captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: the leader of iraq's kurdish region told u.s. secretary of state john kerry today, "we are facing a new reality and a new iraq," as sunni extremists threaten to bring the country to the breaking point. good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is on assignment. also ahead, a new round of fireworks on capitol hill, over the i.r.s.'s treatment of conservative groups. and the apparent loss of a trove of emails from one of the controversy's central figures. plus, our look back 50 years, to the deeply segregated mississippi of 1964. and the young people who came from around the country that "freedom summer" to lend their hands in the struggle against racism.

>> white supremacy and black subordination ruled not just in mississippi but across the country. so we were part of the events that actually brought that constitutional era to an end. >> woodruff: those are just some of the stories we're covering on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> at bae systems, our pride and dedication show in everything we do; from electronics systems to intelligence analysis and cyber- operations; from combat vehicles and weapons to the maintenance and modernization of ships, aircraft, and critical infrastructure. knowing our work makes a difference inspires us everyday. that's bae systems. that's inspired work. >> i've been around long enough

to recognize the people who are out there owning it. the ones getting involved, staying engaged. they are not afraid to question the path they're on. because the one question they never want to ask is, "how did i end up here?" i started schwab with those people. people who want to take ownership of their investments, like they do in every other aspect of their lives. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> woodruff: the u.s. homeland security department is sending more agents to the mexican border to handle a surge of thousands of undocumented children. secretary jeh johnson told congress today that 115 experienced agents have deployed to the rio grande valley, and nother 150 may join them. republican representative patrick meehan of pennsylvania asked what's being done to get the children home, safely. >> we're talking about childen as young as five and seven years old. this is a humanitarian issue. so, when you're talking about someone who is desperate to be reunited with her mother or father in the united states i think as americans we need to be careful about how we treat these kids. >> we all get it. this is what's so difficult

about this. we're dealing with children and we get it, but we ought not be leaving american people with the false impression that somehow the system is going to work, and is actually going to lead to removals once those children are here they're staying here. >> woodruff: meanwhile, the associated press reported the government plans to use a 55,000 square foot warehouse in south texas to process the children. islamist fighters in nigeria have kidnapped another 60 girls and women, plus 31 boys. witnesses said today the boko haram attacks came over the weekend, in the northeast, but security forces denied anything happened. more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted in that region last april and are still missing. rebels in eastern ukraine shot down another military helicopter today, killing nine soldiers. it happened just a day after the pro-russian separatists pledged to respect a cease-fire. meanwhile, russian president vladimir putin moved to cancel a

decree authorizing him to use force inside ukraine. in egypt, the newly elected president is rejecting calls to pardon three al-jazeera journalists. they were sentenced yesterday to seven years in prison on charges of aiding a "terrorism organization," the now-outlawed muslim brotherhood. today, president abdel fattah el-sisi addressed the issue in a nationally televised speech. >> ( translated ): i called the minister of justice and i told him one word: we will not interfere in judicial matters because the egyptian judiciary is an independent and exalted judiciary, if we desire strong state institutions we must respect court rulings and not comment on them even if others don't understand these rulings. >> woodruff: the united states, australia and others condemned the court verdicts and appealed to sisi to use his legal authority to pardon the journalists. a british jury delivered its verdicts today in the scandal

over hacking the phones of politicians, celebrities and even a murder victim. one former editor of the "news of the world" tabloid, andy coulson, was convicted, while another, rebekah brooks, was acquitted. andy davies of independent television news has this report. >> reporter: out of the old bailey he walks and into the midst of an industry which once so empowered him. andy coulson, the former tabloid boss, former prime ministerial aide, this evening, leaving court in the knowledge he may now face prison over his role in the phone hacking scandal. what a contrast then for the prime minister's old friend and andy coulson's former lover rebekah brooks the woman whose barrister said had been the subject of a witch- hunt. cleared today of all the charges

against her. and leaving court with her husband charlie, also acquitted. he just looked straight ahead. rebecca brooks with her husband charlie on one side of her, at the first of the three guilty verdicts, looked at the jury and smiled. rebecca brooks' husband charlie had also been accused of a coverup. of a complicated plot to hide laptops and documents in an underground car park from police. he said it was to hide embarrassing pornography. the jury today cleared both him and the former news international head of security mark hanna of perverting the course of justice. for andy coulson this trial

isn't over just yet. the jury are still considering their verdicts in relation to two other charges, these involve allegations that he authorized one his journalists to make illegal payments to police officers, accusations he's denied. >> woodruff: the outcry over phone hacking led the murdoch media empire to shut down "news of the world" in 2011, after 168 years in business. back in this country, it was showdown day for two congressional veterans, as seven states held primaries, and florida, a special election. the headline race was in mississippi, where six-term republican senator thad cochran faced tea-party candidate chris mcdaniel in a runoff. in new york, democrat charlie rangel, who's been in the house of representatives for 44 years, tried to stave off a strong primary challenge. sub-par earnings reports and worries about iraq weighed on wall street today. the dow jones industrial average lost 119 points to close at 16,818. the nasdaq fell 18 points to

close at 4,350. and the s-and-p 500 slid 12 points, to finish under 1,950. still to come on the newshour: the u.s. presses iraq's kurds to help prevent the country's splintering; scrutiny of the i.r.s. for emails gone missing; vladimir putin hints at how the "freedom summer" of '64 changed the nation's view of race; and new research on the benefits of reading to very young children. >> woodruff: secretary of state john kerry pushed ahead again today to help save iraq from collapse, returning to the country and pleading with a major political figure to help keep the state intact. >> woodruff: it was kerry's first trip to the kurdish regions of iraq as secretary of state, an emergency visit in the face of the military onslaught by isil, the "islamic state in

iraq and the levant." kerry met with kurdish president massoud barzani, urging him to support efforts in baghdad to form a new government. >> in recent days, the security cooperation between the forces here in the kurdish area has been really critical in helping to draw a line with respect to i.s.i.l. and also to provide some support to the iraqi security forces. >> woodruff: but barzani made it clear the century-old idea of a single, unified state of iraq might be a thing of the past. >> ( translated ): your visit comes at a very important time, and this is important for us to exchange views about the current developments that the entire region is facing, especially iraq. this needs the support of all concerned in order to find a proper solution for the crisis that iraq is witnessing today.

after these changes, we are facing a new reality and a new iraq. >> woodruff: that new iraq, in e eyes of many kurds, will not include them: they've had autonomy since the 1991 gulf war, and the ensuing u.s. air campaign to protect them from saddam hussein. barzani reiterated today he plans an independence referendum that could have major regional implications: kurds live not only in iraq but in southeastern turkey, northern syria and in iran. in the meantime, the kurds' formidable military force, the peshmerga, are acting as a bulwark against isil insurgents in northern iraq. they've also cemented their control of kirkuk, a vital oil- producing center. elsewhere, iraqi armed forces claimed today to have retaken from isil iraq's largest oil refinery, at baiji, and two

posts on it's western border. >> ( translated ): we affirm that the refinery is now under complete control of the security forces and have regained full control over turaibil and al- waleed border crossings and we have reinforced our troops there. the great thing was the support and backing of the tribes of anbar province. >> woodruff: fighting has raged around baiji for a week, and the sunni tribes have become interlocutors between the sunni isil forces and the largely shiite-led iraqi government forces. but as chaos spreads, neighboring jordan has reinforced its border with iraq with armored vehicles and troops. and the first of 300 u.s. speci forces advisors began arriving on monday. meanwhile, the united nations estimated more than 1,000 people have been killed in two weeks of fighting, but it warned that number is very much a minimum. >> woodruff: for more on the

situation in iraq we turn to two former army officers who served in that country. retired colonel derek harvey was an intelligence officer and special advisor to the commander of u.s. forces in iraq, general david petraeus. he's now a professor of practice at the university of south florida. and retired lieutenant colonel douglas ollivant had two tours in iraq. he was also the director for iraq on the national security council during the presidencies of george w. bush and barack obama. he's now a managing partner in a consulting company which does business in iraq. we welcome you both to the "newshour." >> good to be here. just give us your understanding of what the strength and weaknesses are of the iraqi army, who's in it, roughly speaking, and has it been having so much difficulty? >> well, the current situation, the deterioration began with the problems in mosul, and the problems in mosul and then the

province, they had poor commanders, they had a sectarian agenda viewed as maliki's militia by most to have the sunni arabs in the province. poor training, poor practices. over the past year, importantly, i think we need to keep in mind thathat i. i.s.i.l. had it in mo undermine the police and set the stage for what became this campaign, this offensive we saw start a couple of weeks ago. >> woodruff: what would you add to that? >> i think derek has it more or less right. the simplest explanation is that the iraqi army just isn't very good in this particular region. but if we look closer, there were a lot of sunni soldiers in the division in the north, and there's two flavors of why that could go wrong. there's a con spi conspiratorial

version, just at a sociological level, if you are a sunni member of the iraqi army and you see extended members of your family or tribe or mosque fighting against you, you are more likely to go home and not participate in the conflict. >> woodruff: what about what col. harvey said that i.s.i.l. started planting seeds of this sometime ago, as much as a year ago ago? >> he has different information than i do. that's certainly not plausible. it's possible they did that and would fit in the with the idea they have been buying off the right commanders over time. >> the centralization of command and control and the management of the operational level of war for the iraqi army did not allow the operational commanders to have the flexibility and ajillty to respond and, in fact, they were, in effect, blind to what was going on once this began to

unravel. so the inability to have a command and control system, to synchronize a response to the i.s.i.l. offensive was a major factor. >> woodruff: sounds like a number of things were going wrong at the same time. >> absolutely. >> woodruff: col. ollivant, u.s. military aids are just now arriving. how will they change what's going on? >> i suspect we'll have a combination of delta force and seals and regular green beret types who will give advice. more importantly, derek and i were talking earlier, i think we would more call them observers than advisors at this point. they're there to essentially gather information for us both about how i.s.i.l. is doing on the field. they will be in the brigade headquarters of the iraqi army. >> woodruff: not on the front line. >> the brigade headquarters is a

little further back, usually in offices, not close to the battle lines, but they will be able to talk to the people who are talking to the people who are fighting i.s.i.l., get a secondhand version of what's going on at the front lines and i think, even more importantly, look around as -- at the iraqi army units they're with and determine their capabilities. >> woodruff: so what does that bring to the u.s. in terms of decision-making? >> well, it brings, for us, information and awareness about what is going on there at this point in time. but, judy, my major concern with this is that the iraqi army and police are being augmented by a mobilized shia militia and integrated into these commands overiraqi army divisions and police brigades, and that is of concern because i think behind the shia militias, iran's general is managing and

orchestrating this integration and he's the same commander that managed the campaign in syria against the syrian army and other resistant plovpts. >> woodruff: you see a strong hand by iran in all of this? >> reporter: they are helping coordinate the defense in baghdad and integrating the militias. >> woodruff: how do you see the two sides facing off? >> reporter: off? baghdad has been forced to lean on iran. the united states has two national interests, one is in defeating i.s.i.l. and the other is preserving the territorial integrity of iraq. between us and the iranians, there's no wide space on these issues. >> woodruff: i want to ask about jordan, because we mentioned there are troops in jordan mobilizing opened the border and they're worried what's going on inside their

country on behalf of i.s.i.s. what do we know about that? >> i.s.i.l. is a multi-state problem in syria, iraq, and is trying to build its capability in jordan, and in jordan they have recruiting videos out, they have propaganda and they are saying that jordan is next, that the kingdom will fall and they will liberate the people of jordan. >> woodruff: col. , how does that effect what's happening in iraq? does it spread i.s.i.l. more thinly or what does it mean? >> i think they're attracting more kurds in terms of what they're losing in casualties in occupying the territory. i.s.i.l. is a proto-state. they control territory, they have an army, they have a political form. it's all very primitive, mind you, but it's a real ling.

and even if we could wave a magic wand and fix iraq tomorrow, they still have designs on jordan, lebanon, israel and eventually an saudi arabia and turkey. we have a real national interest in countering the threat. >> woodruff: to clarify, harvey, you're more concerned about the iran influence on behalf of the iraqi leadership? >> i am more concerned about i.s.i.l. and its effect on the region and long-term aspirations against the united states, western interests and the more stable countries in the region. the complicating factor for us is the mobilization of the shia and iran's presence there. if we're going to get engaged, how do those issues get worked out? >> woodruff: good questions in reminding us just how complicated this is. colonel have harvey, colonel ollivant, we thank you both. >> thank you very much.

>> woodruff: the political fight over the internal revenue service's targeting of conservative groups got a lot more heated over the past few days. the i.r.s. says it lost two years worth of emails from a former official at the heart of the scandal. in two congressional hearings over the past four days, republicans on capitol hill have lashed out at i.r.s. commissioner john koskinen, alleging a cover-up at the highest levels. koskinen joined the agency six months ago after it found itself embroiled in the controversy. jeffrey brown has our report. >> would you please rise to take the oath? raise your right hand. a little higher. thank you. >> brown: even the oath-taking seemed contentious last night, as i.r.s. commissioner john koskinen appeared before the house oversight committee. >> we have a problem with you and you have a problem with maintaining your credibility. >> brown: at issue: lost e-mails

from former i.r.s. official lois lerner. she resigned last year after disclosures that her division targeted tea party and other groups for reviews before the 2012 election. the controversy revived this month, when the i.r.s. reported thousands of lerner's e-mails vanished when her computer crashed, in 2011. california republican darrell issa chaired last night's hearing. >> so you told us that all emails would be provided. when you discovered that all emails would not be provided you did not come back and inform us. is that correct? >> all the emails we have will be provided. i did not say i would provide you emails that disappeared. if you have a magical way for me to do that, i'd be happy to know about it. i said i would provide all the emails. we are providing all the emails. >> brown: koskinen had an equally testy exchange with ohio republican michael turner, who pressed for an f.b.i. investigation. >> i reject the suggestion that my integrity depends upon my calling the f.b.i. the inspector general will issue a report. we will all get the benefit of

that report. and then we can determine what the appropriate action is to be. >> i have always believed that what happened in your agency with lois lerner is a crime. i believe that there were others involved. i believe the emails that are missing are the ones that would probably give us an ability to establish that. and i believe that somebody undertook criminal act in its destruction. >> brown: things were even more heated friday, at a ways and means committee hearing, when republican paul ryan accused koskinen of lying. >> this is a pattern of abuse, a pattern that is not giving us any confidence that says this agency is being impartial. >> i have a long career that's the first time anybody has said they do not believe me. >> i don't believe you. >> that's fine we can have a disagreement. i am willing to stand on our record. >> brown: democrats charge republicans are simply out to score political points. this was maryland congressman elijah cummings last night. >> republicans have been trying desperately and unsuccessfully for more than a year to link this scandal to the white house.

rather than continue on this path, i sincerely hope that we will turn to constructive legislation of concrete solutions to help federal agencies run more effectively and efficiently. >> brown: the oversight committee reconvened this morning, with the government's top archivist, david ferriero. michigan republican tim walberg cited a law requiring the i.r.s. to report the lost e-mails much earlier. >> did they break the law? >> i'm not a lawyer. >> but you administer the federal records act? >> i do. >> if they didn't follow it, can we safely assume they broke the law? >> they did not follow the law. >> brown: the panel also heard from jennifer o'connor, a white house counsel who worked at the i.r.s. for six months last year. she appeared after being subpoenaed. away from the hearing, house speaker john boehner said

charged it's clear the white house is not cooperating. he told reporters, "they haven't done a damn thing" to help get to the truth. >> brown: with us now are two members of congress who've taken part in these hearings: sander levin, a democrat from michigan and the ranking member of the house ways and means committee. and john mica, a florida republican who serves on the house oversight committee. congressman mica, let's start with you and the e-mails. do you and other republicans believe they were intentionally destroyed? is there solid evidence to that effect? >> we honestly don't know, and that's the reason we called in the commissioner, called him back, when he testified in march to government reforment oversight, he never cited any technical problems, and everyone, republican and democrat, said we just want the e-mails from lois lerner.

they haven't been produced. i think everyone was equally shocked in congress and across the country that that information was either destroyed or missing. we don't know how it occurred. >> brown: congressman levin, were you shocked? because you said it was an equipment failure. what about the questions about the timing and when we learned about it and why there were no backups. >> i'm not sure what the issue is regarding backups, what the i.r.s. had at the time. i think it's clear there has to be a better job in i.r.s. and throughout this government. there's zero, zero evidence that there was any intentional effort by lois lerner or by anyone else and, at our hearing, there was dragged out a letter going back to 2011, and the claim was that she was tipped off and therefore the implication was that she destroyed her computer. it turned out that letter had nothing to do with the inappropriate criteria that were

being used. they were inappropriate, and i said right at the beginning when we found out about it that they should be -- lerner and miller -- relieved of their duties. >> brown: john mica, this has become very personal. john koskinen came in and why is he a target and why is this an attempt to tie the white house to the snirs. >> well, first of all, we don't know and we just learned within a matter of days again about the destruction of the tapes. it's not 18 minutes like in the nixon white house or rosemary woods. this is 18 months. we learned there was a backup system. i don't know how much information they have. unfortunately that backup system which is in place i think from 2005 to what we've learned to about 2011, i believe, in the

time frame that, again, some of this came down, that company was terminated right at about the time that some of this, again, occurred. so we're going to see if there is backup information. we're going to find out who, if anyone, was responsible for what happened to the tapes. we don't know. again, i think the whole country was stunned just a few days ago to find out that this information had crashed or disappeared. >> brown: sander levin, from your side, the charge has been that the i.r.s. including john koskinen as well as the information never really addressed the larger matter behind all this, the question of targeting conservative groups, an it's been treated as a minor matter. >> that's not true at all. by the way, you mentioned the efforts to tie this to the white house -- that's what mr. mica,

dave camp, senator hatch and others, they talked about dave camp at this first hearing talked about a culture of coverup within the administration, zero evidence of that, and there never has been such evidence. and we never said that the use of these inappropriate criteria, that that use was minor. indeed, as i said earlier, i was among the first to say that those in responsible positions should be relieved of their responsibilities. no, there were inappropriate criteria. they applied both to liberal and conservative organizations, more to conservative organizations because they had filed many more applications for 501c4, and there is a legitimate concern about the use of 5 501c4s because they're supposed to relate to social welfare repredominantly and you have in use in public today the use of

501c4s for essentially political purposes. from 2006 to 2012. in 2006, there was a million dollars used reported for political purposes, that joint to $250 million by 2012. half of it from karl rove and koch brothers and other organizations. so there's a legitimate concern but we never said the use of this criteria inappropriately so was minor. we never said that. >> brown: let me ask congressman mica briefly, if you could. is that larger issue being lost in all this, the question about which organization should qualify for tax exempt status? >> that's a question for the ways and means committee and our tax code. the question here was the targeting. an independent review was done by the inspector general of treasury, independent and he found that they were targeting

here conservative groups. now, whether you're targeting conservative or aggressive or liberal groups, that's not right, and that's part of what i think the investigation has boiled down to. people hold the i.r.s. in trust because it's our chief financial revenue agent and everyone wants to be treated fair by them and to have them close down some political groups no matter what their persuasion before the election and draught dragged out, again, the processing them and then going after them. mr. levin's point about the white house, the only thing i've said on the white house is the different inconsistencies. the commissioner at the time told us he'd only been at the white house for the easter egg roll then we found out he's been over a hundred times. we also know that the white

house counsel and certain people in the white house were aware of what was going on. so, again, we don't have any clear evidence because we haven't completed the -- >> brown: a brief last word from you, mr. levin. >> they say there's no evidence then make charges. they talk about a culture of coverup, a white house enemy's list. there's been zero, zero proof of that, and they continue this desperate effort to connect this to the white house, and they should stop. this should not be an inquisition. >> brown: sander levin and john mica, thank you both very much. >> woodruff: in a ceremony on capitol hill today, congressional leaders commemorated the 50th anniversary of the civil rights act by bestowing the congressional medal of honor posthumously on dr. martin luther king, jr, and his wife,

coretta scott king. now, we remember another pivotal moment in the struggle for civil rights in the united states. the events that took place that summer that changed not only the place where activists converged, but the entire country. gwen has our look back. >> ifill: for ten weeks in the summer of 1964, well over 1,000 college students, black and white, from around the country volunteered to go to deeply segregated mississippi to register black voters, teach young people and create a new political party. along the way they encountered hostility, violence, arrestest and even murder. 50 years later, freedom summer, a new american experience documentary airing on most pbs stations tells the story. stanley nelson wrote, produced and directed freedom summer which also features two key players from that time, robert moses, then a leader in the student non-violent coordinating committee, and the organizer of freedom summer, and bender, an organizer whose husband was one

of three civil rights working killed when they went south to investigate the burning of a black church. stanley, when the organizers got to mississippi, 90% of eligible black voters weren't able to vote and you were drawn to the story, even though you kind of knew about it, why? >> well, i kind of had heard the story a little bit, but i didn't know it, and i think, you know, it was the opportunity to really take one piece of this civil rights movement and really just get into it. and i also think it was just a really important story because it was about voting rights, which is now doubly important in this country. >> ifill: stephanie, i want to take you back to the beginnings of this movement through the eyes of your documentary, a portion of which deals with robert moses and how he came to be involved in this. let's take a look. >> the common theory about mississippi was that you could not attack mississippi from the inside. it had to be attacked from the

outside. you had to stand away and say this is an awful place and it ought to fix itself. but bob moses and the student on violent coordinating committee said, no, that's not true, we can do it ourselves. >> bob moses was a high school teacher in new york city. he went south in 1960, originally just feeling he had to go, had to get involved. he was september to mississippi. he -- he was sent to mississippi and went on his on in the rural areas where people simply didn't go and challenge the status quo. >> what made him stand out was not only his sheer courage but his calm courage. i can't tell you that bob moses was afraid because he never showed it. he just went about his work, and there was this calm sense of mission. >> bob went over there by himself in 1961, and by the end

of '61, maybe ther

>> mississippi set itself up throughout the country's history. it set itself up the next year when the freedom riders went through mississippi, saying you can come in but you can't get out. so mississippi kind of charged itself with being the real obstacle to overcome. it had done that. >> ifill: certainly oneo the most attention-getting and the pal thrown over the movement was the murder of the three civil rights workers, and that drew

bender into this. let's take a look at her involvement. >> the wife of mickey s shwerner puts a face on them an and shows we need to pay attention to these real people who something terrible happened to. >> something happened and i am going to find thenswer. driving every back road, every dirt road, every alley. i will do it. >> the press swarmed over here and i think they wanted her to cry and they wanted her to be a new widow that they would

capture at her woodohood and she wouldn't play. >> i personally suspect mr. chaney, who is a naffed mississippi negro, if he had been alone at the time of his disappearance, that this case like so many others would have gone completely unnoticed. >> ifill: i have to ask, did you know what you were tting into? >> i don't know any of us quite knew what we were getting into. mickey and i had gone to mississippi in january of 1964. i think that the people who really knew what this was all about were the people who lived in that state and had put up with -- or not put up with but experienced the violence and the

threats and the brutality and the murders in all the years since reconstruction. >> ifill: on some level, you knew as a white woman from somewhere else that you would be able to get attention for the cause in a way that the people who lived in mississippi could not? >> i'm not sure i thought of it quite that way. it's hard, looking back, to say that was the motivating factor. i'm not sure it was. >> ifill: you were able to get into the white house and to meet will.b.j. >> yes, but that's after the three were missing and there was enormous attention, and the enormous attention was because two of the three men were white. nobody had paid very much attention either on a national level or locally with the murders of black men and often

children who had been -- mississippi had the highest rate of lynchings in the entire country. i think there was something over 500 that were documented and there were probably many more that never made any kind of recognition. >> ifill: stanley, as you look at the documentary, you talk about the freedom summer and volunteers down south but also the political piece of this. fanny lou, you have video of her speaking. >> we traveled to the county courthouse in indianola to try to register to become first-class citizens. we were met there by policemen -- >> ifill: that turned into a political as much as a social uprising.

>> yes, one of the parts of freedom summer that sometimes wasn't talked about was the whole challenge to the democratic national convention, the idea that mississippi would send us separate delegation to the convention. basically, the black people would send a delegation that would challenge this all-white delegation that the democratic national convention in 1964 which is when lyndon johnson was going to be nominated. he wanted it to be a coronation. >> ifill: you shut it down. yeah, and it's one of the most incredible pieces of the film and we were shocked to find that lyndon johnson recorded all his phone calls and there's audio of him wheeling and dealing to stop this alternate delegation to the convention and it's amazing. >> ifill: bob moses, as you look back 50 years later, do you

think you awakened a sleeping giant? the voting rights act came to be the very next year, you got certainly a level of attention paid to something that people had ignored so long. >> to sell you the truth -- to tell you the truth, i think what we did as capping a constitutional era in which white supremacy and black subordination ruled not just in mississippi but across the country. and we were part of the events that actually brought that constitutional era to an end. i'm not going to say what era we're in, now, right, but that constitutional era is over. >> ifill: well, let me ask rita bender, what era are we in now?

>> i'm not sure of the title, but i'd say it's very troubling that, after all the years of struggle, after the significant changes that occurred, the right to vote we thought was one, issues of education denial we thought were going to be dealt with, and now we have a congress and a supreme court that absolutely will not pay attention to the needs of the country. >> ifill: stanley nelson, as you complete this project and as pbs viewers watch it, what do you hope they take away at this moment, that there are things we can accomplish that we don't think we can or that's a nice moment? >> right. i made a couple of historical

films and the only reason to make them and to look at them is how they inform the present, and i think that's really important. you know, for us to understand that these people who are really young, most of them, you know, at that point, you know, made changes in this country, and they made changes because they took the power to change. they just did it, you know. and it still can be done today. you know, there's movements that exist. it's not like there's nothing there for people to be part of and it really shows the power that we have and the power that young people have in this country b. the one thing i want to say is i don't know of any movement anywhere in the world that's an old people's movement. it's always young people and that's who i hope this film really influences. >> rita bender, robert moses, producer of freedom summer on

pbs. thank you all for your contribution. >> woodruff: "american experience" will be airing "freedom summer" on most p.b.s. stations this evening. check your local listings. online, listen to interviews from those who were there and from today's students who are studying that struggle, fifty years later. >> woodruff: finally, a new call to parents and others today about the need for routine reading to the youngest of children, and it's potential effect on literacy, language and well-being. jeff is back with that. >> where's the duck? >> brown: the nation's largest pediatricians' group is now formally urging parents to read aloud to their children, daily, from infancy. the american academy of pediatrics says doing so stimulates early brain development and helps build key language, literacy and social

skills. according to the academy, more than one in three american children start kindergarten without the skills they need to learn to read. about two-thirds of children can't read proficiently by the end of the third grade. >> do you want to pick a book? >> brown: the academy is urging pediatricians to provide books to low-income families. it's also teaming with other groups, including "reach out and read," a non-profit organization newshour education correspondent john merrow profiled in november 2012. >> there's solid research that shows that just that intervention of handing a family a book, giving them a couple of age-appropriate pieces of advice about how to read with their kid, and just encouraging reading, they, those kids will do better in school. >> brown: "reach out and read" serves nearly 5,000 medical centers, and more than a third of all american children living in poverty. >> brown: the lead author of the new "literacy promotion" report joins us now. dr. pamela high is professor of pediatrics at brown university. and former president of the society of developmental and behavioral pediatrics.

welcome to you. first, start by explaining more about what you're trying to address here and how serious an issue this is. >> what we're addressing is that many parents in the united states don't seem to have the knowledge that there's a wonderful opportunity available to them starting very early, an opportunity for them to begin building the child's language development and to forge their own relationship with their child through reading to them on a regular basis. you know, i would also say talking to them, singing with them, playing with them, all of those kinds of things. >> brown: in some ways confirming what we all knew or suspected? what is it about reading or being read to that -- what does it do for kids? >> you know, what reading does for very young children is it gives them a time when they

pretty much have the undivided attention of their parents or their caregivers. it's a real one-on-one opportunity for children to communicate with their parents and parents to communicate with their children. you know, we know that the more words that are in a child's language world, the more words they learn and the stronger their language skills are when they reach kindergarten, the more prepared they are to read, and the better they read the more likely they'll graduate from high school. children with very poor reading proficienties by the time they read fourth grade are the ones with greater risk of not graduating and not being able to be successful in their own life course, economically, for example. >> brown: those are the kinds of consequences you outline in the report, in fact, right, is economic and even health issues. >> we frame this -- we feel that the power of the experience of

reading to children is really seated in the relationship between the parent and the child, that this is the way of building that relationship and we do know from scores of information that it's really the parent-child relationship, nurturing relationships between caregivers and children that set a positive life course, and this is one medium for it, talking with them, by exposing them to language and literacy early on so they're motivated so, even if it's hard, your child will want to work in order to learn how to read themselves because it's not that easy for all children. >> what exactly are you calling on doctors, people in your profession to do? how should they incorporate this into their practice? >> well, actually, many pediatricians have been incorporating this into their practice now for almost 20 years. it's the reason that we have a large body of knowledge that tells us the power of this intervention, and the way that

we try to do it, in particular for families of lower income status who are the ones at greatest risk to not have this information and potentially not to have the tools either to be able to share a book with their child, is that when you try to have a high-quality children's book available so we can use it as part of the visit with the child, so you can use it for a vehicle for seeing how that child is developing. for example, a six--month-old-ol-month-old is likely to hold on to a book, put it in their mouth, taste it, look at the pictures for a while, not pay too much attention. as they get older, they start patting the pictures. by a year or 15 months, they can probably point to some of the pictures in their favorite book. as they get older than that, they may even be able to point out some letters in the alphabet or tell you the story that's in the book. so the book is a vehicle for assessing how well the child is doing developmentally.

it's also can be a vehicle for assessing a relationship between the parent and the child. how comfortable is that child sitting in the parent's lap and sharing that book together? and if it doesn't seem so comfortable, it's an opportunity to perhaps model how to do it and show how much fun it can be. >> we'll continue this conversation online and i want to ask you questions about strategies for parents. we'll stop for now. dr. pamela high, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day. secretary of state john kerry returned to iraq for a second day, urging kurdish leaders to help the government defeat islamist fighters. boko haram militants in nigeria kidnapped another 60 girls and women, plus 31 boys. and the head of homeland security pledged to use every lawful option to cope with a flood of children entering the u.s. illegally. on the newshour online right

now, a michigan man who makes guitars discovers music hidden in the wreckage of detroit's abandoned buildings. gary zimniki hand crafts musical instruments using reclaimed wood taken from vacant houses in the city. see and hear what it's all about, in our new arts series called "local beat," highlighting stories from pbs member stations around the country. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org. >> woodruff: again, tomorrow, the role of american service personnel killed in the afghanistan conflict,. here in silence are three more.

and that's the newshour for tonight. on wednesday, gwen talks with former secretary of state and former first lady hillary rodham clinton. i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you on-line and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and goodnight. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years.

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