rustin looked carefully at a yellow pad on his hand. gentlemen, everything is going exactly as planned. standing beside him one of his deputies noticed the pad he was looking at was blank. from a suite at the willard hotel martin luther king, jr., looked down at the mostly empty lawn. he got gotten to washington the night before and he spent the five days before in new york working on a speech and book manuscript in atlanta checking on fundraisering and in washington, d.c., to be on "meet the press." and when he checked into the willard hotel on the night before the march, he had nothing remotely approaching a draft of what he would end up saying the next day. he previously worried about a violent demonstration on the march, he said if that happened everything we did in birmingham would be wiped out on a single day. on the morning of the march king was nervous that so few people would show up that the event would be a flour. coretta scott woke up to the sound of typewriters outside of her room. early television reports said that only a

c-span: you mentioned earlier bayard rustin. ilyse? >> guest: bayard rustin was the great troubadour of the early movement, group -- nv on singing with leadbelly in the 30's. he was a member of the communist party in the 30's. he was also gay at the time when that was not even whispered about and was -- but a great student of nonviolence. it traveled all over the world doing on violence and a gandhian -- he was an early gandhian, but then he become a communist and pacifist and he was really the architect of the march on washington. he is the administrator for it and it made such an impression on the world when it happens that really is a suspect background was all but forgiven. he became a kind of a respectable figure in the media circles toward the end of his career. he is now dead. c-span: james forman. >> guest: james foreman, the executive director of the student nonviolent coordinating committee of which bob moses was the primary operator dan of mississippi. foreman was kind of organizer who kept it together. and he now lives in w

i want to mention another leader of the civil rights movement, rustin. remember him? he is one of the great organizers of the celebration. but he was gay. byard was gay. i want to mention you the president of mexico, benito juarez, the first president after the independence of spain. he had these great words with you. you can share with your families when you talk about these kind of conversations that are difficult. benito juarez said this -- [speaking spanish] respecting other people's rights is peace. people's rights to marry, to fall in love with. the person that they want regardless of their sex. that is a human right and we got to respect that and we got to support it. if we really talk about equality. [applause] and lastly, justice for our immigrants. justice for our people who are undocumented. yes, let's remind everyone, again, in these conversations, this is a nation of immigrants. right? this is a nation of immigrants, and all people here deserve citizenship and deserve legalization. and when we get to that racial equality again, i think this