tavis: vincent harding turned to dr. larson who is dealing with his own sense of struggle. less than a week later, he would be assassinated while standing on the balcony of a hotel in memphis. >> i'm still wrestling with my own difficulties. one day i was on the phone with jim about something or another and i said to him, how do you feel about that. how have you felt about that? he probably picked up what irish try to struggle with. -- what i was trying to struggle with. he said, what is clear to me was that martin wanted to come to memphis. i said, when i first called to invite him, he was in a staff meeting. i could hear the voices just booming on to the telephone, tell me you cannot come. martin, we have too much to do. he said, martin paid no attention. he said, let's are rented. that told me that i was not coercing him, i was not forcing him, it was not me primarily. he needed to stand with them. i do not take that on my own shoulders, vincent. that was a kind of burden off of my shoulders but i know that is what martin wanted and needed to say. if he was willing to go

it is a great honor to present to you once again professor vincent harding, sister helen prejean and the 14th dalai lama. [applause] now, um, a word about how we intend to operate here today in this conversation. um, i have spoken to sister helen and vincent harding, and what we will do is we will allow our panelists to talk each for two or three minutes about their own personal path to the stance of nonviolence and the particular role that nonviolence plays in be what they do in the world. we will then follow that up with questions and comments and then, and then at the end we will have a one minute or so summary from each of the panelists, and i am certain that we will all be, by that time, greatly enlightened. we would like to start of course, with his holiness. if you could talk for a couple of minutes about your own personal path to nonviolence, and then sister helen and vincent harding. [speaking in native tongue] >> yeah. good morning, everybody. >> good morning. >> indeed, i'm very happy. this first time, i think, come to state, this city. so this morning i found, of course,

humble opinion i believe we just born witness to what is a historic conversation so let me thank vincent harding, sister helen, and your holiness, the dalailama. >> tonight on c-span, activists remember martin luther. this event is a prelude to the official dedication of the martin luther king memorial on sunday. >> in relationship to poverty and militarism or certainly poverty, we've almost made no strides, and i would appeal that this is not just an issue that the president of the united states must address. it's an issue that all of us must address because dad said no man can be -- i can't by what i ought to be until you ought to be, and you can't be what you august ought to be because we are tried together in neutrality for what effects one directly effects all of us indirectly, so we are at a critical juncture in america, and while we're celebrating this monument, let us not just put dad up on a shelf, and idolize him. let us practice his ideals. >> more from the event tonight at 8 eastern on c-span. you can watch booktv all this month in primetime on c-span2. >> next, a forum on the presid