- on a city bus, if there were seats available in the front of the bus and none available in the back of the bus, i still could not sit down. that was separate but it wast equal. [solemn music] - i came in as a dayorter and i was allowed to sell oes, but i could not sell shoes to white ladies. i could not touch a white lady's foot. - you look down there and the water pipe, they had one pipe that came up,

then when it got up there it divided this way and one went white and one went black. [solemn music] - your parents can tell you you're equal to everybody else, but still at the same time, the society and everything around you is tellin' you something different. - she asked me, "who was i, and what was i?" and then [laughs] i said, "i'm an american." and she said, "no, you're not, you're colored." - (dr. martin luther king) we, the disinherited of this land, we have been oppressed so long, are tired of goinghrough the long night of captivity. and now we're reaching out for the daybreak of freedom and justice and equality. [crowd cheering] - (male narrator) on may 17, 1954, the supreme court ruled in brown v. board of ed that the practice of separate but equal had no place in public education.

the decision was a turning point in the battle to end segregation. but jim crow would not go quickly or quietly. those who had benefited from america's constitutional contradiction fought to maintain their privilege and power. - (crowd) freedom now, freedom now, freedom now! - (narrator) making equality a reality would require a movement, a movement that would render unto no one evil for evil, but instead would meet the forces of hate with the power of love. there are no exact numbers as to how many people participated in the civil rights movement, many stood up, stepped up and spoke up, but there's one name that stands out. this story starts in montgomery. - montgomery was the location of the dexter avenue baptist church. it was a very important church in montgomery, the capital city of alabama, and it had a custom of bringing in well-educated,

articulate, charismatic ministers. - at dexter avenue baptist church, at the time one of the most elitist churches in montgomery, here with the college professors and all of the teachers, with doctors and dentists going to dexter church. - now i had heard of dexter, of course, in the sense that vernon johns was the pastor here and he was known as a fire and brimstone preacher. - johns, he was charismatic and an intellectual of the first rate, but he also was controversial, outspoken and confrontational. - he did not mind crunching a few toes in what he said because he said on more than one occasion, "you aren't doing enough, you need to do more." - there are a number of episodes between vernon johns and the congregation

that led to the final dismissal of johns, or the acceptance of his resignation. and so there was a look or a search for a new minister. robert nesbitt was a deacon at the dexter avenue baptist church at the time, understood that there was a charismatic, young, articulate minister by the name of martin luther king who lived in atlanta. so nesbitt travels to atlanta to entice king to come to montgomery and to do a trial sermon to be considered for the pastorate at dexter avenue church. - so he came in the shop, i asked him what was his name like you do most new customers. he said, "martin luther king." i said, "where you from?" he said, "atlanta, georgia." he said, "i'm here to preach my trial sermon at dexter." i said, "oh, that's my church." - he came and gave his trial sermon and i'll never forget, it was entitled, "3-d in religion." the way he developed that theme was

so catching and so well done, of course, that we just said, "there's no use in pursuing this pastorate any further, he is the man." - (hard) when the dexr avenue bapst church looked for new pastor, who was gog to be th adroit, academic, astute, good oratorical skills, but they wanted someone who was not going to be as controversial, not gointo be as confrontational. and they thought they had that person in martin luther king. - one of the things that martin emphasized was that every member of the church needed to be a registered voter. that caused a few people to, especially some of the older women, to say, "well now, vernon johns was here with his..."

verboseness, shall i say, "and now look here, here we go again." - if you look at montgomery in the mid-1950s, we have the perfect storm that sort of happens in montgomery. and i say storm, but i mean that in a good way. - there is a confluence, of a number of people and events that occur and come together at the same time that's a bit uncanny. like joann robinson, who has been in montgomery as a professor of english at alabama state, and she joins the women's political council and she becomes president of the women's political council. - attorney fred gray getting his law license and setting up a practice here in montgomery. - he pushes the montgomery improvement association to not only boycott the buses, but also, to litigate and to sue the bus system in the wake of the brown v. board of education case. - (dorothy) judge frank m. johnson is appointed to the middle district

of the federal courts here in montgomery. - professor james pierce, he is going to talk to his students about the gulf between the pronouncements of liberty, justice and equality and the founding documents of this nation and the reality that they saw when, in a majority of black belt counties, they could not vote. - and the movement really doesn't take steam until rosa parks is arrested on december 1, 1955. so there's some months between the time that the kings arrive and the montgomery bus boycott gets started. - i think as a result of a number of people being here, a number of events occurring nationally with brown v. board of education case and the ground being cultivated over decades by a number of indigenous montgomerians, created an opportunity in the mid-1950s for king to step in

and sort of reap the benefits of that through the creation of the montgomery improvement association. - and there were two black men in montgomery that did not get along with each other. one of 'em had an idea that the best way for black people to get the rights, get the right to vote. the other man said the best way to do it was to go to court. - rufus lewis is seen as a leader in his own right. he's seen as a leader of the black middle class in montgomery. he's a business owner, he works at alabama state, he had been a successful football coach, librarian and so he was looked to, or looked up to, by the black educated in montgomery. e.d. nixon, on the other hand, lived in west montgomery. he was seen as a labor leader, he had little formal education, he was a powerful man with a strong baritone voice. he was an advocate for black people, he negotiated on behalf of black people

with the city authorities. he was seen as a champion of the common man, the working man in montgomery. and so there was also a sentiment that you may lose the support of the common man if you pick somebody like rufus lewis. or, on the other hand, you may lose the support of the black middle class if you pick somebody like e.d. nixon. - mr. nixon was the president of naacp and mrs. rosa parks was mr. nixon's secretary. the naacp was one of the only formal organizations blacks had at that time, so if it was gonna be a legitimate vote, mr. nixon would automatically become the president of the new organization. but mr. lewis did not want that, he figured this young man, most people didn't know too much about him at that time, would be better. - so, in some sense, martin luther king, who was brand new to montgomery, the thought was he would not alienate any segment of black montgomery and so that the total black population may be able

to coalesce around martin anyluther king's leadership.ery - when he spoke in that church that night and he said, "if we're wrong, the constitution of the united states is wrong." - (dr. king) and we are not wrong, we are not wrong in what we are doing. [crowd exclaiming] if we are wrong, the supreme court of this nation is wrong. [crowd applauding] if we are wrong, the constitution of the united states is wrong. [crowd applauding] if we are wrong, god almighty is wrong. [crowd exclaiming] - that's what really kind of got people to understand that this was a movement that was about to take shape. and it was in that moment, in that church, at holt street baptist church, when really, i think, the movement kind of not only coalesced and became more concrete to the people in the community,

but then they had embraced dr. king as the leader of that movement. - so, when reverand king was elected and he gave his acceptance speech that night at holt street church and one of the old ladies in the audience said, "oh, lord, you done sent us a savior." - through the creation of the montgomery improvement association, which was organized to shepherd the boycott, the black leadership in montgomery had to appeal to the entire black community. one of the ways that that was done was through the mass meeting. - my first encounter with dr. king was at the first mass meeting and i heard him speak there. of course, me being 12-years old [laughs] and in the audience, i really didn't interact with him, but i was very impressed with his words. - you also have, with the montgomery improvement association, and the mass meeting, a melding of the different classes in montgomery,

which is, i think, critical to the success of the montgomerbus boycott. the ability to reach beyond class les, which are stark in the black communy, and to invve the totaly the bla community in the pross. - they was aisin' the pele, which were the domestic people who really made the boycott, they wn't the brain power. the people whoere ridin' the bus, see, educated black people did not ride the bus mainly because they all had cars. - (howard) the ministers made a... position, particularly when they came together and took a position, they had a multiplying effect because they brought their congregations, in many cases, with them. - joann robinson and mary fair burks were the two ladies and they had some affiliation with dexter church. but the president at the college told them, "do what you got to do for civil rights, "but do not get the college involved in it because we all are on the state payroll." so, the church had to kind of stay in the background,

but they basically furnished the leadership. the brainpower behind the leadership came from the church. - joann, who taught english right across the hall from me, came to my office and said, "bryson, "we ve drawn up a memo "that we're going to circulate all over the city. "we are tired of this treatment that's going on "and we're gonna say, 'stay off the bus for one day, "'just one day and let them know 'that we are tired of this.'" - working with our teacher, you know we were secretly runnin' off, leaflets to people. - i was one of the youth who they gave the leaflets to, to pass out announcin' the boycott over the weekend. and then we kind of kept people apprised of meetings. - i was a student ridin' in the segregated buses all day,

goin' downtown and back and forth. so naturally, during the bus boycott, all the students at alabama we did what they led us to do. we would go to the meetings and follow through with their particular direction. -of aoycott, that ifbody the people lost moneys that they would come up with a better system themselves with the bus companies. - in our heart and mind, we wondered, were black people gonna stay together and would the boycott be successful?" in the first little incident, when that man stood on the corner of jackson and hutchinson street with a trench coat and a hat, i can see it pictured just like i'm lookin' at you, and that bus came up, but we couldn't see, did the man get on the bus or not? one of their customers said, "oh, here come the bus, here come the bus." so all of us stopped cuttin' hair and went to the window to see whether that man would get on the bus.

that was the first incident. and when that bus pulled off, that man was still standin', we thought joe louis had knocked out max schmeling. we started hollering and some of the customers ran out in the streets saying, "it worked, it worked!" - (narrator) by creating a church-based movement that was committed to nonviolent prests, king had pvided a message and a method for others who sought to knock down the walls of discrimination. in 1960, king moved back to gegia and atlanta became the epicenter of the civil rights movement. people from all walks of life joined in the fight for equality, but one group emerged at the forefront. driven by the hope of brighter tomorrows, young people stepped out of their classrooms onto the front lines of the movement. grassroots organizers and organizations mobilized to face down segregation wherever it was found. cities such as greensboro, anniston, birmingham and selma soon bame synomous with the civil rhts movement.

- a lot of times people come and they think these movements within the campaigns within the civil rights movement happened in a vacuum, that they just popped up. but there was a progression between 1955 and 1965, things happened, one thing built on the other. - (male speaker) my grandfather said, "well, instead of sittin' there complainin', you have to get involved," and the opportunity came about when i was a freshman at morehouse, and the student movement had started in north carolina, then i got an opportunity to become involved in the sit-ins. - (male speaker) the four students from north carolina a & t sat in at woolworths and my being involved in my own way in civil rights, this whole thing was god sent for me. i had seen dr. king earlier when all of the student leaders came to atlanta, at the behest of ella baker, to formally organize.

- well, i think the first time i had an encounter was during the montgomery movement and how successful it was and how articulate he was. he was able to lay out a project and lay out his strategy, so the guy was a thinker and you knew he was also a problem-solver. little did i know that, after the success of the montgomery movement, that he would move to atlanta. first time i met him in person, we had rallies a lot and a lot of times every week we had mass meetings and this involved all the different churches in the city. it's where we got a chance to meet the different ministers, but also we got a chance to lay out to the various communities in atlanta what we were doing and what we were about. - i never thought that we would not be successful with the freedom rides.

you were taught that, it's ingrained in you, "we shall overcome." we were fighting for justice. our cause was just and there was never any doubt that eventually we would be successful. - i have no animosity towards those that beat me. in fact, one of my wishes before i leave this earth is that if any of the people who attacked us is alive, i'd love to have a cup of coffee or sandwich or whatever they want to do, i'll even have a cold one with them. but i just want to let them know that i was 5'6", 126 pounds, i was no threat to anyone. but i just want to know why, why did the sight of me upset you to the point that you would like to kill me? - (dr. king) we've come to see that this method is not a weak method. for it's the strong man who can stand up amid opposition,

who can stand up amid violence being inflicted upon them and not retaliate with violence. [crowd cheering] - my father worked two jobs, he taught school five days a week and he worked at nights and on the weekends at the birmingham country club waiting tables. my mother taught school, but for all of the taxes that they paid, those taxes supported all of the public facilities in birmingham. but here we were, not able to use those public facilities in birmingham. we could not use the public library. we could not go to kiddieland. george wallace said we could not attend the university of alabama, what i understood really well was that we had all of the burdens associated with citizenship,

but not the privileges. - (female speaker) my first time in jail was during the time when dr. king was in jail, when he wrote the letter to the miniers in birmingham. and the matron looked at me and she said, "what are you doin' here?" and i said, "i want my freedom." and she thought that was so funny because she thought that i was white. - dr. king, at that point for me, was not an icon. i thought well of him as a baptist preacher and a great leader, but not a world-wide icon. so i wasn't internalizing his every word. yes, i was impressed listenin' to him, lookin' at him,

hearin' the responses of all of those around us, but i didn't just internalize, "this is what dr. king said." i internalized what james bevel said because i felt that that affected me personally. - my first time encounterin' dr. king was at 16th street and he was preachin'. - i became our church sunday school secretary in the 7th grade and i just happened to be there when dr. king came with reverend abernathy and shuttlesworth and bevel. - (arnetta) they had told us when we practiced, don't give information out because parents was bein' fired from their jobs. - (janice) when he went on to say, "your parents really can't do anything about this, but you can." i thought, "i can?" he said, "you don't have anything to lose, because you're gettin' a second-class education." i agreed with him and that was the moment i decided

whatever i could do toa make a difference re,." i want to do it. - it became clear, when i was at the church and dr. king was speaking and he said, "we feel that the segregation laws are unjust laws." reverend shuttlesworth said, "we aim to kill segregation or be killed by segregation." [solemn music] - (dr. king) we are gonna walk, nonviolently and peacefully to let the nation and the world know we are tired now. we've lived with slavery and segregation 345 years, we've waited a long time for freedom. we are trying to remind the nation of the urgency of the moment. now is the time

to make real the promises of democracy. now is the time. - you have to remember one thing, dr. king never went anywhere that he was not invited. he received a letter from the dallas county voters league, and reverend f.d. reese is chairman, in november of 1964 to come to selma, "we need you." - well, i guess if my signature [laughs] kind of invited him because the fact that i felt that we had been somewhat travelin' through the many different communities and comin' to selma, i felt that selma was a place that could really be seen as the turning point. - we had a sheriff named jim clark and he was standin' on the courthouse steps and wore a big button that said, "never."

every day, when the marches went from brown chapel to the courthouse, he would be standin' on the steps to turn them away. they knew that they had a somewhat immovable object here, too, in jim clark. - and so it was a great delight for him to say, "i'll be there." and when he said that, all of us became very elated. they began to shout because they knew that his comin' would bring about a change in the condition that existed here in selma. - my best friend, rachel, and i, we were playin' out in front of the now historic brown chapel church. and as we were playin on this particular day, there were these beautiful cars that had driven up in front of brown chapel church that obviously gravitated our attention as children. one of the men that had gotten out of the car,

he was puttin' this black jacket on this particular man who had on nice white-starched shirt, black tie, black slacks and he looked at us and he said, "do you know who this man is?" and we looked at them because we didn't know who any of them were. he said that, "this is dr. martin luther king, jr." and, just all of a sudden, i just started smilin' because it only reflected when i was sittin' in the church and they were talkin' about hi. dr. king suddenly started askin' us our names. he asked us, "where did we liv, where did we go to school, how old," the normal questions that an adult would ask children. the same man that placed that black jacket on dr. king, when we got to the rear of the door as we were talkin' to dr. king and dr. king was talkin' to us, he said, "you little children can go on and play now

because we're about to have our meetin'." and dr. king suddenly said to him, he said, "no!" he grabbed us by our hands and took us on into that church and he sat there patiently and he started askin' us more questions. he said, "now, what do you little girls want?" my best friend and i looked at each other, not knowin' how to answer that question. he said, "now, children, when i ask you, 'what do you want,' i want you to say, 'freedom!'" and he said, "now, what do you little girls want?" and we said, "freedom," in our own little childhood voice. he said, "now say it louder, children," he said, "now what do you little children want?" and we said, "freedom," louder. then he asked us our second question, he said, "now, when do you little girls want it?" and we looked at each other, not knowin' how to respond to that question. he said, "now, when i ask you little girls, "'when do you want it,' i want to say what?" and we said, "now!"

- it is the effort of american negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of american life. their cause must be our cause, too. because it's not just negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. and we shall overcome. [audience applauding] [wnesses muttering] - (narrator) with the passage of the civil rights act in 1964 and the voting rights act in 1965, king and other leaders of the movement saw that they were able to address racial inequality through legislation. king now turned the spotlight on economic inequality.

those who thought king was breaking new ground may have forgotten that the historic 1963 march on washington was a march for jobs and equality. [witnesses applauding] one place where king saw the issues of race and economics come together was memphis. - in the summer of 1959, he comes to memphis on behalf of a group of african-americans who were running for city offices, they included benjamin hooks, a.w. willis, and russell sugarmon. he comes and he realizes very clearly that memphis is important to the overall movement. - we just recently completed a historical marker for the lee sisters, the most arrested family in america, according to jet magazine. - my activism started in the civil rights movement in 1960 when my sister, ernestine, my oldest sister,

was a part of the first sit-in here in memphis when students at le moyne college and owen junior college decided that they were gonna challenge the laws in the public facilities here in memphis. - there were seven sisters who led that movement. working with them, they were high school and college aged and they would get arrested, get freed, go home, change clothes, go back out again. - i was 16-years-old when i was arrested the first time. so i was in high school and that meant i had to go to juvenile court after my arrest, but that still didn't keep me from going right back and participating again. - after the public libraries were integrated, then it was a domino effect in the city. downtown eateries were integrated, the zoo was integrated,

public parks were integrated as a result of the stance that the le moyne and owen junior college students made. - i met him, dr. king, in person after he spoke at a church here in memphis, and then the second time was on the meredith mississippi march. - in 1966, memphis is also the beginning of the meredith march, the march against fear. james meredith starts his movement in memphis, his walk, and then of course he's right outside of memphis when he gets shot. then, all the civil rights leaders converge on memphis to take up the march that he now can no longer participate in because he's wounded in the hospital. so dr. king comes back to memphis. - he was very encouraging and he said it was so wonderful to see all of us and our family, especially,