[captioning made possible by democracy now!] ♪ >> from pacifica, this is demoacy y no cck away unr donald trump, if you llll masvely expandg g numb of peop too portable and not goio avoi them d proce that weave itten into the law and hav agreed to an i iernatial law, theyill be real consequences. sexual assaults or kidnapping. >> my deportation is a death

sentence, protecting dreamers, a stunning new article in the new yorker about how hundreds of thousands of immigrants in the u.s. may face violence and murder in their home countries. what happens when they are forced to return. we will speak to sarah stillman. then as dodge ram uses the words of martin luther king to sell trucks in a super bowl ad, we will look athehe whiwashshinof civil rightsistory. essageduce d ki's a plo to ll truckis aplling. dr. king's messagen this d and age uer the circumstaes that exists, givenhe we arup agait as a pple and whe we lolook like we may be headed asa nation, is despicable. >> we will speak to sociologist and civil l rights activist hary

edwards and historian jeanne theoharis, author of the new book, "a more beautiful and terrible history: the uses and misuses of civil rights history." all that and more coming up. ♪ welcome to democracy now, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. global markets are tumbling this morning across asia and europe afafter the u.s. stock market wt into a free fall on monday. the dow jones industrial average plunged by nearly 1,600 points in the middle of the day, marking the biggest point decline in financial history. the u.s. market then rallied slightly, but at the closing bell, the dow jones was still down by 1,175 points. while monday's plunge was alarming on wall street, many financial experts say the drop had been expected after the dow surged over the last year. on monday, president trump avoided mentioning the historic stock market drop, even as he tried to boast about the benefits of his tax overhaul,

while speaking to workers at sheffer corporation in cincinnati, ohio. during his speech, he also attacked democratic lawmakers who did not applaud during trump's state of the union last week, calling them un-american and treasonous. president trump: they were like death, and un-american, somebody said treasonous. why not. [laughter] shall we call that treason? why not? >> the house intelligence committee has voted to declassify a democratic memo that refutes the arguments of the controversial, now-released memo of committee chairman devin nunes. the nunes memo purports to show the fbi and justice department abused their authority by placing trump campaign adviser carter page under surveillance in 2016 over his ties to russia. president trump supported its release, despite the objections

of the justice department and fbi. president trump will now have five days to decide whether to try to block the release of its counter memo, written by california congressperson adam schiff, the highest ranking democrat on the house inintelligence committee. in syria, bombing continues against the rebel-held district of eastern ghouta, outside the capital l damascus, and d againt the rerel-held nororthern provie of idlib. war monitors say air strikes carried out by the syrian and russian governments have killed nearly two dozen people in eastern ghouta and another 18 civilians in idlib, where local journalists say a hospital and residential areas have been targeted. activists also say nine people were injured in a suspected chlorine gas attack on the town of saraqeb on sunday night -- the second alleged chemical weapons attack in the last two weeks. in london, a judge i is slated o rule today on whether toto drop the e british arrest warrant for wikileaks ununder julianan assange, who has been hoholed up in the ecuadororian embassy inin

london for more than five years. the e british h arrest warrant r jumping bail is related to a swedish sexual assault inveveigation against assangnge, which hahas since been dropped. but even if the judge drops the british arrest warrant, assange could face life in prison in the united states on charges of espionage, conspiracy, and theft related to wikileaks publishing of secret u.s. government cables. in ecuador, voters have decided to reinstate presidential term limits during a national referendum on sunday. the result is a blow to former president rafael correa, who had been expected to run for a fourth term in office the upcoming 2021 elections.s. the israeli governmement has launched a m mass deportation pn aimed at expelling up to 40,000 afafrican asylum seekekers from israel. st of the e refugeesre f from eritrea or sudan and fleeing war

or persecution, although israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu has branded them infiltrators. on sunday, the israeli government began distributing notices warning they'd be jailed if they do not leave within two months. these are three refugees from eritrea who received the notices. >> if i did not return to rwanda withinin 60 days, they will take me forcefully to prison. >> they will force us to be in prison. >> t those countries are not secure for me.e. i cacame here to save my life. tuesday inse now is prison. states, innited colorado, the husband of immigrant rights activist ingrid encalada latorre has been released from detention, after he was arrested by immigration and customs enforcement agents

in what many saw as a targeted attack against the immigrant rights movement. eliseo jurado fernandez posted $2,500 bond on monday and walked free from the for-profit geo group ice detention center in aurora, where he'd been detained since january 11. his wife, ingrid encalada latorre, is an outspoken activist who has claimed sanctuary in a colorado church to avoid her own deportation to peru. meanwhile, in kansas, a chemistry professor named syed jamal is fighting his deportation after immigration and customs enforcement agents arrested him on his front lawn two weeks ago as he was getting his children ready for school. jamal has lived in the united states for more than 30 years, after arriving from bangladesh on a student visa. in michigan, usa gymnastics team doctor larry nassar has been sentenced to another 40 to 125 years in prison for criminal

sexual conduct toward underaged girls in the latest of a series of trials about his decades-long abuse. drdr. nassar has now beeeen accd -- sentenced to 125 years and a previous trial and has been accused by at least 265 women and girls of sexually abusing them, often under the guise of providing medical treatment. the u.s. supreme court has refused to block the pennsylvania supreme court's ruling that the state's congressional map unconstitutionally favors republicans and must be redrawn. monday's ruling now means pennsylvania lawmakers must redraw the state's 18 house districts, a move that is widely expected to benefit democrats during the 2018 midterm elections. and a number of nfl players on the philadelphia eagles say they will not visit the white house for the traditional super bowl victory celebration. among the players boycotting the visit as a protest against president

trump are malcolm jenkins, torrey smith, and chris long, who also refused to visit the white house last year when he played for the new england patriots. and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now. democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. >> welcomeme to our listeners ad viewers around the country and around the world. on capitol hill, republican senator john mccain and democratic senator chris coons have introduced a bipartisan bill aimed to protect undocumented immigrants who came to the united states as children. the future of the nearly 800,000 dreamers has been at the center of a major political battle in washington. but on monday, president trump took to twitter to criticize the bipartisan bill soon after it was introduced. trump wrote -- "any deal on daca that does not include strong border security and the desperately needed wall is a

total waste of time. march 5 is rapidly approaching and the dems seem not to care about daca. make a deal!" this comes as immigrant rights activists are preparing to hold a protest in washington on wednesday to push for a clean dream act to be passed before thursday when the government faces another possible shut down. >> well, as the battle over the dreamers heats up in washington today we look at a stunning new piece in the new yorker titled "when deportation is a death sentence" -- it looks at how an unknown number of men and women have been killed in their home countries after being deported or turned away by the united states. the article looks in part at a mexican-born woman named laura . laura. despite living her whole adult life in texas, she was deported to mexico after a traffic stop. she warned a u.s. border patrol agent, "when i am found dead, it

will be on your conscience." within a week of her deportation, she was murdered by her ex-husband. we are joined now by the award winning journalist and new yorker staff writer sarah stillman. she is alslso director of the global migration project at columbia university's graduate school of journalism. welcome to democracy now. this is such a significant article. it seems the government should be collecting this data, not you and students at the columbia journalism school about what happens to immigrants who are deported. start off where you started with the story of laura. >> she was living in the u.s. most of her adult life. driving home from work, she is pulled over by a traffic cop. relatively not routine to ask about her immigration status but he turned her over to border patrol. >> in the middle of the night? >> yes and no lawyer was available.

she was crying and saying i have a violent husband in mexico who has threatened to kill me if i am sent back so give me time to show you my protective order and why i should stay here. instead, she was turned over to border patrol and while continuing to cry and plead, taken to the border and sent across the bridge after being coworkers to sign voluntary paperwork. >> she spent most of her life in the u.s.? >> had children and grown up in mexico but in her adulthood had been living in texas, in a community with many other people undocumented and who, at the time, did not worry that traffic stops would lead to deportation to harm, but that is more and more typical. this was under the obama administration. >> the mexican government does not track people repatriated from the united states. is there an attempt in mexico to

do a more comprehensive look about what is happening? ,> we have seen it piecemeal some human rights workers and scholars try to document it but it is hard because some people who are sent back, it is hard to track what becomes of them, partly because families are afraid, the fear of retaliation means we do not hear about the things that happen to people post-deportation. >> the donald trump administration has formed a new office. called voice. >> he expounded quite a bit on what he said was immigrant criminality and he said he would create a special office for victims of crimes committed by immigrants. he did not square that with the data that says immigrants do not commit more crime that u.s. born individuals. the opposite is true in most scholarship. the database was going to law

different immigrant crimes -- log different immigrant crimes that have been committed. we built a shadow database, a data does -- database under obama and donald trump who had been deported and either killed or sexually assaulted or subjected to other harm. >> the united states has a long history of providing sanctuary for those seeking to avoid danger or killing in their own country. what are customs and border patrol agents supposed to do if a person claims they fear possible persecution, and what are they doing? >> a great question, people do not realize that in international law and domestic law, a u.s. you has been that we have guaranteed post-world war ii to never make the mistake of deporting people to their deaths when they y seek century. created out of world w i ii cacause senent ny peopl back

amidst the holocau who have fl not see germany -- nazi germy.y. the job of border patrol, when someonarrives t the border, they a t them questions, which includes, do you fe for your li if sentack? ifhey sayes, it is not thei job a adjudate it or figure ouwhether eyey thi it t is crededib but to pass them alon to arained officer in we have people well-ained a peoeople often geto go bere an immigratn judge. , boers 50% ofases patrol doenonot asthe e inial quirededuestions. . some women said they did fear for eieir life and t border patrolaperworkaid theyid no >> ithe casefaura, llowing e queson at the borderwhen s is hand to tthepatlnd says ent, whei am dead, it ll

be oyour conience. what wasis oblation too? >> it is dputed inhe cous. a t was setn her half afr she wakilled. soone in h situaon would get too before aimmigratn jue. historally thawas thcase. peop in the ited state, en they ticulatethe fears ifmmediate at the borr, they wld go asylum ficer d it immration jge. increasingly, most of the deportations are summary deportations, people quickly turned around at the border and never given a chance to see a judge. or in the case of laura who had lived in the country for a a log time, in that case, you would be entitled to a judge. >> what did you and your students find? one iserns we have seen, how often people like laura get rounded up for minor offenses.

people who had traffic violations, minor workplace disputes which led to high-stakes repercussions of being deported. and then killed. who fledtern of women gender-based violence and explicit documentation of the men who have harmed of them. they came to escape and instead were sent back to the very same man who harmed them. and a rise in donald trump in the number of people rounded up in the interior. previously it was people turned back at the border but now it is like laura who had deep roots here and lived here for a long time. >> laura, the cop who arrested her, went to jail himself. he said she was wavering on the road. >> she was driving between two lanes he said. that is possible. people in the circumstance get deported, now there is legislation in texas that mason

be replicated elsewhere, it says law enforcement has to ask these questions. and law enforcement can be prosecuted if they d do not turn people over r for immigration enforcement purposes. that manysformation cops were worried about. >> in her case, it is one thing, a catch and release situation at the border. if she was already here in the country, wasn't there a requirement to go through some immigration process? sometimes people agree to be deported to not be detained and put in a jail. what she never offered the opportunity to try to adjudicate her case? >> we have different entitlements for people who have been here for a long time. her signature appeared on the form that was a voluntary removal form. that is disputed in the courts. can it be described is a

voluntary removal when she was pleading and crying and protesting? border patrol says she voluntarily signed it and was sent back. her friend at the scene says she had been desperate not to sign the paperwork. that is a mystery and what a judge argued made her family not able to proceed with the case. the show meoned your papers bill in texas, explain what it does. sb4 is currently tied up in litigation, one of the things it does, regarding local cops, they are supposed ask about immigration status. there is aat crackdown donald trump has called for in regards to sanctuary cities, where they have decided not to turn people to immigration enforcement once they are in local jails. another pattern is that there

were people who came into the criminal justice system through minor offenses, one man i wrote about had come to the courthouse for a minor misdemeanor case. house --n the course courthouse, apprehended him and sayingdeported despite he would be killed, and he was when he was sent back to mexico. that was retaliation many that travisthe fact county, texas was a sanctuary city. >> the recent remarks by president trump in the state of the union where he talked about ms-13 and increasing danger of undocumented immigrants to the general american population, criminal gangs. were you able to hear that? i do not know if we have a clip. could you --

>> i think we have a clip. decades, trump: four open borders have allowed drugs and gangs to come into our most vulnerable communities. they have allowed millions of low-wage workers to compete for jobs and wages against the poorest americans. most tragically, they have caused the loss of many innocent lives. >> could you respond to the the issues framing of of why it is necessary to deal with immigration? >> we think it is necessary to treat ms 13 seriously. isis simultaneously saying ok to revoke temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of people from el salvador and in the back to a company that is grappling with a real ms 13 crisis. tosays it is crime -- find send them there despite the fact that the game may pose a serious threat to them.

he says the people do not deserve protection here, but also seems to be intent upon acting as if ms 13 crisis year has a gravity that does not compare to other threats we could be focused on. we should take it seriously and also be realistic about the fact that immigrants do not pose a disproportionate threat when it comes to crime. the opposite has proven to be the case. >> can you talk more about gender-based violence? >> going back to the realities of needing to reckon with ms 13, one of the things we heard from a number of young women is that they were being recruited by gang members in guatemala, el salvador, honduras, who were telling them that if you do not become my sexual partner, you will be killed. i interviewed several women, one woman in atlanta had come here after her brother was murdered

for bebeing gay and another brother was murderered for not joining beginning.g. she was subject to sexual coercion by a gang member. she was turned away by border patrol and the u.s. and was protested and went before a judge. women who are fleeing the country's -- those circumstances who go before a judge, often are told they do not qualify for asylum or other legal relief because our asylum system was crafted popost-worldld war ii on concerns it was cap and round do not reflect the current reality of gang violence and gender-based violence. >> the gang violence is the historical roots of it, not ever discussed in the united states. riots,, the los angeles i cover them after rodney king and the chicano community, the longtime mexican-american community was upset about the rise of ms 13 back then, and

they saw it rooted in a spillover in the central american civil war's and u.s. intervention. the original ms 13 gang members were former national guard human from el salvador who moved here. there was a cultural violence that spill over from el salvador and ramallah into the western united states and they sought as a direct result of u.s. intervention. >> you cannot talk about what is happening without talking about the history, the history of the central america worse and the u.s. involvement in them. and the history around deportation, many gangs started on the u.s. side and were deported back without a real plan about how it would beat a with. we saw the cycle before and wewe need to address root causes. >> laura's mother worked with a weather -- worked with a -- can you talk about

that relationship? >> jennifer harper is a fascinating person and was married to a man from guatemala -- lead ton litigation that jennifer had been a part of after her husband disappeared and went on a hunger strike. this was sometime ago. she found out there was u.s. involvement in a cover-up about her husband's murder and torture. she was certainly a vehicle through which to tell the story of the u.s. involvement in the 1980's and how w it stretched io repercussions into the present-day. ,> you spoke about history turning to a clip from the 1976 film "voyage of the dammed" -- based on the 1939 voyage of the ms mississippi which sailed for

havana from hamburg, germany carrying over 900 jewish refugees fleeing the nazis. the cuban government did not let the men and the u.s. coast guard deliver the following message as portrtrayed in this clip on the film. , you arare violating u.s. limits.s. do not a aroach, do o not attemt to land. you will not be permitteted to dock at any uniteded states cou. -- port. acknowleledge. >> signal, message received and acknowledged. >> a clip from "voyage of the dammed." the ship had to return to europe and talk about what happened. playing germany -- germany were found

to have been killed in the holocaust. , did not know that anne frank her father applied to get the family refugee statutus here a d were rejected. she died in the concentration camp. areou and your students searching for what happens to deportees? >> yes, we hope to continue searching in the donald trump era. the obama era had these deaths but we hope to continue logging them in the donald trump administration. we will link to your piece.this is democracy now . stay with us. ♪

>> i did not belong to you on democracy now. >> super bowl sunday marked the 50th anniversary of the drum major, and historic sermon that martin luther king jr. gave at a baptist church on february 4, 1968, two months before his assassination. it is mostly remembered for the

way he concluded it, by imagining his own funeral, downplaying his famous achievements and saying, quote, "if you want to say that i was a drum major, say that i was a drum major for justice." s markednday, ram truckck the anniversary by using part of it in a super bowl ad to sell trucks. over u.s. voicece maris,s, raners,s, a a sololer weweing camouflage, ayed over king's voe.e. and he want toee recognized, wonderfu ifou want be great, wonderfu burecognize that he whis -- that is ou new fifiniti of f grtness.s. that means that everybody can great. you do not have to know about aristotle serve, you do not

kn h how t do -- know the ththeoryf relatively to serve. you do not have to know thermodynamics to serve you all may need a hea full of grace. -- you onlyeed a art full o grac a souleneratedy lov >> in the mepeech th used r aruck ad, dr.artin --her king said it was advertisers take advantage of. >> by the presence of this instinct, why we are so often taken by advertising. massiventlemen of verbal persuasion. they have a way of saying things to you that gets you in a bind. in order to be a man of distinction, you must drink this whiskey.

to make your neighbors envious, you must drive this type of car. to be lovely to love, you must wear this kind of lipstick or this kind of perfume. before you know it, you are buying it. that is the way advertisers do it. it causes us to live above our means. nothing but the drum major instinct. you ever see people buy cars they cannot begin to buy in terms of their income? you have seen people riding around in cadillacs and who do not make enough to buy a model for -- model t ford. >> that was dr. martin luther kingng giving his spspeech 50 ys ago on february 4, 1968.

we talked to kerry edwards on monday -- harry edwards on monday about the appropriation he is professor emeritus of sociology at california berkeley and the author of several books, including "the revolt of the black athlete," reissued last year for its 50th anniversary edition. he was the architect of the 1968 olympic project. smithmomous image of thomas with his hand up in the black power salute. a longtime staff consulted with the san francisco 49ers. i started by asking him to respond to the dodge ad using king's words overlaid with images of war. dr. king, heith endorsed the lipid project and met with him a couple of times -- olympic project and i worked

with them a couple of times. i was appalled at the ad. ,o reduce dr. king's message especially in this climate in this country under the circumstances that exist now, in terms of not just african-american but immigrant women circumstances, to reduce dr. king's message to a point to pedal t trucks -- p ploy to pedl trucks is appalling. his message under the circumstances that exist, given what we are up against as a people and where we look like we may be headed as a nation, is despicable appalled as i am about the advertisers use it, im even -- about thd that

fact someone sned off i it. they did not go into r recor store and pick up dr. king's speech and put t voiceover on the advertisement witho somebody associated with the king estate signing off. king,s appalling that dr. his words, his wisdom, his iticical important messa at isis timwoululd allowed to be oods..sell >> i had t s same feeng when i saw the a is well kwn that s chdren a very ptective the e of h image a of his legacy inrestingl i hea on the rao that member of thking faly is fending e advertisent and ying it wa in t spiriof dr.ing' legacy toemeto be vyrass

take social juice lead and rn them in to a basically pitch man for cars/ . >> not just that he was turned into a pitch man but at a time en we shouould study d dr. kin's message and words, in this arertant era, when we having massive changeses in evey institutioional arena,a, to have watered down any aspect of his message to the point it becomes oy theertising pl grace the wisdom of the message and the urgency of what dr. king referred to of the fierce urgency ofof nowow. it waters down all of that. to sign off on something like that is thisis portable. -- is despicable. people in control of his estate can do whatever they want, but

in doing it, they should have to thosehe judgment of people in society who regard dr. king's words and wisdom as critically important and substantially enduring, in terms of the struggles we face as a society and as a nation. edwards fromrry the university of california-berkeley, author of a number of books including "revolt of the black athlete." the architect of the 1968 olympic project for human rights. this is democracy now. democracynow.org, the war and peace report. >> we will talk to the author of a new book talking about how the civil rights movement has been distorteted and whitewashed for public consumption. figures like martin

luther king jr. and rosa parks had been rendered meek and dreamy, not angry, intrepid, relentless. they write, social injustice is -- ways a country came to honor the civil rights movement not simply about paying tribute to the courageous individuals, but also about sanctioning what will and will not be based about the nation's history and present. the book is titled "a more beautiful and terrible history: the uses and misuses of civil rights history." she is also the -- "theave written rebellious life of rosa parks." welcome back. talk about the ram ad. were you shocked?

>> it is shocking. it is shocking when you see the speech and everyone should go back to the drum major speech and read it. is criticizing car commercis.s. and there it is. >> and they are showing soldiers over h words. >> the nationalistic a militaristic subtext of ee ad was disturbing, given what the drdrum mor s speh was s out and what dr. kinisis talng about, in the speech and in the year, repeatedly. twitter takes care of the ings so beautiful. thing more fun than watcngng twteter exode.e. one of the things i talk about in my book, things harder to recognize. recognitionstional

, national celebrations of the civil rights movement. those are both important and necessary, the history of the civil rights movement in this country. i am thinking about the honoring of rosa parks, when she died, her body is the first coffin of a civilian to lie in honor in the capital. there is a s statue of rosa par, the first statue of a black woman there. these are epic honors. how she gets honored and the civil rights movement gets honored is a form of scripting and constraining. she is talked about only for that day on the bus. she is talked about as quiet and not angry, a way to celebrate our progress. the national and nationalistic purposes of the civil rights movement serves in our public square.

it is at the heart of what the book is talking about. >> let's talk about the anger and how it is whitewashed, the sundance film festival, a film premiered called aching in the wilderness with the last three years of king's life when he is becoming radicalized and speaking out against the war in vietnam. it made this ad, when you see the soldiers and war, he was risking everything, even the support of his inner circle, when he gave the speech at riverside church on april 1 -- in april of 1968. after the drum major speech. >> even earlier. as we think about king's challenge to new york city, northern liberals, it began longer than we realized, 1960's he gives a speech at the urban

league calling for a liberalism that is liberal in the north and not just for a change in the south. in 1963to los angeles out of the birmingham jail and talks about, not just birmingham but police brutality and school to segregation and housing segrgregation in los angeles t o years before watts.. the bostonstonn school committttee meets with hi and shututs down a meeti. whenen king talks about northern injustice, even in the early 1960's, northern liberals who were praising his work in the south, shut it down when he talked about what is happening in the north. a couple of months after the watts uprising, king writes a something ande says, for a long time, he had been welcomed to the north and

was honored and sat on platforms , get when he starts talking about what is happening there, only the language is polite. the resistance was firm and stubborn. ,ooking at the more comfortable the angry, the way dr. king is calling out people in new york, not just people in birmingham, that is a part of dr. king we need to take seriously. >> we will come back with this discussion with the author of the book "a more beautiful and terrible history: the uses and misuses of civil rights history." this is democracy now. we will be back with her in a moment. ♪

>> the underside of power by all now, -- this is democracy democracynow.org. we continue our conversation with jeanne theoharis.

let's turn to ronald reagan speaking on november 2, 1983 when he signed the bill establishing martin luther king national holiday. our nationeagan: honors dr. martin luther king jr. by setting aside a date year to remember him and the just cause he stood for. we have made historic strides. rosa parks refused to go to the back of the bus. can democratic people, we take pride i in the knowledge tt we a americans recognized a grae injustice and took action to correct it. >> that is president ronald reagan in 1983. the official announcement of the holiday honoring dark or martin luther king -- that was not always a view of ronald reagan, jeanne theoharis. >> for many years he was skeptical of the holiday for martin luther king, he thought

there were too many holidays and it might be costly. dr. king wasow if a communist or communist sympathizer. for many years but began to see the political utility for him, particularly among moderate voters. ronald reagan as a sensitivity gap around racial issues and is running for reelection. tosees a political upside backing this legislation. in his speech, we see the elements of what will become the -- what i am calling the national civil rights movement, about courageous individuals in the past, they saw an injustice, the injustice is fixed, like all herald the power of american democracy. it is about progress and american exceptionalism, racism in the past.

that will be, in many ways, from ron reagan to bush to clinton to bush to obama to even president trump. we see a narrative of civil rights movements about celebrating the individual heroes as a way to celebrate the greatness of america. >> and a way to put it in the past. compare the way that the main screen narrative -- mainstream narrative of the civil rights movement to the way black lives matter is treated today. >> a motivation behind the book is the ways that the narrative of the civil rights movement is marshaled to chastising black toos matter, to extreme -- extreme, they agree with the goals but not the tactics, you not going about it the right way, these are not the right leaders. so many criticisms are criticisms against the civil rights movement.

ast was seen as extreme and going too far, too fast. york, the year before the voting rights act, a majority of new yorkers and the civil rights movement has gone too far by 94 in new york. 1964 in new york. martin luther king jr. marched in illinois and said he never seen the type of anger and violence from my people -- from point people feared -- from point people -- white people. said he stopped and said we will have a question-and-answer and you can question if i am a traitor because he is getting heckled the whole time. we write that we had this idea

that it was popular that most decent people supported it and regrettably that was not the case. >> about today, last summer in the wake of the police killings of two people, black lives matters activist in atlanta took to the streets with protesters around the country's and mrs. the then mayor of atlanta -- this is the been mayor of atlanta reacting to some things that shut down some of atlanta's major straits. -- streets. protecting their first amendment rights but we are the home of dr. martin luther king and i asked that they do not take the freeways. that is everybody,y, your mothe, my family, your family. dr. king would never take a freeway. this is this generation's protest but during the civil rights movement, they spend more time making sure everybody got home safely y as they did in the

protest itself. let's let it be the best version of our s self. > dr. king would not have tan a freeway. >> hard to know where to begin, , the selmaonic event to montgomery march, what is that? the montgomery bus boycott is disrupted and meant to be disruptive. it is meant to disrupt the functioning of the bus company and after they boycotted the buses, that christmas, they boycotted stores. it is meant to say there can be no business as usual. thesef the danger of wrong histories is the ways they are used to shut down conversation and protest in the constant wishing, mike huckabee

saying to ferguson protesters, he wished they would be more like martin luther king jr.. i am thinking, be careful what you wish for. they are. it.do not like it is disruptive and uncomfortable and relentless. it is not just injustice exposed as injustice changed, that i is not how the civil rights movement exchange, it is injustice exposed and exposedd and exposed, you move the needle slowly. selectivek about the recollection of what the civil rights movement stood for. with dr. king, i it was momore t his assistants unequal right -- insistence on equal rights more than income inequality or his attack on militarism and the war. in your previous book, about rosa books, you talk about what

is left out of the stories about rosa parks. >> absolutely. one of the ways i have seen the montgomery bus boycott, it is as much about criminal justice as it is about bus segregation. because, this is december of 1955, in august of 1955, emmett till was lynched. this case gets much more attention than many cases montgomery activists like rosa parks, she hahad been active for more than aa decade, around cass like emmett till's. they got an indictment in the case. four days before the bus stand, she goes to a mass meeting at king's church because the lead organizer in the till case is in town because the two men have been acquitted. they got an indictment. >> he was the 14-year-old boy

who went to the south for the summer and his m mother sent h m to be out of chicago. he was lynched by a white mob. >> two men for making a comment to a white women. because of the attention, these men were indicted and sped trial but acquitted -- stood trial but acquitted and the organizers come to montgomery to say they have to keep the faith. and keep pushing. rosa parks and king are there. the anger and sadness that this case, which seemed like the possibility to get justice got no justice. we cannot understand what happens four days later, why she made her stand. community is at the breaking point and we see a boycott flower after that. that part of the story, this is about criminal justice and segregation.

life continues, she is forced to leave montgomery after the bus boycott and spend more of her life in the north, detroit, fighting the racism of jim crow north. an early opponent of vietnam. alongside other detroit activists about already come income inequality, segregation, urban, police brutality, she served on a people's tribunal after the 1967 detroit uprising because of the police brutality during the uprising and because of the police killllings of thre young men atat a motel that pole are not indicted for your the newspapers are not following the case and the people of detroit, the people'sribunato hold the police accountable, rosa parks is on the jury of the tribunal with black power movement. her life, her political life is more expensive than we -- then

one day on the bus. is "a title of your bus more beautiful and terrible history." explain. >> it is taken from james baldwin where he says american history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it. i chose the title because reckoning with this history is more terrible and more sober, more uncomfortable, it asks them to of us today. but, it is also more beautiful. when you see what people did. when you see the power of grassroots organizing. when you see how courageous the courage was. it is more beautiful and gives us much more where we are today. >> the lesson about why there is an attempt to sanitize the history and clean it up for

people to digest? >> partly because it does offer some much. , i talkedthe chapters about the activism of high school students from the high school students strike in prince edward county, led by a 15-year-old student becomes one of the cases and brown, to the walkouts in a way, black answer, students walk out in 1968 to protest conditions in schools and not enough black and latino history in school, to protest policing in schools and a lack of college classes in school. many of the that, problems we have today, looking at high school students leading the way, and you see -- that gives us a much more, fertile starting point for where we go from here. --hink that is part of why if we only see the leaders as adults, if we only see the leaders as having to be charismatic speakers, that does

not leave a place at the table for most of us. when you see that leaders came ens to 80's. twe welfare recipients, public housing recipients, the whole gamut, there is a lot more to give us in terms of where we struggle today. >> you talk about how black lives matter's activists are compared unfavorably to civil rights leaders and talk about john lewis, who started as a young man in the march from selma to montgomery. the first march over the bridge when king was not there and had his head bashed in. >> when you look at the civil rights movement, you look at groups like this made up of young people -- stew nonviolent cordoning mitty -- coordinating

committee -- student nonviolent coordinating committee. many adults are very scared and snious, trepidations about c, 50 and 60 years ago. and manyose criticisms former snic members put out a statement making the cut notice between them and black lives matter clear, because many of the criticisms of black lives matter or r -- were criticisms they faced 50 years ago. >> criticisms on the king memorial? >> he towers over us at the memorial. he is not approachable. there are quotes all around, not a single quote mentions racism, race, segregation. if you came in from mars and

landed, you would think he was all about peace and love. the fundamental questions of race and racism and racial inequality he spoke about over and over again, and a pride of like pride -- black pride are you race in the memorial -- a theed -- erased in memorial. the original plans had it honoring many people. he towers above us. also, the quotes are stripped of context. it would not have been hard to put under each quote, the context, they come in movements and at moments, they are hodgepodged. 1963, 1967, and we miss the power. so many people visit it, and i just wish that we had a memorial that honored king the way he

was. >> we believe that there. jeanne theoharis. that does it for our show. thank you for joining