thanks for disrupting your saturday afternoon. i'm karen finney. and today we're live from our nation's capital, where thousands of men, women, and children came together to make their voices heard in the ongoing struggle to make social and economic justice a reality for all.

>> i can almost hear my father harken that anthem of the movement. people, get ready. there's a train acoming! >> we must say, wake up, america, wake up! >> in selma, alabama, the right to vote. >> but we want to be free now! >> i am not going to stand by and let the supreme court take the right to vote away from us! >> we have to fight for our children. >> i encourage all of you to keep dr. martin luther king jr.'s dream alive. >> where are the women that need to be acknowledged in this movement? >> don't you ever think that men like medgar evers died to give you the right to be a hoodlum. >> yes, we can! because, yes, we did! >> i have a dream that we shall overcome. >> free at last, free at last,

thank god almighty, we are free at last. not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. i have a dream today! an historic day here on the mall in our nation's capital, marking the 50th anniversary of the march on washington for jobs and freedom. in 1963, more than 200,000 people of all ages, races, sexes, and sexual orientations gathered here peacefully, or, orderly, as the press reported it back then, right where i'm sitting today. i'm honored to be joined by this afternoon by some of the people who helped make that an historic day, as well as some of the people who continued dr. king's work, as we honor the past and we look forward. but first, a look at the present. one of those continuing dr. king's work is his son, dr.

martin luther king iii, reflecting earlier on how much work we still have to do to achieve his father's vision from 50 years ago. let's take a listen. >> the vision preached by my father a half century ago was that his four little children would one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. however, sadly, the tears of trayvon martin's mother and father remind us that far too frequently, the color of one's skin remains a license to profile, to arrest, and to even murder with no regard for the content of one's character. >> let's bring in our guests this afternoon. stan was here 50 years ago as a member of the original local organizing committee for the march in 19 63. he's also the author of "the edge of politics." edith lee payne attended the

march on her 12th birthday 50 years ago with her mother. this iconic photo of her as a young girl will dprfr be part of our history. and eugene robinson, a pulitzer prize-winning columnist for "the washington post." thank you all for joining us this afternoon. stan, i want to start with you. one of the things we keep hearing about in the history is you were part of the security teams. and we keep hearing about all of the concerns is that whether a group of negroes this size could actually peacefully come together. how do you train your security people? >> first, some of the background, we in core, congress in racial equality in washington had been demonstrating and pickets around jobs and job security for months before this. we were getting arrested, we were going to be thrown in paddy wagons, we were getting beaten on by the washington police. so we didn't see the washington police as a real protective force for the march. and we had to come up with

alternatives. and that's part of the genius of ruston. he went to the new york police department and recruited a group of black police officers, new york police officers, who agreed to come down and be the marshals of the march and it's a story that really needs to be told. and since they were fellow police officers, the washington police respected them. they couldn't carry guns, but they could carry handcuffs. and so they provided the external protective force. the internal force was made up of people who believed in nonviolence and we had some techniques of how to do that internally within the march itself. >> and how did you prepare people in terms of nonviolence? i participated in a conversation earlier today with john lewis. and he talked about just the rigorous preparation to be able to sustain and withstand, not just catcalls, but actual physical attacks. >> exactly.

we would do roleplaying night after night. what do you do with somebody with a knife, with a gun? and the basic response was that we would surround that person with our bodies. and wait until other help arrived. and it was quite dramatic. fortunately, nothing like that happened. i had an area just to the -- looking out on the reflecting pool to the right of lincoln memorial with about 50 people. our biggest problem was heat exhaustion and people falling out of the trees, because we had a number of people climbing the trees. >> you know, edith, you, obviously, there's the iconic photo of you. and i know you brought one of your original signs that you had that day. it was your 12th birthday. but one of the thing s that i heard you say is that you didn't realize you were such a part of history until fairly recently. >> that's right. it wasn't until my cousin, marcia, was browsing through a

catalog that had 2009 black history pictures and she saw my picture on the back cover. and it had dr. king's picture, sojourner truth, and it was hard for me to even fathom that this little girl from detroit would be on an historic black history calendar. >> should we show your sign? >> sure. >> this is from the original march on washington more jobs and freedom, august 28th, 1963. >> this is the banner i proudly held on that day, that's seen in that picture. >> beautiful. >> eugene, you know, part of what was so powerful about that day, and you've written about this, dr. king was able to connect with broader values in terms of jobs, in terms of justice, and sort of economic justice. and it was a message, i think, that resonated beyond just the black community. talk about that a little bit. >> well, you know, people forget. dr. king, not everyone in the civil rights movement believed dr. king's path was the right path. there were just grievances with

him and roy wilkins, who was the head of the naacp, for example. stan mentioned bayyup ruston who did such an amazing job of bringing this whole coalition of people together. who talk about all these various issues. and of course, it was a day on which "the washington post," among other newspapers, missed "i have a dream." >> what?! >> covered the speech and other speeches. the lead story from that day was preoccupied with the fact that there had been no violence and there was just a casual mention and actually quoted other parts of the dr. king's speech, but we missed the lead. >> at the time of the march in 1963, some people thought that the movement was actually moving too fast. and that skepticism, we have, actually, a piece of sound that i want to play. and we'll talk about it on the other side.

>> i'm sure that many whites both north and south have the feeling that we are pushing things too fast and that we should cool off a while, slow up for a period. i cannot agree with this at all, for i think there can be no gain saying of the fact that the negro has extremely patient. we have waited for a well now 335 years for our basic constitutional and god-given rights. >> so 50 years later, your thoughts? >> well, some of us though that we weren't moving fast enough, so it was definitely a split, to some extent, within the civil rights movement itself. and i think the press and the media, the media at the time really missed the march. they missed the mark, and they missed the march. and "the washington post" really didn't cover it, "the new york

times" less so. and even after the march, the great headline was, no violence. that it was peaceful. that was the immediate impression. >> you know, eugene, to that point about the media, though, one of the things is sort of after the march, the movement really became nationalized. you had dr. king, it's my understanding, some of the media outlets started to cover him and started to cover what was happening down south. and that was part of kind of making this more of a national movement. >> it certainly raised his profile. but remember, this is 1963. so this is only one of so many things that happened in 1963. the integration of the university of alabama by vivian malone, well, she's one of the two students, but with george wallace standing in the schoolhouse door, the assassination of medgar evers the next day. it's just event after event that

really focused a national tension on the civil rights movement. perhaps in a way that it hadn't been throughout the country before. >> you know, to stan's point, though, how did we -- where was the shift, if the story of the day was the fact that there was not violence, and today this is a speech and a moment that is remembered throughout our history and around the world, how did that shift happen? >> you know, that's a good yes. it happened more in hindsight, really. remember, reporters covering the gettysburg address kind of missed that too, you know? they covered the other speeches and said, oh, and president lincoln got up and said a few brief and unremarkable words, i think, was the quote in the paper. so, we don't always get the first draft of history right, i guess. and it's really -- but, now, look. people -- i was a little kid in south carolina. i was certainly aware of the civil rights movement and became

aware very quickly that this had been a major day in the civil rights movement. because, remember, you know with the possible exception, i guess, of the bonus marches or something, there hadn't been a demonstration like in this washington before. and the idea of not demonstrating, you know, in selma, not demonstrating in birmingham, but bringing people here to the capitol, in such large numbers, that was new. and that was -- and it was striking to people when it happened. >> you know, edith, as one of the people who came to the march, i mean, one of the things i heard you talk about is how different your experience had been growing up in detroit than what you learned about or were hearing about in terms of the experience of african-americans in the south. 50 years later, your thoughts, reflect for me on today and sort of what that day meant. >> well, what that day meant to me, first of all, 50 years ago,

was that it was obviously wrong for people in the south to not live as i did in the north. i understand dr. king's passion and position on that. he did also have a very successful demonstration in detroit on june 23rd, which is why we came. there were over 100,000 people. and that was the first, largest peaceful demonstration that dr. king led along with labor and others. what it means to me today, though, is that we still have a long way to go, in terms of achieving his dream, and the dream for most americans. i lived it. at the time he talked about it in 1963, by going to integrated schools and living in an integrated neighborhood. but we're still not there. we've had some things that have taken us back. the recent supreme court decision. we still have racial inequality. and we just need to move forward as a nation, unified as we did

50 years ago. that was america, 50 years ago. >> and we're actually going to talk about that with some young leaders coming up next. thank you to stan, edith, and eugene. coming up, we've made incredible strides since 1963, but how do we leverage our power so the future looks even brighter a hundred years from now? that's ahead. [ phil ] when you have joint pain and stiffness... accomplishing even little things can become major victories. i'm phil mickelson, pro golfer. when i was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis, my rheumatologist prescribed enbrel for my pain and stiffness, and to help stop joint damage. [ male announcer ] enbrel may lower your ability to fight infections. serious, sometimes fatal events including infections, tuberculosis, lymphoma, other cancers, nervous system and blood disorders, and allergic reactions have occurred. before starting enbrel, your doctor should test you for tuberculosis and discuss whether you've been to a region where certain fungal infections are common.

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make this moment count. don't simply commemorate, agitate. don't only memorialize, mobilize. take this spirit, take this spirit back to your communities, your neighborhoods, your schools, take this spirit back

and keep it alive. >> that was lee saunders, heads of the afscme labor union. we attend the same schools, we work, eat, and play together. our nation's first african-american president was elected and re-elected by the broadest coalition of american voters in our history. and yet while we've made great strides, disparities remain, and there's some very real institutional barriers to success for too many people. as we saw on the stage today, the movement is broader, as we recognize that issues like access to health care, marriage equality, a living wage, an equal wage, immigration, good schools, clean air are all interconducted. the reminders are everywhere. we're reminded by stop and frisk practices that target black neighborhoods. efforts the roll back women's rights. we're reminds by new attacks on voting rights. we're reminded by attacks on workers rights. earlier this week, the president

noted each generation seems wiser in wanting to treat people fairly and do the right thing. so how will this new generation of leaders, armed with new tools to strategize, organize, and mobilize continue the work of moving us forward. i'm joined now by congressman elijah cummings, rashad robinson, and shandra thomas. congressman, i'm going to start with you. these guys are going to tell us how they're going to fix everything in just a minute here. dr. king talked about the fierce urgency of now. and as we know, some at the time thought it was too fast, some not fast enough. as we look that's what's happening now in voting rights, women's rights, the way it feels like we're sliding back, how do we create that momentum that lee saunders was talking about, that dr. king was talking about, to make sure we keep moving forward. >> first of all, we have to do the things that we did today. that is bringing this information to the public. this assault on voting rights,

and i don't care how you look at it, that's exactly what it is. if that is not a wake-up call to cause people to get out there to do things, i don't know what is. if you think about what dr. king talked about 50 years ago, he talked about economics, he talked about voting. but if you don't have the vote and the way -- and the way this thing has been done with these various legislatures and these governors, with more or less an in your face, we're going to take your vote, i mean, i think that young people and all people are beginning to realize, we're just beginning to realize that if we don't act now, we will not know what we will be able to achieve and it's going to be very difficult to go forward. i think the elements are there. and i think groups, like the ones that are represented by our guests here, are going to be the ones that are going to take us even further. >> so speaking of that, rashad, through color of change, you're actually using technology to give people of color a voice. and also to help them stay sort

of educated on what's going on. talk about some of the -- because you're working specifically on a voting rights campaign. talk to us a little bit about that. >> absolutely. every single day, things are happening in the world. and we live in a world with so much information, people go back to what they were doing before. so we like to turn moments into movements. into cell phone acts, through all the different tools that we have, giving people real-time opportunity to make a difference. but technologies are sort of one of the pieces. it's about good story-telling. so we utilize story telling in the work around stop and frisk, but also technology, to push back, elevate the voices and the stories of those impacted. and you see it in the stories of the dreamers. you see it in the stories around marriage equality. it's about coalition building, asht storytelling, but it's about leveraging the tools of our time to give people the ability to be the david in this david and goliath fight. >> but also, one of the things i think you guys do very well, you connect people to the action and the issue, right? so they feel like -- because we

can't all always come to washington and march. we can't all go up to capitol hill and lobby our members of congress. but part of what i feel like you guys do so well is connecting people from the issue to some activism. >> it's about having a clear theory of change. after the grreorge zimmerman wa put behind bars, before the trial, people were asking what could they do to make a difference? so we gave people something to do. taking on those corporations that were behind the stand your ground laws, behind the voter i.d. laws. turning people's outrage into something strategic, something clear, and something systemic. and that's what technology allows us to do, if we overlay it with strong organizing and good storytelling. >> now, shana, you helped organize women and men, but realize focused on women's issues. despite the role of women in this civil rights movement, women don't have nearly the level of visibility in how we talk about the history. and i feel like one of the

things that you're going so well that's really important is making sure that women are part of the story now, as well as fighting for the rights that as congressmen were talking about, they're trying to take away. >> that has to be a huge part of what it means -- for what it means for a women's movement to be successful. women are part of the story in a very visible way. i was just reading over the past week about these stories of women who played such a central role in the civil rights movement, whose names are really not a part of the history books in the same way that a lot of men's are. there are people like, you know, ella baker, who a lot of people know, but the role that she played was so central. people like daisy bates. >> are the women that you connect, and rashad, to you too, because you guys are the future, are you guys -- i mean, are you optimistic about change? are the people you work with optimistic? >> i think the fact that every single time we launch a petition giving people a way to take action, right away, to hold people accountable to a

pro-women rights, pro-equal rights agenda means that a lot of people have hope. you don't do that if you don't think there's a potential for change. >> the good thing about this, too, is that what they do is they force the elected officials to do what they're supposed to do. and that's a -- you know, a lot of times, there's got to be an inside game and an outside game. and when we get the petitions and hear from groups and when we get the e-mails, it can make a difference. but we've got to keep it up. it's so important that we not let up. >> you know, congressman, one of the things that dr. king and others understood in 1963 was this idea of a good-paying job, being able to care for yourself and your family, it was so intermeshed. and i feel like in our discourse today, these issues get separated out when we really need to keep them intercondu interconnected. >> we've got to keep them connected. in order for a person to have dignity, they've got to be able to do for their families. and i represent a district in baltimore where there are a lot

of people who are out of jobs. and it creates a sense of hopelessness. and when you give a person a job, that means he can do or she can do for her family. we've seen the 1% make more and the ones at the bottom make less. and they are intertwined. that's why went dr. king spoke years ago, he was talking about the garbage strike. just trying to help people get lifted up, so their children would do better than what they did. that's what we've got to all be about. and i'm excited we're moving in that direction, but it's going to be a lot of work. there are a lot of forces going against all of this. and i think the election of president obama, while it was a great thing, it also caused a lot of people to say, wait a minute, you're move too fast. >> that's right. >> and that's a problem. >> that's why we've got these guys to make sure they help us keep up. we've got to leave it there. thank you. coming up, she didn't get the chance to speak 50 years

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her busy saturday begins with back pain, when... hey pam, you should take advil. why? you can take four advil for all day relief. so i should give up my two aleve for more pills with advil? you're joking right? for my back pain, i want my aleve. 50 years ago, only one woman spoke in the entire main program in the march on washington. it was daisy bates, an activist from arkansas, and she said just 142 words on behalf of a group of female civil rights leaders who were gathered on stage. those leaders weren't -- those female leaders weren't even part of the main march. they led a separate procession

on a different street leading up to the lincoln memorial. one of the women leaders who was supposed to be in that group, well, she ended up not being able to make it through the crowd. it was myrlie evers wi, the wid of medgar evers, who was shot outside their home just two months earlier. myrlie evers was supposed to be that one woman who addressed the crowds on the mall. another civil rights leader who did attend the march was clayola brown, as the current president of the a. phillip randolph institute, clayola continues to pushes for workers' rights and economic justice and she is part of the process of ensuring that the power of women civil right activists is recognized. i had the chance to sit down with them to talk about the role of women in the movement, their thoughts from that day, and the work that remains unfinished 50 years after the march. >> let's start with the fact that i was supposed to be a speaker there. some people say, oh, myrlie, you imagined that. that opportunity, and that's really what it was, came to me

shortly after my husband's assassination, which was the 12th of june, of that year. i was in in position at that time, emotionally, to say yes or no. i missed that opportunity. and it was an opportunity, because at that time, very few women were given, and i say that with some animosity, were given an opportunity to participate. so i missed that and dacy bates was the person who spoke. i have felt over the years that it was the biggest mistake that i had ever made, not to push through and not to be there at that very momentous occasion. and i felt that way until january of this year, when president obama asked me to deliver the invocation at his second swearing in. >> clayola, you want to talk a little bit about 1963 and sort of the role that the founders of the randolph institute played in

that? >> it's really a great feeling to think about the organization that i have the privilege to be president of right now, because both of the leader, asa phillip randolph, who was our president, and bayard rustin, were the architects of that march. bayard rustin was the ones that formulated routes, organized the various organizations to come, as best as we could, because there wasn't twitter and tweeting and e-mails and all of that stuff back then, but an absolute mastermind at pulling people together, of like mind, but different kinds of organizations together. and he was the one that did that. topped with an obstacle of being a member of the lbgt community. >> right. because i think one of the things about this weekend and this celebration that i think is so notable is the diversity. and the lbgt community, women's organizations, we're talking about immigration, we're talking about workers' rights, and we've

really expanded the conversation in the last 50 years. >> you would think that 50 years later, we would have addressed a whole theme of the march. jobs, justice, and freedom. we are right back again, jobs, justice, and freedom. and we're back again because we need to be back again. because there's still not a living wage or a sustainable wage. for most americans who are working. >> you know, myrlie, i would love to hear your thoughts, because, i mean, you, i remember when you spoke once, you became a leader, essentially, at that time. whether you were prepared for it or not, but there were women who were playing big roles in the organization of the march, in the movement, and all of the activities, but we don't talk about them. >> i think about dorothy hite. who was the woman who brought the men together when they were in total disrepair. dorothy hite and so many others,

who were the backbone, as women in certainly the african-american community have been just that. we have a word, mama. it has two definitions. and it raised its ugly head, particularly when corporate america began to open doors to african-americans and there was a competition between the male and the female. mama had two connotations at that time. mama, the nurturing, loving person who took care of the family, who solved all the problems and what not, and the other, if i may say, hey, momma, the hot secretary woman. and where do those two things come together? we became divided over the essence of those two entities. i am concerned today that women

are still not in the line of pushing, leadership, we're there, but we're being ignored. and that's why your program and others like yours are so important. z >> do we not take our place in leadership in the way we need to? is that what was happening in '63? is that what's happening now? >> we have to learn to stand up for ourselves. history needs to know, point out the roles that women have played in the development of the civil rights movement and other areas, for that matter. with dr. king, you had a coretta scott king. >> absolutely. >> who was as wise, as savvy as he was, and he himself said that he would not be playing the role that he played had it not been for coretta, his wife. so, i mean, let's lift ourselves up a little bit with this. this cause is not a cause of one

or two issues, one or two types of people. it's about individuals. it's about america. it's about the development of this country. we still, at this time and point, have so much to do in terms of eliminating racism, in terms of the right education, in terms of protecting our children. and we can't help but remember trayvon. miriam wright elman, who is head of the children's defense fund, did a protestive kind of thing, when she had her picture taken with the hoodie. and i felt as though i wanted to go out and get one, not necessarily, but it would have made a difference and said, yes, that child was not mine, but he is mine. and all of the other children and let's forget about who is in

charge and try to come together. the issues are still there. >> absolutely. >> voting rights are still there. it's a big challenge today. and let's no forget that that was one of the major issues that we were fighting for 50 years ago. >> my thanks to myrlie evers williams and clayola brown for speaking with me. coming up, i'll speak with three of our nation's most dynamic women leaders as we look forward. [ male announcer ] this is jim,

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while only one woman spoke at the 1963 march, the movement itself would not have happened without women. from organizing sit-ins to planning in strategy meetings, women played and continue to play a critical role. women decide presidential elections, we contribute to more household incomes than ever before. and when it comes to the political battles being fought

here in washington and in the states around the country. we have too much at stake to stay on the sidelines. take immigration reform. more than half of undocumented immigrants are women who tend to work in informal industries that make it hard to prove they're employed. or obama care. if republicans had their way, 27 million women would lose their access to preventative care, like mammograms and hpv vaccinations. so here on "disrupt," we're going to go there. we're going to ask the woman questions. with me now, some amazing woman. congresswoman donna edwards of maryland. janet mergia, and terry o'neill. thank you so much for joining me. i want to start with you, congresswoman. you were talking about this a couple weeks ago, about how our story is not enough told as part of the history of the movement and also, how are we making sure that we're part of the story that's being told now? >> that's true, we have to tell the story. that's the point. our young girls and women should know the story, because we're

telling it. and i think the one really amazing thing about today's march, when you heard speaker after speaker, so many women representing so many different sectors who took to the podium and the microphone and they made their voices heard. >> you know, i also noticed a number of the men talked about women. reverend sharpton, for example, talked about, you know, being good to your woman and women as equal, in a way that i don't think we maybe heard in 1963. >> well, i think it's true. i think it shows is you how far we've progressed in terms of understanding things like violence against women. understanding the role that women play in the workplace, but also in their jobs and in business. and understanding the role that women play in the congress too. >> janet, you know, women may not have been as prominent as men in the civil rights movement, but we have strong examples like coretta scott king and dorothy hite who was president of the national counsel of negro women. you know, your women leaders, you're a very strong woman leader, i had the honor of working with you in the clinton

administration, talk to me about who inspired you? >> well, there are so many out there. but i was at an event yesterday as part of these commemoration events, and ben jealous referenced shirley chisholm. and i think a lot of people forget what an interesting figure she was for women, not just for african-americans. and sure, nobody thought she had much of a chance at the time, but just the fact that a woman would take the step to think that she could run for president of the united states, i'm telling you, there were lots of women of color, i think there were lots of young girls at that time, and i was one of them, who it struck me that just the notion that she thought she could be president, i think, open up everyone's minds and hopes and dreams. and every young girl's hopes and minds and dreams that maybe she could be -- we could be president some day too. >> so, terry, you talk about asking the woman questions pip borrowed that line from you. how do we -- one of the things that always strikes me is that women, you know, we are so important in the electorate, and

yet we don't leverage our power in the same way that i think to our numbers that we should. and instead, we're seeing a real pushback on just fundamental rights for women in the states. talk a little about what your organization is doing to keep women engaged? >> you know, there is a war on women. and actually, women are coming to us in very large numbers. and what are we doing? we have to be in the states. the war on women is waging in the state legislatures, we have to be there. but we also have to be elected. we have to be running for office. that's harder for women, because women don't have the kind of resources that men have. and we all know that running for office is really, really costly. but you talk about asking the woman question. look at the voting rights and the decimation of the voting rights act that the supreme court just did in its last term. when you look at, for example, voter i.d. laws, what's the impact of those laws on women? well, in lower income communities, women are less likely to have the car in the

family. there's only one car. she's not going to have the car. she's not going to have that driver's license. she's the one that's going to have to scramble to get a voter i.d. other communities, women are much more likely to change their names. so if she doesn't drive and she needs to go get an i.d., her birth certificate is not going to match her married name. when you ask the woman a question, you begin to see that something like just these voter suppression measures, aimed at whole communities, have a disproportionate impact on women, very often. >> and you know, janet, one of the things you do so well, bringing women together, we know that as women, we're still kind of on the bottom, economically, and women of color are even a little bit lower. how do we bring women together to make sure that we are, as women of color, particularly, moving forward? >> yeah, well, i have found it to be very, not just reaffirming, but strategic, for us to reach across communities of color, as women leaders, and to understand that when it comes

to economic empowerment, there's a lot of common agendas. and whether you're an african-american woman, a latina, asian pacific woman or native american, we've been able to come together with broad coalitions. for us, we enjoy the fact that women leaders understand and recognize that economic empowerment is important for all of us. and we can have shared agendas. i've been so proud that leaders across communities of colors have come and stood for immigration reform. because we see that as economic empowerment. we know it's going to help improve this country and the economy of this country. but we also know it's going to be a fair and just thing. because it's going to take folks out of the shadows. and i'm impressed that reverend sharpton has marched in arizona and other leaders to see nancy pelosi, the speaker who was speaker when we passed the dream act in the house. she was the one who made sure we got it done. now, obviously, we've got to get back to that today. but i have seen support across communities and across leaders and certainly women, and i do

have to give nancy pelosi credit. when she was speaker, people said, hey, you can't get immigration reform done, you can't get the dream act done. she got it done. >> and i think we've had the most effective congress with a woman leader, actually. i'm so honored to be joined by three women leader that i look up to. congressman donna edwards, janet, and terry o'neill, thank you so much for joining me. >> thank you, karen. after a quick break, we've got some quick final thoughts with our special guest, martin luther king iii. we'll be right back.

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welcome back. i'm joined now by martin luther king iii, a civil rights reader of our time. give me your final thoughts of today. >> you know, final thoughts are,

this was a huge and tremendous day of a ceremony, but also rededicating and creating a new coalition of conscience. i said that dad's dream is not yet realized. and so although this event, this particular march is complete, reverend sharpton and i are going to a number of communities around our nation with a national action initiative to ultimately realize the dream that martin luther king jr. envisioned of freedom, justice, and equality for all humankind. >> i heard your sister speak the other day, and one of the things she talked about, while the loss of your father was a great personal loss, at the same time, she has took comfort in what has happened since that time, and what that spark in terms of activism, in terms of engaging people and bringing people to the fore. i want to get your thoughts on that. >> well, clearly, we lost our father, my siblings and i.

my mom lost a -- lost her husband. but our nation gained an understanding of a movement and a message. and the unfortunate part is 50 years ago we had significant unemployment and we have even greater unemployment today, to some degree. but you know, what is amazing is, over the last two months, tragically, the supreme court gutted the voting rights act. and of course, two weeks later, we saw the verdict in the trayvon martin case. but i think it has aroused the consciousness of americans and people are coming together. it shows that activism is still important. marching is just one step. there's a public policy initiatives that must be enacted. >> that's right. that does it for me, thank you so much for joining us, but don't go anywhere, because "the ed show" is up next live here in washington, d.c. play close.

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