in mississippi are republicans. what's ironic is mississippi is also the state that has the largest number of

african-american elected officials. here you were fighting for the right to help people get the right to vote. now that state votes more black elected officials in any state -- then any state in the union. >> that's true. part of the emphasis mississippi is part of the so that's one of the things that distinguishes what i think of this third constitutional era from the two that preceded it. >> i'm going to talk to stanley nelson in a few minutes about this wonderful documentary airing shortly. by way of your own personal story, you have become the architect of this freedom summer campaign, but you had been at harvard previously. you were on your way to doing your phd.

you end up leading this campaign. how did you end up being the man who architect this iconic piece of american history ? >> i just followed my footsteps. i knew i had to go take a close my father's older brother was teaching in hampton. i made my first step on spring break to take a look at what was going on. the students were demonstrating. on the picket line. walker announced their was going to be an office set up in harlem. meetingo the organizing for that office.

i started volunteering after school every day. they had a big event where my father was working as a janitor, and harry belafonte and sidney poitier headlined the event. afterwards i said, i want to go down this summer and work for king. byatt sent me to ella baker. baker had the snake test. i met a volunteer who had been a student at union seminary. when the coordinating committee came down that summer, marion barry was the chairperson. they came and met. that summer berry was going to the convention, the democratic and republican conventions, to

the platform committee. they were trying to influence that. they decided to hold their first meeting -- south wide meeting in the fall of 1960. they said, we don't know who did what in alabama, mississippi, and louisiana. she and ella looked up at to her. i went as a scout. when i hit cleveland, in seymour was the one who told us what to do. was the one who told me what to do. he understood the sit in movement was a big deal. he was looking at that energy and said we need to get that energy here but not to do direct he was sitting on the

data about voter registration. i had been to all of these schools. nobody had ever said anything about the delta. about the iron curtain. i didn't learn about the cotton curtain. it just lou my mind here we were. tavis: such a brilliant decision to involve white and black students from the north. >> here's the thing. we were running what i think of now as an earned insurgency. we first had to earn the right to ask the people we were working with, the farmers, day to risk, sharecroppers

economic and physical violence, , to try to register to vote. we are and that by getting knocked down and standing back up. couldn't earned that by talking. when we got down and stood back up again enough i think they thought we were serious. to earn the right of the justice department. the 57 civil rights bill provided the legal us topace which allowed do the work we did. mississippi would lock us up, but the justice department held the jailhouse key. focusing one were voting we were able to do that work. then we had to earn the right to call on the rest of the country.

they were risking their lives. we had risked hours. risked hours we earned the right to call on the country to take a look for themselves. but people were not going to be able to buy themselves move this country to change what had been in place for 75 years, three quarters of a century. you listen to bob moses talk, and you are going to hear a lot more if bob moses on this documentary. in a moment we will talk to stanley nelson. just run the names of the list in thiscters involved momentum occasion from king to belafonte to ella baker, so many iconic americans. is an authentic hero. i am honored to talk about freedom summer 50 years later.

thank you for your sacrifice. thank you for your service. andk you for your struggle, thank you for telling the story again tonight. coming up, a conversation with stanley nelson. stay with us. we continue with a look at who has three, emmys as well as a macarthur genius grant. his film about those 10 weeks skillfully combines interviews with archival footage and will air on pbs on june 24. let's take a look at the scene from freedom summer. >> the burned-out station wagon in which the civil rights workers were last seen has been processed by it fbi investigators.

>> i knew it was going to be bad. i didn't dream for a minute people would be killed, but it was always in the back of everybody's mind that bad things were going to happen, so it was terrifying, but if you cared about this country and you cared about this country you had to go. tavis: how do you characterize this project in the pantheon of your majestic work? >> when i started making films i never thought i had real focus. freedom summer is the natural flow. >> what do you think has been the magnetic draw to this subject matter given that you

didn't think this was the ride you would be taking as a filmmaker? wax that has a number of parts. the civil rights movement was so dramatic. so many of the people involved were so young. they are still alive and still as a filmmaker the footage is great. there is so much footage people haven't seen. you combine those things, and it makes an emotional scene. tavis: this is such a huge question to unpack. aven the people you had chance to talk to for the work you have done around the civil rights era and to your point because so many of them are still living, so many were so of thegive me your sense

people. i don't know if there is a portrait you can paint. about these people, these are marketable people you had access to. >> the people are amazing. they rest their lives to change our country. -- risked their lives to change our country. for so many people it wasn't arsenal. -- personal. what did he have to gain? just an incredible bravery. one thing that is really funny is when we interview them for ask, why didalways you do it? we never get a good answer. always, i saw a wrong and or i hadke it right.

to do it. it's not something you can hold onto that is tangible. in a way that is what is so beautiful about it. tavis: do we know why young people today are not doing it? can you compare and contrast? >> we get a lot where people say, what about young people? i think it's much more i think young people want to be involved. young people know something is wrong. it's not as simple. down south forgo freedom summer because people down there don't have the right was much simpler the problems. now it's much more complicated. youngher thing is so many people could join a movement, and we don't have a movement. they could say, they are going

down for freedom summer. let me join. now we are saying, you should start a movement. movement,e a something they can join, then i think they will. on both things. one, i am not so sure i am of your point that it's much more complicated. i don't know the distinct difference between what is right and what is wrong, between the kind of nation we profess to be and the kind of nation we really are, i don't know why that is more complicated for this generation. when you say it is simpler i accept that in the sense that you can see in front of you colors only and whites only and you can't vote, if you mean simpler in that context i

understand it, but how much more context of right versus wrong do people need to see it on climate warming andlobal immigration? why is it more complicated? >> i think it's nuts and bolts. we want to do away with segregated bathrooms. want to do away with people not being able to vote in mississippi. now it's what do we want to do. we want to make the government move on climate change? that's a little more complicated. what do you do? i think it's a lack of a movement to join the makes it more complicated. tavis: this notion of a movement to join, there never is a movement to join. moments happen. movement comes out of it.

a movement to join, they created the movement. to join.'t happen they did it. >> for individuals, each individual could join the movement. vietnam warring the protests. i would beat school talking about what do you want to do this weekend and a bunch of the beautiful women would say, i'm going to be on this protest down fifth avenue, and i would be like, so am i. it was very simple to make that choice. kind of thing i am talking about when i say we need a movement that makes it easier to join. everybody's not a leader. i wasn't a leader, but i was a joiner. tavis: what troubles me is we

live in an era where we these youngdeify people. they were courageous no doubt about it. i worry we deify them where people today don't think they can create that kind of courage and commitment so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. >> let me say a couple of things. one of the things that is important about this film and my work in general is one thing i have tried to do is talk about the common people. it's not about martin luther king or even bob moses. they are the volunteers who go to freedom summer. they are the people of mississippi who are the real heroes who let them come to their houses.

they let them stay there. i think that's important. 50 years later, how is it possible we are back to debating some of these same issues of voting rights. >> one of the things that has happened is i have really seen our history as arican americans is not just sentence. we want this to send them from slavery, but it's not. change happens when we pushback, when we push for change. we can argue this. part of psychology, we want to say, now we have done it. finally, we have gotten there, but we never get there. it's really important that we keep pushing and when we stop

things roll down the hill. tavis: let me close by asking whether or not you think there is a debt we owe to this and thisr generation film, and if we are them a debt, have we paid the debt we owe to these freedom warriors? me put that in a personal way. a number of screenings around the country. we will have some of the volunteers. iery time i get teared up feel he can fool. i say, i would never be here on this stage as an african producer director without you. up in the growing 60's and 50's there was nothing such as an african-american director of film. exist.d not it all may exist now because of

the bravery of the people of freedom summer. he is a brilliant filmmaker and has done it again. you will not want to miss this or any of the work ever done by stanley nelson. congratulations. i'm glad you did this. good to have you on the program. that's our show for tonight. thanks for watching. as always, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show visit tavis smiley on pbs.org. for a join me next time conversation with the chef and entrepreneur wolfgang puck. that's next time. we will see you then. ♪

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ♪

tonight on "quest" -- all living beings share a common ancestry. today, this is a basic idea. but when charles darwin published it, he transformed the biological sciences forever. in celebration of darwin's 200th birthday, "quest" follows california academy of sciences beetle expert david kavanaugh. can darwin's principles on evolution, coupled with modern dna analysis, help him prove the existence of a new california species?