and i said dr. king, i'm john robert lewis, i gave my whole name. and that was the beginning. >> stephen: and he remembered. >> he remembered. >> stephen: so he was a mentor of yours. you became friends. you were actually the youngest speaker at the march on washington in 1963. i was maybe the youngest attendee because my mother was there. she was pregnant with me. that is actually why i have this banner right here this is the freedom march banner, august 28th, 1963. >> that's very moving. that is very moving to me sdz i remember-- one of the things. >> thank you for being there. >> stephen: well, you are welcome. i had little choice in the matter. (laughter) >> you were were there. >> stephen: i was there and i remember you saying-- . it meant so much to me. >> you heard me. >> stephen: i z oh i definitely heard you. >> really. >> stephen: but then when you got to the bridge, what happened to you and the other marchers as you went across that bridge. first of all, why was there any resistance to you going across that bridge. >> we had planned to ma

[laughter] and for those of you who know about dr. king, we can also say that bayard was not dr. king's type. [laughter] but king takes this threat very seriously even though it's hollow. there's nothing to it. he takes it seriously because he's frightened of negative exposure. remember, this is a very homophobic society that we live in in 1960. even today, but especially in 1960, and he's very concerned about the negative exposure at that point. so eventually after several different steps he decides to cut bayard out of his inner circle. and bayard is absolutely crushed. and he goes into a funk. before this in 1959 king had actually considered giving bayard one of the top positions in the sclc. and king's inner circle advised him not to do so because of the possible negative exposure that might arise because of bayard's gay sexuality and because of his past arrests related to lewd vagrancy. after 1960 bayard eventually gets back into king's inner circle. by 1963 he's strategizing with king about birmingham, and then he becomes that leader of the march on washington. he becomes th

dr. martin luther king, as well, i understand. >> and jim palmer. i was blessed to be -- a frat brother. i was in the fraternity. so i began to get access in that situation. but that was that, and then in north carolina, jim palmer was a huge force in that time. i've been blessed to be around men and women of stature. marian wright edelman. these persons have had great impact on my life. >> what did you learn from dr. king, in particular, because your legacy is so intricately tied to dr. king's. you were literally standing on the balcony. >> i was on the ground. we were talking to each other. >> to be that close to him not just at that moment but over the course of those years u what were the big lessons you learned from dr. king? >> oh, boy. one i think is intellectual preparation. he was a serious scholar. you think of him, he did a debate on the negro and the constitution at age 14. >> wow. >> age 15 he went to moorehouse. he finished at 19. he was a furious scholar. he read at least one fiction an nonfiction book a week. i mean, he was as schola

dr. king said something very critical.ese were head of state an men we had to deal with. he said we understand all the problems that we face. your task is to find their moral center. >> the moral center. >> find their moral center and to get them to our cause. he saw in both of those men, good and to keep programming them and keep giving them information and keep informing them about what our struggle was about. in the end, i think we had an incredible alliance of john didn't live long enough. >> it was l.b.j. who you talk about. initially surprised he would be the one. i do want to ask you about something else. there's a moment when you talk about police stopping you for while walking while being black in beverly hills in the early 1950s. do you see parallels between that experience and the trayvon martin shooting? >> absolutely. it's nothing to the extreme happened when i was walking beverly hills. i was not shot, but i was stopped and under very slim interrogation. i couldn't tell them who i was and what i was doing the

a quick rendezvous that he had with dr. king that you see quite often and whether it was staged or what have you but nonetheless -- when he was in selma because dr. king was in jail and he said i got your back. anything happens just call on me. i am at your service. beginning to reach out for the civil-rights movement but not diminishing or losing sight on human-rights because he sought a connection and it is important that you see the evolution of these ideas and many people speculate james cone does a good job speculating on the convergence and trajectory of their lives. coming closer to get there. can you imagine what that would be? in terms of devastating in terms of the unification of the struggle in this country. those two big thinkers on the second page. >> i would like to throw in a little bit as an old teacher to the national audience and look at malcolm's life as an example how to transition to another place. and where they need to be. and how to cut the tee the off and you need to learn how to expand -- opportunity to

dr. king said, mr. president, i am disappointed with you. you know the 15th amendment that was added to the constitution in 1870 has been meeting for african-americans today. we need a boating rights act. -- we need a boating rights act. that is when selma, montgomery took place. i am sure john lewis would have talked about that today. that is when the selma to montgomery voting rights movement began in earnest. finally in march of 1965, president johnson called a nationwide press conference to announce he was changing his decision, that he would support a strong voting rights act. he did that. he did that at the peril of the second presidency, of losing the democratic influence in the south among white voters, but he did it because it was the right thing. now we have a voting rights act. when i was in law school at 35, 40 years ago, there was no african-american elected officials in my great state. today we have eight or 900 elected officials, 300 in my congressional district alone. the voting rights act has made a difference. [applause] no

and covering dr. king and the civil-rights movement was my job to cover him and the civil rights movement. i could not believe some of the things i saw. i saw a ku klux klan rally for the first time. i had heard about them but never seen one. to see one, the chill that went through me as a white person and i could only imagine what went through the minds of people of color. i couldn't believe the police in any city in the united states of america would turn high-pressure fire hoses on women and children in a non-violent large. i couldn't believe they would turn vicious dogs on them but i saw these things. it was my job to get them on film. if i had to pick one story that influenced me the most that would be it. >> thank you very much. >> i was wondering if you would share your last few memories of your time in dallas, the kennedy assassination. >> thank you for being here and thank you for the question. because -- i was fooled away from coverage of the civil-rights movement to cover president kennedy's tri

dr. martin luther king when he accepted -- no, actually -- in 1968 in where do we go from here, he talked about economic structure. he said that there's 40 million poor people in this country, and when you ask that question, you have to ask the very structure or the economy. he went on to say who owns the oil? who owns the iron ore, if the world is 2/3 water, why do we pay water bills? don't try that with the water company, it will not work. but it's true, we have seen in the past 20 years the income distribution become more inequal. we are only second to sweden in our inequality of our income distribution. if you talk to the other people. they will say, oh, this is class warfare, where you begin to talk about the differences of who earns what. or they need to work hard. there's nobody harder working than an undocumented person who's cleaning up somebody's house and getting paid under the table. >> i want to go to cecilia in just a second. but in reference to the prepaid card. you have a card that's called the preapproved card, tell us about what make this is approved card different. >> l

>> it is wonderful and liberating and it was a joyous moment, and dr. king say that the arc of the law of the universe is long. and we were privileged to be there tuesday to see one of the bends of justice. >> you believe that dr. king is smiling down on this and seeing the incredible change. >> yes. yes, i believe that these are the children of the civil rights revolution that have brought this about. 10% of the congregations now are african-american. we are 22% ethnic, and that makes us the most ethnically diverse denomination in the country from all white in 1965 to the most ethnically diverse today is a good beginning. >> so what sparked this change in the church, and this acceptance of diversity? >> well, i believe it was the direct intervention of god. i think that we need to give god the credit for changing the che collective heart of the southern baptist convention on the issue of race, convicting us of the fact that this was sin, convicting us that we needed to take the bible as our goal instead of quoting the southern way of life, and we needed to

after all, dr. king the white church resisted dedegregation. there is in effect a new south. rights movement because the walls are down, lsu can now play alabama. you can have automotive industry in the south and a president of the southern baptist convention because this is an ongoing battle that we're winning every day, making america in some sense more open to issues of racial justice and equality. >> i remember dr. king writing that america was never more invited than at 11:00 a.m. on a sunday. is this a real change, do you think? >> well, we've changed leadership. culture has to change with the leadership. you see when you look at lsu play alabama in the big game, you look at the atlanta falcons play the carolina football team, there's more did he segregation there than there is in the church. but the fact some churches see the value of going on with a great moral ethical agenda there in our country that too many poor people are -- set the captive free. too many guns and drugs and jobs out. it's our job to lift up those stuck at the bottom and so i think it's a great mor

i thought about mandala, dr. king and gandhi and tried to put some perspective on this.aking foreign language ] . >> what did i do in this case? but provide health care for low-income families. >> my hands are shaky, my knees are weak, can't seen to stand up on my own two feet. i'm praying and hope for the best. >> welcome back to chicago as you look at it's sears tower, we all know that. a live picture back here in chicago. that was part of the strange odyssey of former illinois governor, rod blagojevich, the man serving a 14-year prison sentence. >> the past four decades, four of the nine illinois governs have gone to prison. two additional governors were charged, but later acquitted. two of the four illinois governors convicted of crimes, blago and george reign are still serving their terms. >>> enough of real news, let's brush up on our chicago trivia with a little heavy from mayor rahm emanual and conan o'brien here this week hosting his show from the chicago theater. >> are you ready? for your citizenship test? >> yes, i am ready for the chicago citizenship test. >

dr. king's speech before david and i get up. [laughter] i will say this because ultimately, i have got to with knowledge two incredible basketball players and more importantly, two incredible human beings. thank you for the history. i came in as the head coach of this basketball team. the one thing we talked about was we were going to be a no excuse basketball team. being honest with you because we are family here, we had excuses. we just did not decide to air them out. but to the credit of this incredible ownership group led by joe and peter, they continue to knock off the check list of excuses that we had, taylor made. an incredible job of commitment, an incredible job of passion, focus, and determination that became contagious throughout this organization. i am honored and thrilled to be the head coach of this basketball team. i look forward to what lies ahead in the future. this is a great day for bay area fans and fans of sports throughout this country. at the end of the day, we are talking about 2017, though, and i can cel

but when they told me dr. king was going to take some pictures with us, i got dressed up and i went down there. and i had a round-trip ticket to get back to laguardia. is it started raining. and instead of going back into the churches, people started putting on plastic around their worn-out shoes. well, i had a cashmere coat and it didn't appear to me this was my setting. i came down for pictures, and i thought this would be the appropriate time for me to get a cab and to see a paper and see how the pictures turned out. but as they started moving, i don't know how many of you knew selma 60 years ago. but as they started moving, i found myself without any sidewalk. i was actually in woods with a bunch of mean national guards people spitting tobacco protecting me as we marched singing "we shall overcome" into the woods. with hostility all around me. no photographers. no way to get back. for 54 miles my bad feet and i said, what the heck are we doing in these woods marching like this? i had no clue that history was be

dr. king's words, of which senator harkin reminded us this morning. that the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. here on earth, the work of bending that arc requires the concerted effort of human hands working together. no stronger hands have been devoted to that task than those of our next speaker. because of her, we live in a better, fairer and more just america than we otherwise would. ladies and gentlemen, justice ruth bader ginsberg. [ cheers and applause ] >> please, be seated. that was a splendid introduction but the truth is, i've had more than a little bit of luck in my life to be born when i was and to be a lawyer when the women's movement came alive in the late '60s and early '70s and could lend my whatever skills i had as a lawyer, to nudge that movement along. i think many of you know, it is now flood season at the court. so all i can offer this evening is an impressionistic view of what life has been like at the court in the 2011 to 2012 term. and in doing that, i will borrow heavily from the annual report i made to my circu

but i think that one of the challenges in young leadership being able to model not just what dr. king was about but the legacy that i think comes from the black church in particular, and that's using the prophetic voice to be able to speak to issues beyond that of church, to that of life, is because in many cases they don't always see it. and i think there's a great deal of discussion about the legacy of the church as it relates to sociopolitical issues and the ability to be able to mobilize around them but not a lot of modeling. and so until that modeling happens it doesn't exist. and we can have a lot of rhetorical discussion about it. i'll close with this. i think when we start -- the whole notion of this discussion here is call to action. and when you say call and action, that implies that there is an ask and a response. but in the middle of that there has to be training. and i think one of the things that we have removed from the african-american institutional tradition is an emphasis on training. and by that i mean not the theological training that comes from seminary from the s

i was not thinking about marching on southern roads. -- when they told us dr. king was going to be there and take some pictures, i put my shoes on and got down there. it started raining, and instead of going back inside, people started putting plastic around their worn out shoes. it did not appear to me that this was my setting. i thought this would be the appropriate time for me to get a cab and see how the pictures turned out, but as they started moving -- i do not know how many of you new selma 60 years ago, but as they started moving, i found myself without any sidewalk. i was actually in woods with a bunch of mean national guard people spitting tobacco, protecting me, as we marched singing "we shall overcome" into the woods. for 54 miles, my bad teeth and i asked what we were doing in these woods margin like this -- my dad feet and night. i had no clue that history was being made. i thought it was just another bad day for me. i did not know it meant the voting rights act. i did not know it meant the civil rights act. i did not know how many people have march an

dr. martin luther king jr. academic middle school. i thank you for listening and i hope that you guys will do -- make a change and help our school that is in so much need for your help. thank you. >> are you ryan, by any chance? >> yes, yes, i am. sorry i'm late. i guess i'm changing the subject a bit here. my name is ryan yip. i'm representing an organization called big jim foundation and we're putting on a free contest called lemonade alley. it is to teach k-12 kids business lit r.t.a. rassy and entrepreneurship through a contact with selling lemonade for charity. what they do is basically develop a recipe for let me nate nade or a lemonade product and develop a business and marketing plan for that lemonade and construct a lemonade stand, which will be constructed at the i.n.g. on post and kerney on july 7. this contest is being underwritten by i.n.g. direct and capital one bank. at the conference in san francisco and seven contests across the country. the winning team from this contest and all the other contests will be given a six

>> dr. king in his last act was fighting for the worker's right to bargain. he's using his power to take workers from the table. the right to collectively bargain is the american right. it's an american right. it's morally right. if he's able to set the tone in this campaign to undermine collective bargaining for workers, public workers, police, teachers, firemen, that's a real threat. >> what if walker retains his seat? does it mean anything for the country? does it send a message? paul ryan just down the road here author of the ryan budget, chairman of the house budget committee, he was out there singing the tune this weekend that this is going to have big implications politically. >> it is. we fall down and get back up. we will not stop. we are long distance runners. they have the most money and they have the machinery. this will to collective bargaining will not go away. fighting for the right to vote will not go away. fighting to get mass transportation to connect people will not go away. if we win, we celebrate. if we do not win, we keep on fighting the

>> clearly dr. king was a great man. on the other hand, jesus christ, i believe died for my sins.low him and i trust him. i have to stand by the word of god in times and bad times whether it's popular or unpopular. that doesn't mean that i don't love people who don't agree with me. i think we have to have love in our hearts for everybody. i'm not the judge. i'm a follower of the master. he's the judge of us all. i'm not judging anybody. >> let's get professor peterson in. >> the president has been effective at showing his process and how it's unravelled. he's evolved on this particular issue. that evolving and unraveling as given space for a lot of black folk who is have family members and friend who is are from the lesbian and gay community that want to have the rights and need to have the rights. they can identify with it. >> we're going to have the holy ghost to have another convening of this kind of tremendous conversation. thank you so much for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >>> it hasn't happened in more than three decades. we'll tell you why it won't happen again t

dr. king's famous i have a dream speech.in it he talks about governors whose lips drip with the words of nullification. opposing their will, nullifying federal law. we just had the supreme court uphold this is legal. it is constitutional. how can we have elected governors openly say they're going to disobey the law. >> i was thinking 1954. the supreme court of the united states saying dmo longer were the ferguson separate but equal the law of the land. we are now going to rule that separate is illegal. then the justices killed it. they said you must implement them with all deliberate speed. they said deliberate speed. they knew what deliberation means. that means don't worry about it. >> deliberately didn't operate the speed. >> that's right. but the -- the fascinating part of this decision is nothing like that comes out of this decision. they do not say all deliberate speed. in fact, chief justice roberts says look, we have no basis as a court to stand in the way of this law. this law moves forward. >> congress has the righ

stand up and talk about how we love the civil rights movement and how we all fought together with dr. king then undermine the voting rights act. what bothers me secondly, is where is the leadership of the democratic party? that's right. we've heard some democrats stand up. congress man cleaver and others among them. but i'm talking about the heads of the party. why have you in this whole debacle gained political laryngitis? i think you need to be called out. maybe i'll start coming with names. because it's bad enough when those on the other side start shooting at you for no reason. it's worse when your friends duck so they can get a clear shot. >>> ahead, how did florida governor rick scott hatch his plan to purge voters? the amazing answers coming to that coming up next. plus republicans wrap themselves up in religion. so why are they waging war on the poor? a group of nuns is shining a big light on this tonight. and one who wants to claim he cares about the middle class. wait until you hear what he's saying to the wall street crowd today. you're watching "politicsnation" on msnbc. >>> we

. >> dad was head of the chicago racial council and had a lot of interaction with dr. kingonship with him, tried to desegregate the catholic schools and hospitals in chicago and was president of the board of education, tried to integrate the chicago public school systems. his actions in the '40s and '50s are consistent with what he did in the '60s and '70s and spreading special olympics all around the world with my mom right up until he died. he's very consistent in behavior. >> consistent throughout. when we talk about martin luther king, jr., in 1960, he was in jail in georgia. >> he was. >> and your father went up against the political group around jfk, kenny o'donnell, principally, wanting the kennedys to call coretta scott king and do something about that. >> dad ran the civil rights unit in that campaign and was told by many people if kennedy said anything nice about khruschev, castro or king, they would throw their support elsewhere. but he had that relationship with king. it was really an act of hope. some said it was a great political move to get senator kennedy to