mary frances berry and marian wright edelman. us.re glad you have joined those conversations coming up right now. ♪ by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: dr. algernon austin is the author of "the unfinished march." good to have you on this program, sir. i want to jump right in, there in-depth you have done research on to give us some sort of portrait of where we are and where we are not, 50 years later. i want to jump right in and go in this particular order. first, these ghettos of poverty. how is it, why is it that 50 years after king tried to ring this bell, poverty is still threatening our democracy? how is it that poverty is now a matter of national security? >> the thing is is that there was some policies that importantly reduced poverty. but our commitment to poverty has really waned over the 70's, 80's, and in recent years. we have allowed a number of prevent all workers firm really sharing in prosperity. for example, one of the demands of the march was for a decent minimum wage. a

. >> mary frances berry, professor of history.thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> we'll have a live report from williamsport, pennsylvania, in just a pit. my name is ranjani chakraborty, i'm from houston, texas, and i'm an associate producer for america tonight. i grew up in a very large, loud indian family. they very much taught me how to have a voice, and from a very young age i loved writing, and i love being able to tell other people stories. the way to do good journalism is to really do your research, to know your story, to get the facts right, and to get to know the people involved in your story. america tonight and al jazeera america, it's a perfect place for that to happen. >> the youngsters at the little league world series are in the spotlight again. we have more on championship sunday. >> it's the sunday that all of these kids will remember. japan came in as defending champions, but teams from california came in dominating the competition. they both came in 4-0, so something had to give. the big fel

. >> earlier today i spoke to mary frances berry, the former chair of civil rights, i asked her abouter thoughts on this anniversary of dr. king's speech. >> well, i thought it was amazing to see all those people out, to see the three presidents and all the other people who were there. i thought that the president's speech was vintage obama. he was great. and i enjoyed especially the litany about the history of the movement, and what all those people did when they made sacrifices and the change in this country. that part i thought was quite wonderful. >> was this an emotional day for you? >> yes, it was emotional in that sense because it is true that things have changed. but the main thing that happened to me today, i had ambivalence because i knew--corretta and i used to talk a lot about martin about what he thought, what he didn't think and what he would think, and i think one of the things he would thin find it que amazing to have obama as president, of course, and having all those presidents there. what would he think about having a black president, but the president didn't talk a