this year poet laureate natasha trethewey and i joined in for that turned out to be a deeply personal experience for her. natasha grew up in mississippi the daughter of a black mother and white father. >> i feel like i grew up in sort of the intersection between several war history, civil rights history and then that moment into which it was born and it is the scaffolding that holds up all the things i'm concerned about as a poet. commit commitment to social justice undergirds my poems. >> brown: more than three days, more than 100 participants traveled by bus to the mississippi delta. clarksdale on to jackson and into alabama for a march in selma. in jackson, they visited a an historically black liberal arts school founded by christian missionaries for freed slaves. >> people gathered after the assassination of medgar evers -- >> brown: they heard from dr. king one of the organizers of the 1964 freedom summer who delivered the sermon at the if you recall for james cheney, andrew goodwin and others murdered nearby that summer. >> the angels gathered -- >> brown: natasha read a poem ba

also ahead, jeffrey brown and poet laureate natasha trethewey travel to mississippi and alabama to find "where poetry lives," and discover how song and verse were instrumental in the civil rights struggle. >> words meant everything. words, music! what's not word? what's not the spoken word? selma and the movement would haven

we'll look at the role of words in the civil rights movement-- jeff brown and poet laureate natasha trethewey travel to mississippi and alabama as they explore "where poetry lives." i'm gwen ifill. >> woodruff: and i'm judy woodruff. we'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening with mark shields and david brooks among others. for all of us here at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us. that's bae systems. that's inspired work. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. 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. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> this is "bbc world news." >> funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman