good evening from new york, i'm tavis smiley. 50 years ago, dr. martin luther king delivered his speech, "beyond vietnam" minutes from this studio. it was a call to where the country was mapping an alternative future, based on justice and compassion. tonight, we kick off a week long discussion commemorating the anniversary of his speech. projustice theme, engage where we are, 50 years later on what king used racism, poverty and militarism. tonight's guest, bryan stevenson, glad you joined us, a look at dr. king's beyond vietnam speech, along with bryan

stevenson in a moment. contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. i'm joined tonight by bryan

stevenson, the founder and director of the equal justice and author of "just mercy." it's about to become a film starring michael b. jordan. congratulations on that. >> thank you. thank you. >> let me start by asking when you first became aware of this "beyond vietnam" speech given in this city 50 years ago tomorrow. >> it's interesting, i wasn't aware of it, i didn't read it until i started practicing in montgomery, alabama. my office was down the street from dr. king's church, so i would visit there often. just collecting some of the things he would preach on and he would talk about, i encountered his work in the 1960s after the passage of the civil rights act. it was so impressive to me that dr. king never rested on his laurels. he was not satisfied after the

passing of the voters rights. he knew there was still working to done. that's when i found the speech that he gave at riverside on the vietnam war, which i continue to believe was one of the most courageous and powerful speeches he ever gave. it embraced a world view, the way of thinking about the american identity that was global and transcended the boundaries of the south and the borders of this country. it was such a courageous speech, i was never able to forget it or able to walk away from it. it's been instructed to me about what is required from leaders. they have to do things that are unpopular, that doesn't help them build support and connections with people. but, they have to do things their conscious requires of them. you can see dr. king in that speech, struggling to get to that point.

i remember the thing i was moved by the most when i read the speech the first time, it grieved dr. king to have to talk about his country in this way. >> he called it, as you recall, a vocation of agony. >> and it just spoke to the difficulty of having to push this country in that way. i think that oftentimes, critics and people who challenged the government and the national identity, seemed to do it with this enthusiasm, which undermines the credibility of their criticism. i think dr. king, in this speech, it was clear that he really wanted the best for america. he loved this country. he wanted this kuhn troy meet its ideals, but he couldn't be silent when we were engage in this destructive war making in southeast asia. >> i want to come back to but i

wanted to start the week off with you because of your work and your witness. throughout the week, we have all kind of guests on leaving out the true ideals of what king was talking about. ideals in our mind are fueled by conviction in our heart. you can't do hard things, difficult things, uncomfortable things, you have to be persuaded that this is the right thing. >> yes, for me, my work is ministry. i was actually speaking at a graduation event for people who have gone through a re-entry program and i think of the community of people i'm working with, people formally

incarcerated, their lives have no value. people were told they should die in prison. my 13 and 14-year-old kids, we challenged that. i thought it was cruel to say to a child of 13, you are only fit to die in prison. i couldn't make sense of that because of what i know about the human capacity to change. when i was giving this talk, i was reflecting on what i would do if grace was ever put on trial, if redemption was put on trial. if rehabilitation was put on trial, i would want the thi lonlg ans on stand by. the first witnesses would be the formally incarcerated, those who suffered through condemnation, told their lives don't have meaning and purpose and persevere to be human, to be free and just. when you work in the community where i work and spend time with condemned prisons on death row,

children told they have to die in prison, people wrongly convicted, you begin to understand the power of grace, the power of redemption, the power of hope. people are hopeful in these dark and hopeful places when it doesn't make sense to be hopeful. life without parole is a hopeless sentence. a death sentence is difficult to hear. you are told you are so bad, so worthless, you have such little meaning, we are going to kill you. i find in my clients, i find in the places where i work, this amazing hopefulness. it can't -- you can't do it without being impacted by that, without seeing what can happen when you change -- when people are actually transformed. to me, that is about a ministry. i come from a faith tradition and, you know, we, in my community, we read all the teachings of the apostle paul. he was an accused felon. i worry in today's political

climate, we wouldn't give paul a chance to be the leader of a church because we are so intent on labeling people to their worst asset. to me, it's not just the need to stand with the condemned or the need to stand with the incarcerated, but it is a calling to advocate for redemption, advocate for rehabilitation and i identity with that moral force that compels you to keep pushing, even when it's not convenient and not comfortable. >> you mentioned hope. in the speech "beyond vietnam" he spoke of this notion of hopelessness. in our society, the triple threat that king threatened, racism, poverty, militarism. on the issues, the ones you work on every day, you sense a hopelessness in our society at

large. >> yeah, i do. i think it's a great challenge we face in our country. i think we are hopeless about what we can do, to create the connection between people that are healthy and human. we are the most punitive society on the planet. our prison population went from 300,000 in 1972 to 3.3 million today. we have 6 million people on probational parole. 25% of the world is in prison. here is the statistic that gets me. there are 70 million americans with criminal raps. when they try to get jobs and try to get loans, they have difficulty. women going to prison increased 646% the last 20 years. step back and look at what we have been doing, it's hard to not characterize it as an exercise appropriateness. we give up on people quickly. we give up on children. that's why we have 13 states trying children as adults. i think the challenge we have in

america is we have to revive hopefulness. hopelessness is the enemy of justice and justice prevails where hopelessness persists. we see so much injustice in our community, in our court, in our criminal justice system because we have allowed this hopeless mind set to emerge. that's when we start hearing about law and order. that's when you hear lock them up and throw away the key. that's when you hear, let's not worry about undocumented people. let's not worry about the poor or those living in the mind of society. when you reduce them to their crime, that's just a drug dealer. that's just a burglar. that's just a murderer. that's just a whatever. you are affirming a hopelessness about what humans can be and can do. we have to resist that. >> dr. king had a notion, as you know, excuse me, he had a notion that justice is what love looks like in public.

justice is what love looks like in pup lick. it's so easy to get caught up with the poetic and pros of kings language. when you hear thatphrase come out of king's mouth, interpret that for us. >> sure. i think it's making the collective, making public, making our communal and governmental and societial relationships with one another mirrored with our private relationships with one another. it's not using power to demand something from someone else. if you are in a personal relationship and you have more money, you can't tell. you are going to be my partner because you have more money. you are not going to get to love like that. it requires a certain kind of humility, a certain kind of taking away the obstacle and dynamics of who has power and who doesn't. who has resources and who doesn't. true love emerges in something

human. collectively, we don't do that well. we have a political culture in this country, where our politicians think that saying i'm sorry or i'm wrong makes them weak. i believe that justice, the kind of justice that dr. king is talking about means we have to be willing to say i'm sorry when we make a mistake, i'm wrong when we make a mistake. that's the way we become strong. i think, until we understand that true justice means being willing to acknowledge when we make a mistake. dr. king was trying to simply acknowledge our policies failed, we made poor choices and they were unwilling to do it because they thought it would give away too much power. if we don't change the culture and expect from politicians a willingness to say i'm wrong, i'm sorry, we are not going get to that kind of justice. show me two people who love for

50 years, they are two people that apologize and show their we weakness and errors to one another and press on. collectively, we need to do that. >> dr. king had to come up against a powerful president named lyndon johnson. >> yeah. >> they worked together on the civil rights act, '64-'65. in new york, 50 years ago tomorrow, butting heads with the ultimate president, a powerful president because king is telling johnson you called for a war, now you have us engaged in a war in vietnam. he goes head-to-head with johnson. it basically ruins that relationship as you well know. i raise that because king had to butt up against lyndon johnson. we have to butt up against a guy names donald trump. saying i'm sorry, i was wrong, i made a mistake. what kind of message do you think the way mr. trump does things is sending to our community? >> it's very worrisome. it's the politics of fear and

anger. i actually think we will not get to a healthier place in this country. we are not going to get to the kind of triumphant equality and liberation and justice we seek if we allow ourselves to be governed by fear and anger. they are the ingredients of juste. you tolerate other people. if you give into fear and anger, you tolerate abuse. go anywhere in the world where people are being abused and horrific things are being done to people. if you ask the oppressors why are you doing what you are doing, they will say it's anger. we are angry about what these people did or afraid they will do that. we have to resist the politics of fear and anger wherever they manifest themselves, when ever they present themselves. saying we can't have a certain kind of people in this country because we are afraid of their religion or not having people come to this country because we are angry at their border

politics, we are not going to get where we are trying to go. i just don't believe it's necessary -- we have complex issues we have to deal with in this country. immigration is an issue we have to deal with. terrorism is an issue we need to deal with. we can deal with it with the rule of law or deal with it out of fear and anger. i'm afraid we are not hearing much leadership these days that is in opposition of fear and anger. i think that's destructive. >> in the speech, king talked about fear, he talked about anger and then revenge. talk to me, then, about what you see in this present moment, vis-a-vis governmental revenge, societial revenge. king went deep talking of the notion of revenge. >> dr. king, i think, shed light

on the fact that revenge and retribution is something that insecure people do, weak people do. people who don't understand their power to do something better than simply replicate the violence and anger in the treatment they experienced. that was the theory behind the politics of nonviolence. i'm going to lift up my community and show we are human beings though we are treated as less than human. he understood it was critical, not just to make a point about the priorities, the better way, but he also wanted people to stay connected to their hearts, to their humanity. you can't stay connected when you give in to this instinct of retribution and revenge and responding to violence. i think largely, our culture is very vulnerable to that. i represent peep on death row. for me, the question of the death penalty isn't whether they

deserve to die for the crimes they committed. i'm not going to try to justify that. the threshold question is, do we deserve to kill? if you have a criminal justice system that treats you better if you are rich and guilty than poor and innocent. if we don't exercise our power responsibly, we don't deserve to kill. that instinct for retribution and revenge is powerful. the call to do better, to be honest, true to who we are is greater. dr. king, i think, understood that scripture to whom much is given, much is required. i think he understood that. we are a great nation. we have a nation with a lot of resources and influnls. we have a lot of power. that means we are required to do more than to use that power and intimidate. it's a vision of what a great nation could be. i think he had a vision that we

could be a greater nation if we resisted the instinct of the immediate satisfaction of retribution and revenge that only provokes violence and dispair. >> we quote king on the things we want to. most principally the, "i have a dream." we never did on the death penalty. we never quote him on this controversial and troublesome issue. talk to me about king and his view. >> dr. king was very consistent. i mean, he had a world view that talked to a whole range of issues. he didn't believe any person was their worst act, including the sheriffs that beat him. the white leaders that jailed him. he actually continued to believe that they could be more than his oppressor. that belief system meant he didn't want to judge people in the harshest way posz zable. he rejected the death penalty

because he saw it as an offense. he would invoke the scriptures and talked about when jesus was confronted with a woman and adultery. let him who is without sin cast the first stone. he wanted to save her life not because he thought that was the only thing to do, but he wanted to save her life because it would judge and condemn those that would stone her. i think our political culture and sometimes even our religious culture has not followed dr. king like they should. we have a political culture now where when the adultering woman is present and told you without sin cast the first stone, i will start throwing. we talk about those who are going to be stoned, stand in front of those who would be condemned, targeted and menaced and catch these stones.

i do think that there is this notion that we haven't really dealt with honestly. we have gotten too sell bra tour about it. everybody used to celebrate the civil rights in america. we don't ask questions or what policies they are supporting in relation to that movement. i'm worried, to be honest. i hear people talking and it sounds like a three-day carnival. day one, rosa park and two martin luther king and day three, we changed the laws. when it's compared to something like that, it was against the death penalty, against demonizing people, against racism and those that emerged in our political culture. you can't celebrate the life of dr. king and the civil rights movement and be talking about

banning muslims and banning mexicans. you can't do those two things, honestly. but, when we don't listen to all of what dr. king says, that's what happens. we quote the things that work for us. >> you referenced a couple times, i'm glad you did. before he was anything else, he was a minister. >> yes. >> a preacher of the gospel. >> yes. >> you quoted him many times, referenced biblical many times in this conversation. one of the things king raised in his speech, he was speaking to a group of clergy. >> that's right. >> the place, riverside church was filled with ministers. >> that's right. >> king raised the theme that it's impossible to say you love jesus and be a racist. >> that's right. >> you can't love jesus and be a sexist. you raised the notion of the way things are happening in this political culture. what do you think of the fact people love jesus and em body

these other characteristics? >> we are not called to reconcile our faith with politics and day-to-day living. that's one of the great challenges we face. faith community has to be challenged to be more honest about what it means to people of faith. during the civil rights era, there were people who were outside of the churches, southern baptists holding up signs that said segregation forever. segregation for war. there wasn't a moral tension in taking a position that you had to be oppositional to people because of their color. i think we don't do our members well. we don't do our communities well when we don't challenge them to understand that to love god, to love -- you have to love your brothers and sisters. this is not something that is confused in the bible or in the scripture. it's true for islam and judaism

and other great religions as well. you can't be at war with your brother and sister and be at peace with god. i think our churches are too often places we don't talk about these issues. i think dr. king was insistent on that. he was at the church at riverside. at times he criticized the church and silence around segregation. i think he understood this was the community that he has a special obligation to speak to. >> i could do this with you for days. with the two minutes i have left, king opened the speech by saying, i have come to this place tonight because my conscience leaves me no other choice. >> yeah. >> there is a time when silence becomes betrayal. >> yeah. >> i ask you, in 2017, what is it that we are being silent about in our society right now that we are the best of who we are? >> i think we continue to be

burdened. i don't think we are free yet. we have work to do to free ourselves. it is still in the atmosphere that haunts them. you know, we are a post genocide society. before white settlers came to the native people, we killed them by the millions and haven't talked about that. i think we are burdened by the legacy of slavery. the great evil of slavery is not the forced labor, the ideology of white supremacy we made up to legitimize it. it doesn't talk about the racial difference. because of it, i don't think it ended in 1865, i think it evolv evolved. we have gone through lynching. i think we have to become vocal about the history. if you go to south africa, you are required to learn about apartheid. in germany, there are markers about holocaust.

we don't talk about slavery, lynching and segregation. we need to be more vocal about it. i think there's a moral challenge for us to take a big step forward on truth about racial inequality. >> we are in new york all this week tond. bryan stevenson tomorrow night on this "beyond vietnam" speech. thank you for your insight and work. >> thank you. until tomorrow night, thanks for watching. as always, keep the faith. for more information on today's show, visit tavissmiley.org. i'm tavis smiley. join me as we commemorate the anniversary of the "beyond vietnam" speech with harry bell fon dathai. that's next. see you then.

good evening from los angeles. i'm tavis smiley. never before have a father and son been jointly honored with a hand and foot print ceremonyny outside hollywood's iconic and famed chinese theater. next week carl and rob reiner will be the first. before they do, the three of us will talk about their long and successful careers as well as their latest projects. carl has two new books coming out including one for kids, while rob has a pair of new films, both starring woody harrell son, one on l.b.j., the other about the iraq war called "shock and awe." glad you joined us. you're in for a treat because carl and rob reiner are coming up right now. ♪ ♪