from the march on washington, to the fight to end war. joan biez has provided the music for political protester. >> you don't do it to how much result it's going to get. you hope it'll be meaningful on a political level. tonight on a second look, more than a half century of

songs, protest and advocacy in the life of joan biez. good evening, this is a second look. singer and song writer bob dillan turned 70 years old. in january another iconic performer of the 60s also turned 70 years old. together they made much of the sound track for a generation of protests. >> ♪ >> reporter: in fact, it was biez who introduced an unknown bob dillan at a festival. biez performed at one of the pivotal events, the march on washington. >> ♪ we are not afraid

>> reporter: it was there that dr. martin luther king jr. delivered his i have a dream speech. bob mckinzey took a look back at that speech. >> reporter: 250,000 people descended on washington, d.c., coming from everywhere by bus, train, car and thousands had walked. they marched to the mall where the reverend martin luther king jr. already renowned as a fearless leader was to make the speech of his life. >> i have a dream. >> reporter: the reverend cecil william of dwight memorial church was there. >> i just said, something exciting is really taking place today. because there were just hoards of people. i mean people coming from every direction. and i was so proud to be a proud of that. it was, it was i had never seen that many people before in my

life. so it was the form and the movement and the energy and the commitment and spirit of the people. >> martin luther king knew that his speech had to reach out beyond the immediate crowd to touch the hearts of people everywhere. so after detailing the suffering and injustice that people endured he wound up with the message of hope. >> with this faith, we will be able to move the mountain. with this fate we will be able to transform the dangling discords of our nature into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. with this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together knowing that we will be free one day. >> reporter: the reverent amos

brown of san francisco's third baptist church was also there as an organizers. he says king's message these days have been forgotten. >> 86% of his speech were about the wrongs of america, about this wrong check that america had written on freedom that had bounced for african americans. and he very well delineated the shortcomings of this country. the dream was nothing but oratory. it was the paira to the ation. it was the coming of the dream. >> reporter: one of the narrations was that dr. king

hardly looked down at his notes. he had memorized most of it. >> we will be able to feed up that day when all of our children, black men and while men, jews and catholics will be able to hold hands and we will be able to sing the spiritual, free at last, free at last, thank god all mighty, we are free at last. >> when we got to the last line, free at last, free at last, thank god all mighty, we have free at last, people just went nuts. people screamed and applauded and shouted. >> ♪ we are free at last, i do believe that we will

overcome some day. ♪ >> still to come on a second look, biez in berkeley in 1964. we revisit the free speech movement. and a bit later, songs of protest and times of turmoil. san francisco 1968. our planes start flying when it's dark.

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tonight on a second look, we revisit the generation of protests to which joan baez gave voice. baez graduated from the palo alto high school in 1958. in 1964 she came back to join protesters at uc berkeley. ktvu's bob mckenzie brought us a look back at the look at campus protest. >> reporter: uc berkeley like other college campuses was a quiet place where students expected to do more or less as

they were told. but the times they were achanging. >> by the early 1960s this strip of sidewalk along bancroft had become a place for protesting and politicking. all this political activity was to stop. the administration had no inkling of the storm that was to come. >> you think you are grown up. and you don't understand why you can't put things out like you did in high school maybe. >> reporter: demonstrations began, quickly the movement found a leader, a brilliant

undergraduate student named mario sabio. he stated first principal. >> it's your right to recollect the -- >> reporter: as savio came to symbolize student rebellion, another came to mean the opposite. school president. >> we should expect no less of ourselves. >> reporter: kerr was shaken to find out that many of the faculty backed the students. some professors even stood on the steps of sprawl hall and openly talked for the cause. kerr began searching for a

spokesperson. but the movement grew bigger. and when students went to class, there was nobody there. the teachers had joined the cause and so had folk singer joan baez. >> ♪ the university made small concessions, by now students were in no mood for compromise. when the university called meetings for compromise, the meetings backfired. >> ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is now adjourned.

the meeting is now adjourned. >> reporter: uc leaders had not put savio on the meeting and when he tried to put himself, he was dragged away. later with his followers now fully committed, savio led them in for a sit in. >> given over to a very quiet ally i allias for studies. one flaw, another flaw would be coming in here to watch movies and singing. >> he asked me to come in, and i finally said i would do whatever i could do. for a long time they did it themselves. >> you try to demonstrate the demonstrators a little bit

later. >> i think i will later. yeah. >> reporter: clark kerr was humiliated. if he did nothing he would be seen as timid. if he used violence against students he would look at brutal. and he was out of concessions. >> that started the student movement. >> reporter: before dawn police cleared sprawl hall in the most direct way by dragging the students out of it. the protest had polarized much of the nation. with some people pulling for the university, others for students. the faculty voted to support the students cause. the regents played tough for a few days but then later gave in. you can't run a university without teachers. >> it's been said that we've always been revolutionaries and

all this sort of this. in a way that's true, we've gone back to a traditional view of the university. it's a community of scholars, of faculty and students. >> reporter: clark kerr retired soon after. mario savio got a phd. he died at 53 of heart disease. today the campus is a quiet place again where political free speech is taken for granted and where the fliers on the bulletin board are sometimes about politics but sometimes about parties and rock concerts and cars for sale. san francisco, 1968 remembering the turbulent times of protest against the vietnam war. and harris talks about protests then and now. ♪ you'll run outside

♪ i'll pass you by ♪ ♪ i want to see the sunshine ♪ ♪ take me where you are ♪ take me where you are ♪ afternoon ride ♪ afternoon ride

[ male announcer ] now everyone can explore the world from home. get high speed internet from at&t, just $14.95 a month for 12 months with select services. no home phone required. in the 1960s as the war in vietnam escalated, so did the

protest against it. here in the bay area, demonstrators march regularly in downtown oakland. the departure point for many of the troops serving in vietnam. among the protesters was singer joan baez and her mother the woman known as big joan. they would be among those arrested during demonstrations and booked into santa rita jail. baez described how the protesters retreated by deputies at the jail. >> they had confused the 67 women demonstrators so completely by never giving us the rules that we were supposed to be following. i thought this was a good experience of nonviolence, how are we going to get around this. the same as they had done in dorms. when they went to dinner we decided to have silence first of all because that's the only

thing we can think. frightened all of the ten tenants or generals or whatever it was. we decided we wouldn't leave the dining hall until we found an explanation of why we had been locked up. so i said to myself, i'm not going to walk into that locker room. which is the first time i went limp. and they took me back to the cell. and it brought back to me the reason i was in jail. because here i was where it was supposed to be high security. and it was nothing. and then i remembered why i was in jail. it was good. in 1968 as ktvu's george watson shows us in this report -- >> in 1968, san francisco was a flash point for america's

social, cultural and political conscious. san francisco a quarter century ago, at the time for hindsight. the city seemed less crowded then, green and green colored buses less abnoxious than today's counter parts. the hills less filled with high rises. but there was an unpopular war and presidential politics. 1968 was an election year, one by one the hopefuls came to town in search of california's king making delegates. the mood of the country was as different as the candidates trying to capture it. >> now demonstrators shut down government officials and the government drags protesters. -- threaten to burn the city down, and others have tried. a poet proclaims that throat cutting time is growing nigh. >> some will tell you that this

is a terrible time to be alive, a war abroad and no peace at home. i am going to tell you my view, sure we have problems, but my friends, whenever you think of the united states of america, remember this is still the place travel any other country, the traffic is all one way. they are going this way, they are not going over there to live. san francisco was a confusing mix of emotions in 1968. there were flag burning demonstrations in the streets but there was also ruckus dancing demonstrations on the street. police kept arresting the hippies and hippies kept protesting the war. by 1968, 16,000 americans had been killed, more than 100,000 wounded.

just a fraction of the carnage that was yet to come. yet america's military leaders still insisted they were in control and that the war was going well. fanning the flames of protest back home even more. in 1968, the aircraft carrier enterprise sailed home from vietnam. with families reunited the war seemed way off. but to war protesters the war was still a stake between themselves and the country. >> it seems to breed communism what we're doing. >> the war would not end for another seven years. jean baez was honored for her work worldwide. in 1988 she joined with bruce springsteen and others in a concert in oakland to raise awareness for the declaration of human rights.

>> probably the majority of kids come for a rap concert. but i think that special change is not usually made by majorities. >> ♪

tonight we've been looking back at joan baez.

from the civil rights movement to the vietnam war. baez has continued her social activism over the decades taking part in this rally against the gulf war and participating in this 2005 protest in iraq. here she joined cindy sheehan at president bush's ranch where baez put on a free concert. baez married david harris. the father or -- the former berkeley student president. the marriage would last five years and baez would have one son. >> reporter: whether you call

it a demonstration or a riot can depend on your politics. protests in the streets is now a familiar tactic in american politics. and some would say a vital element in a democracy. but do street actions such as these in san francisco a few weeks ago do more good than harm for their cause? do they turn on more citizens than they turn off? do they win hearts and minds? >> these actions did not do so. and i'm not here talks about just civil disobedience. but to go out and target randomly city streets for blockage that have no connection to the war as though somehow you've inherent, because you are upset about a step by the government you inherent the right to go disrupt everyone's live who is not willing to disrupt their

own life. >> reporter: but for catholic priest father william o' donnell, who is also a an activist. that's not the case. >> we're articulate at best to communicate what the issues are. so it's intended to upset people if you will at least to get their attention. >> reporter: nonviolent protest as exemplified by martin luther king's marchs, is a way to get our attention. but what about when demonstrations turn violent. or when they interfere with the rights of other people to go about their business. >> to the degree that it isn't unviolent, it will really end up being worse than nothing. because people will say, they are here protesting for peace and they can't even keep their

peace on the sidewalk. >> reporter: in the terms of stopping what they are against they can succeed in other ways. for instance by showing the world that not all americans think alike. >> why? because what threatens us is not weapons. what threatens us is hatred. and there's such widespread hatred of america in the middle east. partly because middle easterners do not know that there are some americans who are very, very upset with what our government is doing to them. >> they certainly work, what they work at is different debating on the protest and the circumstance etc. but you know i think they certainly are means of speaking to your fellow citizens in the current circumstance, obviously the government is not paying much attention to them. but the governments never have, at least in my experience. it's not like lindon johnson

was rolling over and doing what we want him to do any way. >> whether protests work or they don't, they are part of america's facet. >> that is it for this week's second look. i'm julie haener, thank you for watching.