1 00:00:07,340 --> 00:00:10,680 [reporter] Officer Darren Wilson will not have charges brought against him 2 00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:12,890 in the shooting death of Michael Brown. 3 00:00:13,388 --> 00:00:14,888 The crowds have been growing. 4 00:00:14,973 --> 00:00:17,393 The intensity has been growing as well. 5 00:00:17,475 --> 00:00:19,185 It has remained peaceful, though, 6 00:00:19,269 --> 00:00:21,099 and police hope that continues. 7 00:00:22,188 --> 00:00:24,818 [woman] Tuesday was the first day I was tear-gassed. 8 00:00:27,819 --> 00:00:28,899 It's not the last, 9 00:00:28,987 --> 00:00:31,357 but the first day I was tear-gassed in Ferguson. 10 00:00:31,448 --> 00:00:34,238 [man] You were in the protest overnight. Tell us what you saw. 11 00:00:34,325 --> 00:00:36,445 Well, I certainly saw a lot of things. 12 00:00:36,536 --> 00:00:39,076 I think mostly I saw a community in profound grief 13 00:00:39,581 --> 00:00:40,581 and utter anguish. 14 00:00:40,665 --> 00:00:42,075 [man] Hands up! Don't shoot! 15 00:00:42,167 --> 00:00:45,377 The call happening on the streets was "Hands up, don't shoot," 16 00:00:45,462 --> 00:00:49,422 because we were being told that Michael Brown had his hands up in the air 17 00:00:49,507 --> 00:00:50,877 when Darren Wilson shot him. 18 00:00:50,967 --> 00:00:53,297 What we see is a systemic injustice. 19 00:00:53,386 --> 00:00:57,056 Dr. King told another newsman that riots are the language of the unheard. 20 00:00:57,140 --> 00:00:58,770 I'm tired of it. I'm fed up. 21 00:00:58,850 --> 00:00:59,810 [horn beeps] 22 00:00:59,893 --> 00:01:02,773 [siren wails in distance] 23 00:01:02,854 --> 00:01:04,484 [protesters] Hands up! Don't shoot! 24 00:01:04,564 --> 00:01:06,904 [chanting] Black Lives Matter! 25 00:01:06,983 --> 00:01:10,113 [Cunningham] We will take the protesting that is happening now, 26 00:01:10,195 --> 00:01:12,405 modeled after the protests of the past, 27 00:01:12,489 --> 00:01:16,159 and call it disorderly, impatient, 28 00:01:16,242 --> 00:01:19,162 without remembering exactly where we got our blueprint. 29 00:01:21,414 --> 00:01:24,384 Dr. King wasn't talking about having more than anybody else. 30 00:01:24,459 --> 00:01:27,459 He was talking about us having what we are finally owed. 31 00:01:27,545 --> 00:01:30,625 We deserve all those inalienable rights you promised us. 32 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,310 Whenever marginalized people have the audacity 33 00:01:37,388 --> 00:01:39,928 to fight simply for what is fair, 34 00:01:40,016 --> 00:01:41,096 we are told to wait. 35 00:01:41,935 --> 00:01:43,475 Wait, slow down. 36 00:01:44,312 --> 00:01:46,562 And I find myself asking people, 37 00:01:46,648 --> 00:01:49,528 "How do you want us to stand up for our rights?" 38 00:01:49,609 --> 00:01:52,739 You don't want us to protest in our own streets. 39 00:01:53,363 --> 00:01:56,203 You don't want us to interrupt football games. 40 00:01:56,282 --> 00:01:58,492 You don't want us to block street traffic. 41 00:01:58,576 --> 00:02:00,326 You don't want us to block highways. 42 00:02:00,411 --> 00:02:02,461 You don't want us to stand up for our rights, 43 00:02:02,539 --> 00:02:05,329 and you don't want us to kneel for our rights either. 44 00:02:06,751 --> 00:02:10,001 There is literally no acceptable protest 45 00:02:10,088 --> 00:02:14,128 if all you are determined to do is always tell me to wait. 46 00:02:24,227 --> 00:02:27,767 ["Speak Ez" by Matt Large playing] 47 00:02:27,856 --> 00:02:33,356 In 1863, President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, 48 00:02:33,903 --> 00:02:36,203 freeing all enslaved people in the South. 49 00:02:37,198 --> 00:02:41,078 In 1868, the 14th Amendment is ratified. 50 00:02:41,703 --> 00:02:45,423 All citizens of America are now equal under the law. 51 00:02:46,040 --> 00:02:50,800 So, technically, Black Americans are now full citizens. 52 00:02:54,883 --> 00:02:57,843 But that's not actually what happens. 53 00:02:58,428 --> 00:02:59,428 [whistle blows] 54 00:03:00,138 --> 00:03:03,638 [narrator] As late as the 1950s, every time Black Americans 55 00:03:03,725 --> 00:03:08,145 push and demand their rights under Fourteen for due process, 56 00:03:08,229 --> 00:03:12,069 for equal protection, really any progress, 57 00:03:12,150 --> 00:03:13,820 they're told to wait. 58 00:03:14,944 --> 00:03:16,914 Well, wait until when? 59 00:03:18,907 --> 00:03:20,867 If someone makes you a promise 60 00:03:21,367 --> 00:03:25,367 and 100 years later they still haven't kept it… 61 00:03:27,040 --> 00:03:28,880 that could get a little frustrating. 62 00:03:28,958 --> 00:03:30,498 We want all of our rights. 63 00:03:30,585 --> 00:03:33,245 We want them here and we want them now. 64 00:03:33,338 --> 00:03:35,168 [applause] 65 00:03:35,256 --> 00:03:38,336 [narrator] So, how did we get here? Here's what happened. 66 00:03:38,426 --> 00:03:40,926 Southern governments were trying to figure out 67 00:03:41,012 --> 00:03:43,562 how to get around the 14th Amendment, 68 00:03:43,640 --> 00:03:49,020 and the most successful attempt was to take the idea of equal protection 69 00:03:49,520 --> 00:03:53,570 and twist it into separate but equal. 70 00:03:53,650 --> 00:03:57,700 It's like, "Okay, we'll be equal but we'll just be separated," 71 00:03:57,779 --> 00:04:01,449 and instead of upholding the words of the 14th Amendment, 72 00:04:01,532 --> 00:04:05,452 the Supreme Court agrees with the Southern governments. 73 00:04:05,536 --> 00:04:08,456 And that's how we get the Jim Crow era. 74 00:04:11,459 --> 00:04:14,299 [woman] There is no such thing as "separate and equal." 75 00:04:14,379 --> 00:04:16,509 There never was "separate and equal," 76 00:04:16,589 --> 00:04:19,219 this is the fiction that allowed white Southerners 77 00:04:19,300 --> 00:04:24,010 to impose a rigid racial caste system, a form of legal apartheid. 78 00:04:28,351 --> 00:04:32,361 Marginalized Black people were living almost as they did as slaves. 79 00:04:33,314 --> 00:04:36,994 Couldn't eat in the same restaurants. Couldn't go to the same movies. 80 00:04:37,068 --> 00:04:40,408 Hotels, trains, public waiting spaces. 81 00:04:41,030 --> 00:04:44,580 [woman] A lot of the good jobs were in the factories. 82 00:04:44,659 --> 00:04:46,999 Blacks couldn't work there, they were segregated. 83 00:04:47,078 --> 00:04:50,498 [man] Black people suffered through economic inequality, 84 00:04:50,581 --> 00:04:52,251 through limited opportunities 85 00:04:52,333 --> 00:04:55,883 to secure the jobs that will help them survive and thrive. 86 00:04:55,962 --> 00:04:58,922 [Stevenson] Southerners are trying to restore 87 00:04:59,007 --> 00:05:01,717 the optics and the dynamics of enslavement. 88 00:05:02,302 --> 00:05:05,512 They're reinforcing the narrative of racial difference. 89 00:05:08,850 --> 00:05:11,480 There's a lot of white people here that say this, 90 00:05:11,561 --> 00:05:13,771 that even the dumbest farmer in the world 91 00:05:13,855 --> 00:05:17,275 knows that if he has white chickens and black chickens, 92 00:05:17,358 --> 00:05:19,988 the black chickens do better if they're kept in one yard, 93 00:05:20,069 --> 00:05:22,989 and the white ones do better if kept in a separate yard. 94 00:05:23,072 --> 00:05:24,822 They do better under those conditions. 95 00:05:25,408 --> 00:05:27,238 [inhales, then exhales deeply] 96 00:05:27,994 --> 00:05:29,834 We know signs of Jim Crow, 97 00:05:29,912 --> 00:05:33,122 the water fountains, the bathrooms, the pools, 98 00:05:33,207 --> 00:05:35,837 but consequences could be seen everywhere in America. 99 00:05:35,918 --> 00:05:38,498 I don't feel that they should be oppressed, 100 00:05:38,588 --> 00:05:40,258 but I moved here-- 101 00:05:40,340 --> 00:05:45,180 One of the main reasons was because it was a white community. 102 00:05:45,261 --> 00:05:47,221 Decades with constant threat of violence, 103 00:05:47,305 --> 00:05:48,715 with crumbling schools, 104 00:05:48,806 --> 00:05:52,346 fewer job opportunities, fewer loans and fewer homes 105 00:05:52,435 --> 00:05:55,805 meant African Americans could not build the intergenerational wealth needed 106 00:05:55,897 --> 00:05:57,437 to climb the economic ladder. 107 00:05:57,523 --> 00:05:59,943 This way of life is a part of us. 108 00:06:00,026 --> 00:06:03,566 The more they try to force us into doing something 109 00:06:03,654 --> 00:06:06,324 then the worse the reaction will be. 110 00:06:08,409 --> 00:06:12,079 So, segregation was not just about water fountains. 111 00:06:12,163 --> 00:06:15,963 It was a cage, and white America had no intention of handing over the key. 112 00:06:19,045 --> 00:06:23,585 [woman] The Fourteenth Amendment had been shattered, destroyed. 113 00:06:23,674 --> 00:06:26,304 The idea that we were all citizens, 114 00:06:26,386 --> 00:06:29,096 that we were all equal in front of the law, 115 00:06:29,180 --> 00:06:34,440 took a back seat to basically reflect the idea that African Americans 116 00:06:34,519 --> 00:06:37,899 have no right to expect equal treatment. 117 00:06:38,398 --> 00:06:41,528 [woman] Black Americans are disappointed 118 00:06:41,609 --> 00:06:45,949 with the failure of the promise of the 14th Amendment 119 00:06:46,030 --> 00:06:51,160 [Stevenson] The notion of equality, the notion of 14th Amendment rights 120 00:06:51,244 --> 00:06:52,504 never really took shape. 121 00:06:52,578 --> 00:06:56,418 We needed to put some teeth in the 14th Amendment. 122 00:06:59,460 --> 00:07:02,550 [reporter] Thurgood Marshall, great grandson of a slave, 123 00:07:02,630 --> 00:07:05,680 the first Negro to serve on the United States Supreme Court, 124 00:07:05,758 --> 00:07:08,388 puts on his robes with the assistance of his wife. 125 00:07:08,469 --> 00:07:09,889 [Jones] Marshall is bad, 126 00:07:09,971 --> 00:07:12,141 and he is confident. He is cocky. 127 00:07:12,723 --> 00:07:14,353 Extraordinary man. 128 00:07:14,434 --> 00:07:19,234 "The 14th Amendment and it's grand ideal of equality under the law 129 00:07:19,313 --> 00:07:21,903 have meant no more than succeeding generations 130 00:07:21,983 --> 00:07:23,783 were willing for them to mean." 131 00:07:26,237 --> 00:07:29,617 "What is essential now is a new kind of activism, 132 00:07:29,699 --> 00:07:32,699 an activism in the pursuit of justice." 133 00:07:33,995 --> 00:07:36,995 [narrator] Thurgood Marshall comes from a segregated state, 134 00:07:37,081 --> 00:07:38,831 yet he eventually makes history 135 00:07:38,916 --> 00:07:42,546 as the first Black Justice to join the Supreme Court. 136 00:07:42,628 --> 00:07:47,338 His journey relies in part on one of the legacies of Reconstruction 137 00:07:47,425 --> 00:07:48,885 and the 14th Amendment… 138 00:07:49,844 --> 00:07:51,644 Black colleges. 139 00:07:53,097 --> 00:07:55,517 [Ifill] He's raised in West Baltimore, 140 00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:58,770 but he cannot apply to the University of Maryland Law School 141 00:07:58,853 --> 00:08:00,813 because it doesn't accept Black students. 142 00:08:00,897 --> 00:08:04,527 That's the reason that Marshall ends up at Howard Law School. 143 00:08:04,609 --> 00:08:08,149 Vice Dean of Howard Law School is a man named Charles Hamilton Houston, 144 00:08:08,237 --> 00:08:10,907 probably the most brilliant lawyer of the 20th century. 145 00:08:10,990 --> 00:08:16,500 He begins to mentor and develop a group of young African American lawyers. 146 00:08:16,579 --> 00:08:18,749 He indoctrinates them into the idea, 147 00:08:18,831 --> 00:08:21,541 "Your job as a lawyer, as a young Black lawyer, 148 00:08:21,626 --> 00:08:22,746 is to seek justice." 149 00:08:23,544 --> 00:08:25,134 Houston and Marshall set about 150 00:08:25,213 --> 00:08:28,223 knocking out the foundation of "separate but equal," 151 00:08:28,299 --> 00:08:31,219 winning case after case in the United States Supreme Court. 152 00:08:32,220 --> 00:08:35,560 They bring a challenge to segregation at University of Missouri Law School, 153 00:08:35,640 --> 00:08:36,810 and they win that case. 154 00:08:36,891 --> 00:08:39,191 And they continue to work through the system, 155 00:08:39,810 --> 00:08:43,360 challenging segregated education in higher education, 156 00:08:43,439 --> 00:08:47,239 graduate schools, the School of Pharmacy, Law School. 157 00:08:51,030 --> 00:08:54,740 But all along, they have their mind's eye 158 00:08:54,825 --> 00:08:57,495 on challenging segregation in K-12 education. 159 00:08:58,704 --> 00:09:01,124 [reporter] This is Larry. This is Larry's school. 160 00:09:01,916 --> 00:09:04,336 Ample buildings, ample grounds… 161 00:09:04,418 --> 00:09:07,758 And this is Tad. He lives in Clarksdale, too. 162 00:09:07,838 --> 00:09:09,418 This is Tad's school. 163 00:09:10,174 --> 00:09:13,094 It is seriously overcrowded, dilapidated. 164 00:09:13,177 --> 00:09:17,887 One of the most significant barriers to challenging segregation 165 00:09:17,974 --> 00:09:21,354 was this idea that there was really no injury to it 166 00:09:21,435 --> 00:09:23,185 other than what Black people felt. 167 00:09:25,022 --> 00:09:27,232 [Ifill] There were many who carried on this fiction 168 00:09:27,316 --> 00:09:29,396 that Black people want to be with Black people 169 00:09:29,485 --> 00:09:31,065 and we want to be with our people, 170 00:09:31,153 --> 00:09:33,283 and as long as it's equal, what's the harm? 171 00:09:33,781 --> 00:09:36,161 What's the problem with us being segregated? 172 00:09:38,744 --> 00:09:42,124 [man] Well, segregation was and is 173 00:09:42,206 --> 00:09:45,536 a way in which a society tells a… 174 00:09:46,544 --> 00:09:49,264 a group of human beings that they are inferior. 175 00:09:50,339 --> 00:09:52,839 [narrator] In order to prove to the Supreme Court 176 00:09:52,925 --> 00:09:55,545 that separate can never be equal, 177 00:09:55,636 --> 00:10:00,426 Thurgood Marshall has to show the emotional weight of segregation. 178 00:10:00,516 --> 00:10:02,806 He turns to the doll test. 179 00:10:02,893 --> 00:10:06,983 In the 1940s, psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark 180 00:10:07,064 --> 00:10:09,784 showed children two identical dolls, 181 00:10:09,859 --> 00:10:12,949 except one is white and one is Black. 182 00:10:13,613 --> 00:10:15,073 They ask a simple question, 183 00:10:15,698 --> 00:10:18,198 "Which doll is bad? Which is nice?" 184 00:10:19,535 --> 00:10:21,535 Most children, Black and white, 185 00:10:21,621 --> 00:10:25,671 say the white doll is nice and the Black doll is bad. 186 00:10:26,542 --> 00:10:28,712 This is really how kids feel. 187 00:10:28,794 --> 00:10:33,094 This is how quickly and deeply segregation ingrains racism 188 00:10:33,174 --> 00:10:35,014 into the minds of children. 189 00:10:35,718 --> 00:10:39,098 These children saw themselves as inferior. 190 00:10:39,180 --> 00:10:44,940 They accepted the inferiority as part of reality. 191 00:10:45,770 --> 00:10:48,480 It made me, even as a scientist… 192 00:10:51,275 --> 00:10:52,145 …upset. 193 00:10:54,153 --> 00:10:56,283 Thurgood Marshall, he argued that, 194 00:10:56,364 --> 00:11:00,164 in order to show the violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, 195 00:11:00,242 --> 00:11:07,002 you needed this evidence of the damaging effects of segregation. 196 00:11:07,583 --> 00:11:09,253 [Ifill] Kenneth and Mamie Clark, 197 00:11:09,335 --> 00:11:14,335 they've shown segregation sends a message of inferiority. 198 00:11:14,423 --> 00:11:15,553 Black schoolchildren 199 00:11:15,633 --> 00:11:18,763 essentially internalize the message of white supremacy. 200 00:11:22,556 --> 00:11:26,186 Marshall, and now his team, is ready to bring the case 201 00:11:26,268 --> 00:11:29,228 challenging segregation in K-12 education. 202 00:11:37,530 --> 00:11:41,160 "Any segregation which is for the purpose of setting up either class 203 00:11:41,242 --> 00:11:42,872 or caste legislation 204 00:11:42,952 --> 00:11:46,962 is in and of itself a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment." 205 00:11:47,498 --> 00:11:53,498 Now the Court is prepared to look at the social meaning of statutes 206 00:11:53,587 --> 00:11:56,217 that require Blacks and whites to go to different schools. 207 00:11:56,298 --> 00:11:58,678 What does it mean to have Black schools? 208 00:11:58,759 --> 00:12:00,849 What does it mean to have white schools? 209 00:12:00,928 --> 00:12:02,968 What message does that send? 210 00:12:03,055 --> 00:12:07,055 [Crenshaw] Segregation impacted the hearts and minds 211 00:12:07,143 --> 00:12:08,813 of Black schoolchildren, 212 00:12:08,894 --> 00:12:13,194 and undermined their ability to participate in a democracy. 213 00:12:14,442 --> 00:12:15,532 [Ifill] If Dred Scott 214 00:12:15,609 --> 00:12:18,699 is one of the most monumental decisions in the history of the Supreme Court, 215 00:12:18,779 --> 00:12:20,909 the only one more monumental perhaps 216 00:12:22,032 --> 00:12:24,082 is Brown versus Board of Education. 217 00:12:25,411 --> 00:12:28,661 [woman] "Today, education is perhaps the most important function 218 00:12:28,748 --> 00:12:30,368 of state and local governments." 219 00:12:30,458 --> 00:12:32,958 "It is the very foundation of good citizenship." 220 00:12:33,043 --> 00:12:34,883 "Such an opportunity is a right, 221 00:12:34,962 --> 00:12:38,222 which must be made available to all on equal terms." 222 00:12:38,299 --> 00:12:41,089 "We conclude that in the field of public education, 223 00:12:41,177 --> 00:12:44,507 the doctrine of separate but equal has no place." 224 00:12:45,014 --> 00:12:48,894 "Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." 225 00:12:54,356 --> 00:12:58,146 That decision begins the tumble of legal segregation in this country. 226 00:12:58,694 --> 00:13:01,824 Affirming democracy, affirming citizenship, 227 00:13:01,906 --> 00:13:06,486 Brown versus Board of Education is a revolution 228 00:13:06,577 --> 00:13:09,367 on the part of Black lawyers, mainly. 229 00:13:13,292 --> 00:13:18,132 They believed that inside the law is always the possibility 230 00:13:18,214 --> 00:13:24,304 to recapture what equal protection and citizenship actually meant. 231 00:13:24,386 --> 00:13:26,806 [Stevenson] The Supreme Court begins to recognize 232 00:13:26,889 --> 00:13:29,099 that there is something fundamentally at odds 233 00:13:29,183 --> 00:13:34,023 between the language of the 14th Amendment and what they're seeing in our nation. 234 00:13:37,107 --> 00:13:40,487 There was a lot to celebrate, but there was a lot to worry about, 235 00:13:40,569 --> 00:13:42,989 and the worry turned out to be accurate. 236 00:13:43,823 --> 00:13:46,783 After the Brown decision, the South says, "Never." 237 00:13:46,867 --> 00:13:50,077 [Ifill] The reaction to Brown was Massive Resistance. 238 00:13:50,162 --> 00:13:54,252 That's not me saying it, that's actually what it was called, "Massive Resistance." 239 00:13:55,209 --> 00:14:00,169 You are the heart and inflexible core of the resistance. 240 00:14:00,256 --> 00:14:02,586 They must be reckoned with. 241 00:14:02,675 --> 00:14:05,505 [Ifill] This was an astonishing moment in this country. 242 00:14:05,594 --> 00:14:08,854 People should remember that Prince Edward County, Virginia 243 00:14:08,931 --> 00:14:12,731 closed the public schools for five years 244 00:14:12,810 --> 00:14:14,060 rather than integrate. 245 00:14:14,562 --> 00:14:16,442 We've got this Supreme Court decision 246 00:14:16,522 --> 00:14:20,152 and we have jurisdictions that are defying the decision at every turn. 247 00:14:22,653 --> 00:14:26,533 [narrator] So what do you do when even a Supreme Court decision 248 00:14:26,615 --> 00:14:28,695 doesn't give you the change you're owed? 249 00:14:29,618 --> 00:14:30,488 Wait? 250 00:14:31,245 --> 00:14:32,075 Dream? 251 00:14:33,122 --> 00:14:36,502 Or do you roll up your sleeves and claim your rights, 252 00:14:37,126 --> 00:14:39,496 even if it could cost you your life? 253 00:14:39,587 --> 00:14:41,707 [shouting and chanting] 254 00:14:41,797 --> 00:14:45,257 [Ifill] The Brown case, that's a powerful articulation to people 255 00:14:45,342 --> 00:14:47,392 that they should fight. 256 00:14:47,469 --> 00:14:50,599 Ordinary people on the ground decide to play a role. 257 00:14:51,140 --> 00:14:54,390 This very powerful grassroots movement is unfolding. 258 00:14:55,603 --> 00:14:57,563 Brown is decided in 1954. 259 00:14:57,646 --> 00:15:01,276 A year later, Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy 260 00:15:01,358 --> 00:15:03,238 is killed by grown white men 261 00:15:03,319 --> 00:15:06,239 for, they claim, whistling at a white woman. 262 00:15:06,322 --> 00:15:09,662 Over 10,000 people walk past his casket, 263 00:15:09,742 --> 00:15:11,542 which his mother left open 264 00:15:11,619 --> 00:15:14,999 so that, she said, "the public can see what they did to my son." 265 00:15:15,080 --> 00:15:18,130 I'm Rosa Parks. I live in Montgomery, Alabama. 266 00:15:18,667 --> 00:15:23,877 In 1955, Rosa Parks decides that she's not going to give up her seat on that bus, 267 00:15:25,841 --> 00:15:28,091 and we enter the Civil Rights Movement. 268 00:15:32,932 --> 00:15:36,352 This has not been an easy road by the time we get to the early 1960s, 269 00:15:36,435 --> 00:15:39,225 and there needs to be a breakthrough. 270 00:15:39,313 --> 00:15:43,073 [pounding drum beat] 271 00:15:43,150 --> 00:15:44,690 [cymbal crash] 272 00:15:45,277 --> 00:15:48,447 We all know who Rosa Parks is. She's a hero. 273 00:15:48,530 --> 00:15:50,620 She refuses to go to the back of the bus, 274 00:15:50,699 --> 00:15:52,659 Outkast names a song after her. 275 00:15:52,743 --> 00:15:54,953 I counted the "uh-huhs" and the "yeah, yeahs" 276 00:15:55,037 --> 00:15:57,037 and the rest was history, right? 277 00:15:57,623 --> 00:15:59,833 I wouldn't be here if that was the whole story. 278 00:15:59,917 --> 00:16:04,127 [steady drum beat] 279 00:16:04,213 --> 00:16:07,093 Now she does get on a bus and the bus driver of said bus 280 00:16:07,174 --> 00:16:09,394 does ask her to move to the back of it. 281 00:16:09,468 --> 00:16:11,258 He says, "This is Alabama, ma'am." 282 00:16:11,345 --> 00:16:13,885 "Down here we got them laws, we callin' them Jim Crow." 283 00:16:13,973 --> 00:16:17,483 She says, "Well, I've had enough. I won't get up. Hell, no." 284 00:16:19,645 --> 00:16:22,225 And that simple seismic act lights the match. 285 00:16:22,314 --> 00:16:25,614 All in favor let it be known by standing on your feet. 286 00:16:25,693 --> 00:16:28,073 [cheering] 287 00:16:29,822 --> 00:16:32,242 [man] They galvanize the Black residents of Montgomery 288 00:16:32,324 --> 00:16:35,164 and the momentum grows to jettison Jim Crow. 289 00:16:35,869 --> 00:16:38,659 Her and her husband are outcasted. They can't find employment. 290 00:16:38,747 --> 00:16:41,167 She moves to Detroit, becomes a secretary 291 00:16:41,250 --> 00:16:43,500 and she's buried under a stack of unjust policies. 292 00:16:43,585 --> 00:16:45,415 She says, "I will topple these." 293 00:16:45,504 --> 00:16:48,224 "If our souls are free, then so shall our bodies be." 294 00:16:48,298 --> 00:16:50,338 She goes back to acting with the same passion 295 00:16:50,426 --> 00:16:52,926 that kept her from the back of the bus and, no question, 296 00:16:53,012 --> 00:16:56,062 leaves an everlasting impression to give back to us. 297 00:16:56,890 --> 00:16:58,890 [cheering] 298 00:17:00,144 --> 00:17:02,444 She never asked us to follow her light. 299 00:17:03,939 --> 00:17:07,819 All she ever asked is that we uphold what is right. 300 00:17:14,533 --> 00:17:17,833 [man] "Segregation has wreaked havoc with the Negro." 301 00:17:17,911 --> 00:17:21,291 "It's sometimes difficult to determine which are the deepest, 302 00:17:21,373 --> 00:17:24,383 the physical wounds or the psychological wounds." 303 00:17:24,460 --> 00:17:27,500 "Only a Negro can understand the social leprosy 304 00:17:27,588 --> 00:17:29,588 that segregation inflicts upon him." 305 00:17:30,174 --> 00:17:33,264 "Every confrontation with the restrictions imposed 306 00:17:33,343 --> 00:17:36,473 is another emotional battle in a never-ending war." 307 00:17:37,139 --> 00:17:40,389 "We will continue to insist that right be done 308 00:17:40,476 --> 00:17:44,266 because both God's will and the heritage of our nation 309 00:17:44,354 --> 00:17:46,824 speak through our echoing demands." 310 00:17:47,316 --> 00:17:49,436 ♪ Oh, well, a young man ♪ 311 00:17:49,526 --> 00:17:51,696 ♪ Ain't nothing in this world these days ♪ 312 00:17:51,779 --> 00:17:55,119 After emerging as a leader of the Montgomery bus boycott, 313 00:17:55,199 --> 00:17:58,079 Martin Luther King, Jr. launches into the spotlight 314 00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:00,450 at only 26 years old. 315 00:18:02,372 --> 00:18:06,002 But even at a young age, Dr. King devotes himself to the cause. 316 00:18:06,085 --> 00:18:08,455 Give these people what we owe them, 317 00:18:08,545 --> 00:18:13,005 and what their God-given rights and their Constitutional rights demand. 318 00:18:13,967 --> 00:18:17,507 [narrator] And in 1963, his devotion is put to the test, 319 00:18:17,596 --> 00:18:21,346 because now he has to change the mind of a president. 320 00:18:23,102 --> 00:18:25,982 [male voice] Good evening, Senator John F. Kennedy. 321 00:18:29,149 --> 00:18:31,489 I'm not satisfied until every American 322 00:18:31,568 --> 00:18:33,738 enjoys his full Constitutional rights. 323 00:18:33,821 --> 00:18:35,161 I think we can do better. 324 00:18:35,239 --> 00:18:39,119 [man] When John Kennedy was running for president in 1960, 325 00:18:39,201 --> 00:18:42,791 Black people started flocking to him as their candidate 326 00:18:42,871 --> 00:18:45,921 because he had shown compassion for the Civil Rights Movement. 327 00:18:49,586 --> 00:18:51,166 When the election came around, 328 00:18:51,964 --> 00:18:54,634 they turned out for him in huge numbers. 329 00:18:55,634 --> 00:18:57,934 But very quickly after he got into office, 330 00:18:58,011 --> 00:18:59,471 Kennedy started backpedaling. 331 00:19:00,514 --> 00:19:03,024 [Kennedy] The Soviet Union made a breakthrough in outer space, 332 00:19:04,143 --> 00:19:07,443 but that made the world wonder whether we were first in Science. 333 00:19:07,521 --> 00:19:10,521 Anyone reading the paper and any citizen of the United States 334 00:19:10,607 --> 00:19:11,977 must come to the conclusion 335 00:19:12,067 --> 00:19:14,777 that the United States no longer carries the same image 336 00:19:14,862 --> 00:19:17,572 as it carried a decade or two decades ago. 337 00:19:17,656 --> 00:19:22,036 John Kennedy was not that interested in what was going on 338 00:19:22,119 --> 00:19:23,909 with the Civil Rights Movement. 339 00:19:24,496 --> 00:19:30,166 The question before us all is can freedom in the next generation conquer, 340 00:19:30,252 --> 00:19:32,302 or are the Communists going to be successful? 341 00:19:32,379 --> 00:19:33,549 That's the great issue. 342 00:19:34,798 --> 00:19:37,508 [man] Kennedy mostly campaigned on the Cold War. 343 00:19:37,593 --> 00:19:41,143 He saw the Civil Rights Movement as sort of an impediment 344 00:19:41,221 --> 00:19:42,891 to the US conducting the Cold War, 345 00:19:42,973 --> 00:19:46,313 so, for the first two years of the administration, little happened. 346 00:19:48,729 --> 00:19:52,149 [Levingston] The Blacks believed that they got President Kennedy elected, 347 00:19:52,232 --> 00:19:56,322 and they wanted Kennedy to pay back the debt. 348 00:19:56,403 --> 00:20:00,203 I think the time has come for the President of the United States 349 00:20:00,866 --> 00:20:03,076 to sign an executive order 350 00:20:03,160 --> 00:20:07,920 outlawing segregation or declaring it unconstitutional 351 00:20:08,540 --> 00:20:11,710 on the basis of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. 352 00:20:11,793 --> 00:20:13,593 [cheering] 353 00:20:13,670 --> 00:20:16,800 More than ten years after Brown was decided, 354 00:20:16,882 --> 00:20:21,472 most Black school children who were segregated in the time of Brown 355 00:20:21,553 --> 00:20:23,723 were still going to single race schools. 356 00:20:23,805 --> 00:20:27,805 So, it became apparent that this was an ongoing struggle. 357 00:20:27,893 --> 00:20:31,313 [Carson] As the nation was approaching 1963, 358 00:20:31,396 --> 00:20:34,896 it occurred to many people that this is an entire century 359 00:20:34,983 --> 00:20:38,203 since Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. 360 00:20:38,904 --> 00:20:41,414 [Levingston] Martin Luther King wanted President Kennedy 361 00:20:41,490 --> 00:20:44,330 to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation, 362 00:20:44,409 --> 00:20:48,369 which would outlaw segregation throughout the nation. 363 00:20:48,455 --> 00:20:50,825 He could, with a simple stroke of a pen, 364 00:20:50,916 --> 00:20:54,916 make up for the denial of 14th Amendment protections and rights. 365 00:20:56,296 --> 00:20:57,796 [Carson] He's playing that role 366 00:20:57,881 --> 00:21:00,471 that Frederick Douglass played in the 19th century. 367 00:21:00,550 --> 00:21:02,840 We have Martin Luther King saying, 368 00:21:02,928 --> 00:21:06,388 "You are not living up to your highest ideals." 369 00:21:06,473 --> 00:21:10,103 I must say that President Kennedy hadn't done enough 370 00:21:10,185 --> 00:21:12,935 and we must remind him that we elected him. 371 00:21:14,189 --> 00:21:17,819 [Stevenson] And what Dr. King wanted to do was to remind Americans 372 00:21:17,901 --> 00:21:21,111 that we've said these things before and we failed, 373 00:21:21,822 --> 00:21:25,622 and so now it's time to say these things again and succeed. 374 00:21:26,201 --> 00:21:32,081 [narrator] In 1962, MLK delivers a draft of the second Emancipation Proclamation 375 00:21:32,165 --> 00:21:33,575 for the President's signature. 376 00:21:34,584 --> 00:21:37,174 JFK refuses to sign it. 377 00:21:38,088 --> 00:21:41,088 [Cunningham] In many ways, that felt like a step far for him. 378 00:21:41,174 --> 00:21:44,014 He wasn't necessarily trying to be Lincoln. 379 00:21:44,678 --> 00:21:47,598 There's an urge to wait, 380 00:21:47,681 --> 00:21:51,771 to slow things down in terms of this struggle for change. 381 00:21:51,852 --> 00:21:54,772 King is convinced that waiting is dangerous. 382 00:21:54,855 --> 00:22:01,315 King has seen and felt the emotional and psychological damage of segregation. 383 00:22:02,571 --> 00:22:03,741 Economic inequality. 384 00:22:04,781 --> 00:22:06,241 Limited opportunities. 385 00:22:07,200 --> 00:22:09,290 Every day that he delays, 386 00:22:09,369 --> 00:22:11,959 every day that civil rights activists delay, 387 00:22:12,039 --> 00:22:14,419 is a day that Black people suffer. 388 00:22:15,292 --> 00:22:19,922 [shouting] 389 00:22:24,051 --> 00:22:27,471 [man] Why, after segregation is ruled illegal, does it continue? 390 00:22:27,554 --> 00:22:30,934 Why can't racist white people let it go? There must be something else here. 391 00:22:32,017 --> 00:22:35,687 It's the way in which some white people see Black people at this time, 392 00:22:35,771 --> 00:22:38,441 viewing them as a social blemish or stain. 393 00:22:38,523 --> 00:22:41,403 Let me explain in terms of something called the one-drop rule. 394 00:22:41,485 --> 00:22:43,855 In the social and even legal system of Jim Crow, 395 00:22:43,945 --> 00:22:46,615 one drop of Black blood made a person Black. 396 00:22:46,698 --> 00:22:47,618 What does that mean? 397 00:22:48,533 --> 00:22:52,293 It means white children grow up thinking that if they touch a Black person, 398 00:22:52,371 --> 00:22:53,711 it'll rub off on them. 399 00:22:53,789 --> 00:22:57,039 It means white folks would rather throw acid in a pool 400 00:22:57,125 --> 00:22:59,125 than let Black children swim in it. 401 00:22:59,920 --> 00:23:03,050 Think about that. They'd rather throw in a real contaminant 402 00:23:03,131 --> 00:23:05,301 rather than coexist with the imaginary one. 403 00:23:05,884 --> 00:23:07,554 That's what one-drop means. 404 00:23:07,636 --> 00:23:11,556 At the heart of it, it means Blackness is a contaminant. 405 00:23:12,349 --> 00:23:16,439 Of course white folks resist integration, they're terrified of being infected. 406 00:23:16,520 --> 00:23:18,020 That's the thing about prejudice. 407 00:23:18,105 --> 00:23:21,265 It would have us believe something completely phony, 408 00:23:21,358 --> 00:23:23,608 that being Black is a disease, 409 00:23:23,693 --> 00:23:25,533 in order to blind us to the real disease 410 00:23:25,612 --> 00:23:28,162 our society has been suffering for far too long… 411 00:23:28,990 --> 00:23:29,830 Racism. 412 00:23:31,410 --> 00:23:33,290 The real disease is racism. 413 00:23:33,370 --> 00:23:34,200 What? 414 00:23:39,418 --> 00:23:42,548 One of the faces of this resistance to integration 415 00:23:42,629 --> 00:23:45,089 is Alabama Governor George Wallace. 416 00:23:45,674 --> 00:23:51,394 He is willing to attack the 14th Amendment to preserve white supremacy. 417 00:23:53,473 --> 00:23:54,893 [reporter] Governor Wallace… 418 00:23:54,975 --> 00:23:56,435 [cheering] 419 00:23:56,518 --> 00:23:58,228 …rising in salute. 420 00:23:58,728 --> 00:24:01,938 [man] George Wallace was a classic Alabama populist, 421 00:24:02,023 --> 00:24:04,943 which meant that he was in favor of the little guy 422 00:24:05,026 --> 00:24:07,026 as long as the little guy was white. 423 00:24:07,112 --> 00:24:08,992 The South was set upon 424 00:24:09,072 --> 00:24:11,992 by the vulturous carpetbagger and federal troops, 425 00:24:12,075 --> 00:24:15,865 so that the infamous, illegal 14th Amendment might be passed. 426 00:24:15,954 --> 00:24:18,584 [Epps] I think it's important to remember that, in general, 427 00:24:18,665 --> 00:24:21,745 the South took a certain approach toward the 14th Amendment 428 00:24:21,835 --> 00:24:23,625 which I can summarizes as follows, 429 00:24:23,712 --> 00:24:26,422 "The federal government can't tell states what to do." 430 00:24:26,506 --> 00:24:29,426 And I heard that argument made dozens of times growing up. 431 00:24:29,509 --> 00:24:32,719 The 14th Amendment was a fraud. It wasn't validly adopted. 432 00:24:32,804 --> 00:24:34,434 States don't have to observe it. 433 00:24:34,514 --> 00:24:37,274 And I say, segregation now, 434 00:24:37,350 --> 00:24:39,020 segregation tomorrow, 435 00:24:39,102 --> 00:24:41,102 and segregation forever! 436 00:24:41,188 --> 00:24:42,188 [cheering] 437 00:24:42,272 --> 00:24:45,782 [Epps] These desegregation orders are in violation of states' rights. 438 00:24:46,359 --> 00:24:47,939 And he drew a line. 439 00:24:48,028 --> 00:24:49,778 There was going to be no compliance 440 00:24:49,863 --> 00:24:52,493 with federal orders to desegregate school systems. 441 00:24:53,492 --> 00:24:59,622 He came in saying that if anyone Black wanted to attend a university in Alabama, 442 00:24:59,706 --> 00:25:02,576 he would stand in the schoolhouse door and block them. 443 00:25:06,379 --> 00:25:10,009 [reporter] Every day, thousands of Negroes would queue to register to vote. 444 00:25:10,091 --> 00:25:13,511 King's organizers battled against continuous white hostility. 445 00:25:13,595 --> 00:25:15,885 What you're trying to do is intimidate these people 446 00:25:15,972 --> 00:25:19,312 and by making them stand in the rain, keep them from registering to vote. 447 00:25:19,392 --> 00:25:21,062 And we will register to vote 448 00:25:21,144 --> 00:25:23,064 because as citizens of these United States, 449 00:25:23,146 --> 00:25:24,516 we have the right to do it. 450 00:25:25,232 --> 00:25:27,782 [clamoring] 451 00:25:28,360 --> 00:25:31,320 [Berry] Nonviolent behavior creates disruption 452 00:25:31,404 --> 00:25:35,624 because when you are attacked by someone, you take the blows. 453 00:25:36,826 --> 00:25:42,326 You plan things so that people will want to attack you. 454 00:25:42,415 --> 00:25:45,205 -[man] Now, get outta here. -[shouting] 455 00:25:45,293 --> 00:25:50,093 The strength of nonviolence comes from the confrontation with injustice. 456 00:25:50,924 --> 00:25:52,724 [Berry] It heightens the contradiction. 457 00:25:52,801 --> 00:25:54,721 What you're doing is trying to make change, 458 00:25:54,803 --> 00:25:57,393 and what they're doing is trying to resist change. 459 00:25:57,472 --> 00:26:00,642 [Cunningham] Dr. King talked a lot about the fact that a lot of people 460 00:26:00,725 --> 00:26:04,645 wanted him to restore order, because civil disobedience is chaotic, 461 00:26:05,230 --> 00:26:07,940 but we actually have to create a crisis, 462 00:26:08,024 --> 00:26:11,704 otherwise folks with privilege will just go on about their business 463 00:26:11,778 --> 00:26:14,158 and act as though there is no injustice in the world. 464 00:26:15,865 --> 00:26:18,365 [man] There are three ways to deal with injustice. 465 00:26:18,451 --> 00:26:20,951 One is to accept it slavishly, 466 00:26:21,037 --> 00:26:23,157 or one can resist it with arms, 467 00:26:23,248 --> 00:26:24,918 or one can use nonviolence. 468 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:26,250 Oh, my goodness. 469 00:26:26,334 --> 00:26:27,594 [laughs] 470 00:26:27,669 --> 00:26:30,299 Bayard Rustin was a man of many parts. 471 00:26:30,380 --> 00:26:32,420 [Bonner] King is forming this coalition. 472 00:26:32,507 --> 00:26:35,757 He's connecting with other activists like Bayard Rustin. 473 00:26:35,844 --> 00:26:38,054 [Berry] Bayard had been a pacifist 474 00:26:38,138 --> 00:26:41,468 and he was one of the leading intellectuals 475 00:26:41,558 --> 00:26:44,138 of that period of the Civil Rights Movement. 476 00:26:44,227 --> 00:26:47,607 One depends upon his body and his spirit. 477 00:26:47,689 --> 00:26:50,529 He puts that in the breach when everything else fails. 478 00:26:51,568 --> 00:26:53,818 [man] You've probably never heard of Bayard Rustin. 479 00:26:53,903 --> 00:26:55,953 Not only did Rustin work with MLK, 480 00:26:56,031 --> 00:27:00,331 he actually introduced the idea of nonviolent resistance to Dr. King. 481 00:27:00,869 --> 00:27:02,499 So why don't we know his name? 482 00:27:03,663 --> 00:27:05,753 Well, because he was an openly gay man 483 00:27:05,832 --> 00:27:10,382 at a time when being gay was considered a mental disorder and a crime. 484 00:27:10,462 --> 00:27:14,262 He was pushed to the fringes of a movement that he devoted his whole life to. 485 00:27:14,341 --> 00:27:17,181 Bayard once said, "We need in every community 486 00:27:17,260 --> 00:27:18,970 a group of angelic troublemakers." 487 00:27:19,054 --> 00:27:20,854 "Our only weapon is our bodies 488 00:27:20,930 --> 00:27:23,890 and we have to tuck them in places so wheels don't turn." 489 00:27:26,353 --> 00:27:28,903 Bayard Rustin was an angelic troublemaker. 490 00:27:31,149 --> 00:27:33,739 [Ifill] 1963 is a really important year, 491 00:27:33,818 --> 00:27:36,238 for the whole country and for the whole world. 492 00:27:36,321 --> 00:27:39,281 King, at this point, is starting to receive a lot of resistance, 493 00:27:39,366 --> 00:27:42,236 that he is pushing too far, that he's going too fast. 494 00:27:42,327 --> 00:27:45,157 So that idea that he's pushing too far and going too fast 495 00:27:45,246 --> 00:27:48,456 but it's 100 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 496 00:27:48,541 --> 00:27:51,801 is kind of a disorienting juxtaposition for him. 497 00:27:51,878 --> 00:27:55,468 [Carson] In order to get the movement on the right track, 498 00:27:55,548 --> 00:27:58,718 he needs to get action on the part of the federal government. 499 00:27:58,802 --> 00:28:03,682 He wants to create a situation that Kennedy has to respond to. 500 00:28:03,765 --> 00:28:05,135 He wants to create a crisis 501 00:28:05,225 --> 00:28:08,225 by going to the place where segregation is strongest. 502 00:28:09,062 --> 00:28:12,072 [fanfare] 503 00:28:12,649 --> 00:28:16,359 The City of Birmingham works for its citizens in many ways. 504 00:28:16,444 --> 00:28:19,454 None outrank the Birmingham Police Department. 505 00:28:20,031 --> 00:28:23,581 Bull Connor's police force had a reputation for being very brutal. 506 00:28:23,660 --> 00:28:28,750 [man] The dog will not stop until his duty and his command is finished. 507 00:28:28,832 --> 00:28:32,422 [woman] I was dragged off to jail in August. 508 00:28:33,044 --> 00:28:36,384 My dress was torn because they handled me so roughly. 509 00:28:36,464 --> 00:28:41,264 [Foner] Birmingham was called the Johannesburg of America. 510 00:28:41,344 --> 00:28:43,934 You've got to keep the white and the Black separate! 511 00:28:44,013 --> 00:28:47,353 Let the law enforcement agencies, that's what you got them hired for. 512 00:28:47,434 --> 00:28:51,524 [Foner] Black people could not get jobs in downtown stores. 513 00:28:51,604 --> 00:28:54,984 Black people were subject to violence very frequently. 514 00:28:55,066 --> 00:28:57,686 Life in Birmingham, as far as I'm concerned, is hell. 515 00:29:01,364 --> 00:29:04,374 [Bonner] Birmingham is called "Bombing-ham" 516 00:29:04,451 --> 00:29:08,581 because there are so many dynamite attacks on Black families, 517 00:29:08,663 --> 00:29:09,623 on Black activists, 518 00:29:09,706 --> 00:29:14,036 on any Black person who white Southerners think is stepping out of line. 519 00:29:16,755 --> 00:29:19,125 [woman] "Some of my earliest childhood memories 520 00:29:19,215 --> 00:29:21,675 are the sounds of dynamite exploding." 521 00:29:22,260 --> 00:29:25,310 "Terrorism is a part of our history." 522 00:29:25,847 --> 00:29:27,967 "It is not something that is alien." 523 00:29:28,641 --> 00:29:29,731 Bull Connor… 524 00:29:30,143 --> 00:29:34,113 uh, would often get on the radio and make statements like, 525 00:29:34,189 --> 00:29:37,479 uh, "Niggers have moved into a white neighborhood." 526 00:29:37,567 --> 00:29:39,777 "We'd better expect some bloodshed tonight." 527 00:29:39,861 --> 00:29:42,241 And sure enough, there would be bloodshed. 528 00:29:45,408 --> 00:29:49,288 [man] Communities of color are all too familiar with domestic terrorism. 529 00:29:51,456 --> 00:29:54,326 Historically, when we pressed for change, 530 00:29:54,918 --> 00:29:56,628 violence would follow. 531 00:30:02,383 --> 00:30:05,223 Nowhere was that clearer than "Bombing-ham." 532 00:30:07,680 --> 00:30:10,100 The KKK would bomb homes and churches 533 00:30:10,183 --> 00:30:13,813 to terrorize Black people for holding civil rights meetings. 534 00:30:15,313 --> 00:30:17,073 And no government agency, 535 00:30:17,148 --> 00:30:21,358 not the police, not the Army, not the National Guard, stopped them. 536 00:30:21,986 --> 00:30:23,736 Nothing emboldens terrorists more 537 00:30:23,822 --> 00:30:26,622 than a legal system that willfully ignores their existence. 538 00:30:29,744 --> 00:30:33,834 [as Dr. King] "Birmingham is a symbol of hardcore resistance to integration." 539 00:30:33,915 --> 00:30:36,625 "If we can get a breakthrough in Birmingham, 540 00:30:36,709 --> 00:30:39,589 and really break down the walls of segregation, 541 00:30:40,338 --> 00:30:42,718 it will demonstrate to the whole South 542 00:30:43,341 --> 00:30:45,801 it can no longer resist integration." 543 00:30:47,637 --> 00:30:50,467 [crowd sings] 544 00:30:51,015 --> 00:30:51,845 Keep moving. 545 00:30:51,933 --> 00:30:54,233 [Levingston] During the protests in Birmingham, 546 00:30:54,310 --> 00:30:58,110 Bull Connor was just arresting people, throwing them in jail, 547 00:30:58,189 --> 00:31:02,029 but the protests were not garnering the publicity that was necessary 548 00:31:02,110 --> 00:31:04,570 to send the message back to John Kennedy. 549 00:31:05,154 --> 00:31:06,994 [Carson] Almost out of desperation, 550 00:31:07,073 --> 00:31:09,913 he makes a decision that he has to go to jail. 551 00:31:11,327 --> 00:31:12,497 He leads the march, 552 00:31:13,746 --> 00:31:14,786 is arrested, 553 00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:19,040 and at that point he's concerned 554 00:31:19,127 --> 00:31:22,957 that the Birmingham campaign might not succeed. 555 00:31:26,426 --> 00:31:31,756 He reads a response to the campaign by white religious leaders, 556 00:31:31,848 --> 00:31:34,018 and he's very upset by that. 557 00:31:34,601 --> 00:31:37,561 He had thought that the religious leaders 558 00:31:37,645 --> 00:31:40,015 would be one of the sources of support. 559 00:31:40,607 --> 00:31:43,227 [woman] "We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry 560 00:31:43,318 --> 00:31:47,278 to observe the principles of law and order and common sense." 561 00:31:47,947 --> 00:31:49,987 "We recognize the natural impatience 562 00:31:50,074 --> 00:31:53,584 of people who feel that their hopes are slow at being realized, 563 00:31:53,661 --> 00:31:56,211 but we are convinced that these demonstrations 564 00:31:56,289 --> 00:31:58,369 are unwise and untimely." 565 00:31:59,417 --> 00:32:01,917 The clergymen write this letter 566 00:32:02,003 --> 00:32:04,553 thinking they're not going to get a big response. 567 00:32:05,340 --> 00:32:08,720 But instead, they get an iconic message 568 00:32:08,801 --> 00:32:10,351 demanding justice, 569 00:32:10,428 --> 00:32:12,718 written from inside a jailhouse. 570 00:32:14,265 --> 00:32:16,305 [as Dr. King] "My dear fellow clergymen, 571 00:32:16,935 --> 00:32:19,345 while confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, 572 00:32:19,437 --> 00:32:21,397 I came across your recent statement 573 00:32:21,481 --> 00:32:25,531 calling my present activities unwise and untimely." 574 00:32:28,655 --> 00:32:31,235 [Levingston] He began writing on pieces of toilet paper, 575 00:32:31,324 --> 00:32:33,244 on the edges of newspapers. 576 00:32:35,578 --> 00:32:38,328 [Berry] The jailer didn't give him a piece of stationery 577 00:32:38,414 --> 00:32:39,964 to write his letter on. 578 00:32:41,918 --> 00:32:45,758 [Epps] He didn't have any books to rely on. He had to rely on his memory. 579 00:32:50,843 --> 00:32:54,143 "For years now, I have heard the word 'wait.'" 580 00:32:56,391 --> 00:32:57,601 [rumbling] 581 00:33:03,231 --> 00:33:07,191 "It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity." 582 00:33:10,697 --> 00:33:12,567 "When your first name becomes 'nigger,' 583 00:33:12,657 --> 00:33:16,077 your middle name becomes 'boy,' however old you are, 584 00:33:16,160 --> 00:33:18,290 and your last name becomes 'John,' 585 00:33:18,371 --> 00:33:22,961 and your wife and mother are never given the respected title 'Mrs,' 586 00:33:23,042 --> 00:33:29,012 then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait." 587 00:33:35,179 --> 00:33:36,309 "This 'wait'… 588 00:33:39,392 --> 00:33:41,812 …has almost always meant never." 589 00:33:43,271 --> 00:33:49,651 The Negro is not able to talk in any terms 590 00:33:49,736 --> 00:33:51,946 less than complete integration. 591 00:33:52,739 --> 00:33:55,699 [Cunningham] This is the same letter where Dr. King talks about 592 00:33:55,783 --> 00:33:57,793 the danger of the "white moderate." 593 00:33:57,869 --> 00:33:59,329 He said that the white moderate 594 00:33:59,412 --> 00:34:02,332 is actually more dangerous than the Ku Klux Klan-er 595 00:34:02,415 --> 00:34:04,415 because it is the white moderate, again, 596 00:34:04,500 --> 00:34:06,960 who wants to be the one to tell you to wait. 597 00:34:07,045 --> 00:34:13,005 The gradual approach has been pretty well shelved for the time. 598 00:34:13,092 --> 00:34:15,472 We're in a situation. We know it. 599 00:34:16,012 --> 00:34:17,852 It came too quickly. 600 00:34:18,389 --> 00:34:23,189 White liberals love the word "wait," because to say "no" makes you a racist. 601 00:34:23,686 --> 00:34:28,436 To say "wait" just makes you sound patient, rational, thoughtful. 602 00:34:32,445 --> 00:34:35,735 I think he is writing that letter to President Kennedy 603 00:34:36,324 --> 00:34:40,244 and anyone who believes that it is morally right 604 00:34:40,328 --> 00:34:43,498 to assert that people without their rights wait for them. 605 00:34:45,792 --> 00:34:47,752 [man] "We think that sometime this week 606 00:34:47,835 --> 00:34:50,295 we should, uh, meet with the Negro leaders, 607 00:34:50,379 --> 00:34:52,879 Martin Luther King and some of these other people, 608 00:34:52,965 --> 00:34:55,675 and talk to them about the steps we're trying to take." 609 00:34:55,760 --> 00:34:58,890 "The trouble with King is everybody thinks he's our boy anyways." 610 00:34:58,971 --> 00:35:01,471 "Everything he does, everybody says we stuck him in there, 611 00:35:01,557 --> 00:35:03,387 so we ought to have him well surrounded." 612 00:35:03,476 --> 00:35:05,646 "King's so hot these days that 613 00:35:05,728 --> 00:35:09,898 I'd like to have some Southern Governors or Mayors or businessmen in first." 614 00:35:10,399 --> 00:35:11,649 [Bonner] He's a politician, 615 00:35:11,734 --> 00:35:16,164 and so he's invested in maintaining political power. 616 00:35:16,239 --> 00:35:19,579 He's also the most influential of the white moderates, 617 00:35:19,659 --> 00:35:24,119 and if he can be persuaded that what King is doing is right, 618 00:35:24,205 --> 00:35:27,705 then King will have won an incredible victory. 619 00:35:29,919 --> 00:35:32,339 King's letter is powerful. 620 00:35:32,421 --> 00:35:34,051 He's demanding action, 621 00:35:34,674 --> 00:35:38,894 and he's about to back up those words with a radical new strategy. 622 00:35:39,387 --> 00:35:42,967 Something nobody, not even the president, can ignore. 623 00:35:48,104 --> 00:35:51,404 "I was not a courageous kid. I didn't get into any fights." 624 00:35:51,482 --> 00:35:53,942 "The only thing I would attack was a math problem, 625 00:35:54,026 --> 00:35:56,066 so this wasn't about courage at all." 626 00:35:56,571 --> 00:35:59,321 "It was about having a dream for a better day." 627 00:36:00,032 --> 00:36:02,742 [Carson] At that point, there are these young teenagers 628 00:36:02,827 --> 00:36:05,657 who have wanted to participate in the demonstrations. 629 00:36:06,539 --> 00:36:07,829 These are children. 630 00:36:07,915 --> 00:36:09,995 I think under normal circumstances 631 00:36:10,084 --> 00:36:13,004 King would have said that's just too dangerous a strategy. 632 00:36:13,087 --> 00:36:16,757 What if one of them is seriously injured? One of them might be killed. 633 00:36:17,258 --> 00:36:20,388 But it was a measure of his desperation at that point. 634 00:36:20,469 --> 00:36:24,349 He needed to gain a victory, not just for himself, 635 00:36:24,432 --> 00:36:26,312 but for these young people. 636 00:36:26,392 --> 00:36:31,192 The Children's Crusade started on May 2nd, 1963. 637 00:36:31,272 --> 00:36:34,152 There were some kids as young as seven. 638 00:36:34,233 --> 00:36:35,993 Hundreds of kids got arrested. 639 00:36:36,068 --> 00:36:39,778 They were now being sent to jail in the same school buses 640 00:36:39,864 --> 00:36:41,624 that dropped them off each morning. 641 00:36:42,450 --> 00:36:44,790 They decided that, in spite of the danger, 642 00:36:44,869 --> 00:36:47,619 they were going to participate in nonviolent resistance. 643 00:36:47,705 --> 00:36:51,325 They knew what they were risking, and decided that it was worth it. 644 00:36:52,168 --> 00:36:54,208 [Levingston] Children came out of the churches 645 00:36:54,295 --> 00:36:56,585 and marched onto the streets, and they were joyous. 646 00:36:57,173 --> 00:36:58,803 Bull Connor wasn't pleased. 647 00:36:59,383 --> 00:37:04,223 [Berry] He saw the children as vermin that he wanted to get rid of. 648 00:37:06,682 --> 00:37:08,062 [siren wails] 649 00:37:10,269 --> 00:37:15,729 Bull Connor decided to call out the dogs and to call out the fire hoses. 650 00:37:15,816 --> 00:37:18,606 [shouting and screaming] 651 00:37:18,694 --> 00:37:21,364 -[sirens wail] -[shouting] 652 00:37:22,031 --> 00:37:23,781 [Bonner] Teenagers and children. 653 00:37:25,201 --> 00:37:26,741 Bodies bent. 654 00:37:26,827 --> 00:37:29,997 Pushed down the street by the spray of a fire hose. 655 00:37:33,751 --> 00:37:37,001 [Foner] Martin Luther King was a master of public relations 656 00:37:37,088 --> 00:37:39,968 and he knew that white violence… 657 00:37:40,049 --> 00:37:41,799 -[siren wails] -[dog barks] 658 00:37:41,884 --> 00:37:43,974 …coupled with Black nonviolence… 659 00:37:49,100 --> 00:37:54,900 …would force large numbers of white people in America to really look in the mirror. 660 00:38:03,531 --> 00:38:09,121 This was exactly the response Martin and the others wanted to provoke. 661 00:38:13,040 --> 00:38:14,500 [Foner] It shocked the world. 662 00:38:16,544 --> 00:38:20,424 It just was a total embarrassment to the United States. 663 00:38:21,007 --> 00:38:25,047 [Cunningham] This can't possibly be what the 14th Amendment was meant for. 664 00:38:25,636 --> 00:38:28,256 This can't possibly be the American Dream. 665 00:38:28,973 --> 00:38:32,393 [Stevenson] The spectacle, I think, said something really important 666 00:38:32,476 --> 00:38:34,686 about who was trying to save America, 667 00:38:35,187 --> 00:38:38,107 who was trying to make the 14th Amendment meaningful, 668 00:38:39,150 --> 00:38:40,780 and who was standing in the way. 669 00:38:42,111 --> 00:38:44,411 Front pages of newspapers around the world 670 00:38:44,488 --> 00:38:49,738 with these images of police assaulting young people, children. 671 00:38:50,244 --> 00:38:54,214 [Foner] It made the ideology of the Cold War look ridiculous. 672 00:38:54,290 --> 00:38:57,420 We claim to be the nation of freedom against the Soviet Union, 673 00:38:57,501 --> 00:39:00,341 but here we had people demanding genuine freedom, 674 00:39:00,421 --> 00:39:02,841 and they were being assaulted by the police. 675 00:39:02,923 --> 00:39:05,473 The person who holds in his hands 676 00:39:05,551 --> 00:39:08,511 the power to fulfill the American Dream 677 00:39:08,596 --> 00:39:10,926 happens to be a person who is white. 678 00:39:11,015 --> 00:39:14,765 [Levingston] The Kennedy administration watched what was going on in the streets 679 00:39:14,852 --> 00:39:17,062 and realized they hadn't paid enough attention 680 00:39:17,146 --> 00:39:19,516 to the real racial division in America. 681 00:39:19,607 --> 00:39:23,237 [Berry] There were people who got in touch with the president in the White House 682 00:39:23,319 --> 00:39:24,819 to say this is outrageous. 683 00:39:25,654 --> 00:39:28,914 [Levingston] Before those protests, only five percent of Americans 684 00:39:28,991 --> 00:39:32,161 believed that Civil Rights was the most important domestic issue 685 00:39:32,244 --> 00:39:33,334 in the United States. 686 00:39:33,913 --> 00:39:37,503 After those protests, 50% of people believe that civil rights 687 00:39:37,583 --> 00:39:39,093 was the most important issue. 688 00:39:40,419 --> 00:39:43,549 May I just add that here's one of the great voices in America, 689 00:39:43,631 --> 00:39:44,841 Dr. Martin Luther King. 690 00:39:44,924 --> 00:39:48,224 [applause] 691 00:39:51,263 --> 00:39:53,353 A major part of King's strategy 692 00:39:53,432 --> 00:39:55,682 is the growing medium of television. 693 00:39:56,310 --> 00:39:59,020 We've seen people risk their lives to publish essays, 694 00:39:59,105 --> 00:40:02,225 speeches and newspapers in their fight for justice 695 00:40:02,316 --> 00:40:04,736 and the challenges of getting their message out. 696 00:40:05,236 --> 00:40:06,856 But now, for the first time, 697 00:40:06,946 --> 00:40:11,366 Americans are getting that message immediately, in their own living rooms. 698 00:40:11,450 --> 00:40:15,700 No social revolution can be neat and tidy at every point. 699 00:40:15,788 --> 00:40:19,208 [narrator] They see what's happening to Black Americans on the nightly news, 700 00:40:19,291 --> 00:40:22,041 and they're witnessing injustice in their own country, 701 00:40:22,128 --> 00:40:23,628 and they know it has to stop, 702 00:40:24,171 --> 00:40:26,721 and no one embodies that injustice more 703 00:40:26,799 --> 00:40:29,839 than Alabama Governor George Wallace. 704 00:40:30,428 --> 00:40:33,138 [reporter] The University of Alabama campus at Tuscaloosa 705 00:40:33,222 --> 00:40:35,392 is under a tight security guard of state police. 706 00:40:35,474 --> 00:40:38,814 He made a campaign promise to stand in the doorway himself 707 00:40:38,894 --> 00:40:42,734 to prevent the integration of the last all-white state university. 708 00:40:43,315 --> 00:40:46,395 [Levingston] There was a court order demanding that George Wallace 709 00:40:46,485 --> 00:40:50,105 allow Black students to attend the University of Alabama. 710 00:40:51,031 --> 00:40:53,951 George Wallace was determined to fight that. 711 00:40:54,034 --> 00:40:58,584 [Carson] Wallace wants to make it clear to Kennedy and the federal government 712 00:40:59,165 --> 00:41:02,745 that they are going to resist this with every means at their disposal. 713 00:41:02,835 --> 00:41:05,125 So, something's gotta give. 714 00:41:05,212 --> 00:41:06,762 [sirens wail] 715 00:41:08,966 --> 00:41:11,086 -[man] Governor Wallace… -Just a minute. 716 00:41:11,177 --> 00:41:13,927 As Governor and Chief Magistrate of the State of Alabama, 717 00:41:14,013 --> 00:41:17,983 I deem it to be my solemn obligation and duty to stand before you 718 00:41:18,476 --> 00:41:21,596 representing rights and sovereignty of this state and its peoples, 719 00:41:21,687 --> 00:41:27,107 to hereby denounce and forbid this illegal and unwarranted action 720 00:41:27,193 --> 00:41:28,573 by the central government. 721 00:41:29,361 --> 00:41:32,361 [Levingston] Wallace was denying everything that America stood for. 722 00:41:32,448 --> 00:41:36,538 He denied the rights of Black students to equal protection 723 00:41:36,619 --> 00:41:38,249 guaranteed under the 14th Amendment 724 00:41:38,329 --> 00:41:41,999 which included the ability to attend the schools of their choice. 725 00:41:43,709 --> 00:41:45,709 [woman] "It was more than a hot day." 726 00:41:45,794 --> 00:41:47,554 "It was dangerous day." 727 00:41:47,630 --> 00:41:50,130 "No one knew for sure what might happen." 728 00:41:50,216 --> 00:41:51,796 "I didn't feel I should sneak in." 729 00:41:51,884 --> 00:41:54,224 "I didn't feel I should go around the back door." 730 00:41:54,303 --> 00:41:56,393 "If Wallace was standing in the door, 731 00:41:56,472 --> 00:42:00,272 I had every right in the world to face him and go to that school." 732 00:42:03,229 --> 00:42:07,649 [Foner] Kennedy still, at this point, had not really identified himself 733 00:42:07,733 --> 00:42:09,903 with the demands of the Civil Rights Movement. 734 00:42:09,985 --> 00:42:13,275 [Bonner] To see a state government official 735 00:42:13,364 --> 00:42:15,574 restricting Black people so actively 736 00:42:15,658 --> 00:42:20,038 convinces him that the federal government has to intervene. 737 00:42:20,120 --> 00:42:24,250 Kennedy, I think at that point, recognizes that Wallace has gone too far. 738 00:42:24,333 --> 00:42:27,963 [reporter] The National Guard troops arrive by mid-afternoon. 739 00:42:28,045 --> 00:42:31,755 [narrator] President Kennedy calls on the Alabama National Guard 740 00:42:31,840 --> 00:42:35,720 to force Wallace to integrate the University of Alabama. 741 00:42:35,803 --> 00:42:38,263 [reporter] Now, the General confronts the Governor 742 00:42:38,347 --> 00:42:40,637 as a representative of the federal government. 743 00:42:43,561 --> 00:42:45,901 [Levingston] Wallace knew he was defeated. 744 00:42:47,439 --> 00:42:49,649 The federal government would prevail. 745 00:42:50,442 --> 00:42:54,282 [reporter] This, then, is the moment when Governor George Wallace of Alabama 746 00:42:54,822 --> 00:42:57,282 walked away from the schoolhouse door. 747 00:42:59,201 --> 00:43:01,081 [Levingston] He gave up, walked away… 748 00:43:04,373 --> 00:43:06,503 …and the two students were allowed to enroll. 749 00:43:06,584 --> 00:43:09,674 [cameras click] 750 00:43:19,263 --> 00:43:23,023 [Levingston] Kennedy decided that he needed to go on television that night. 751 00:43:24,893 --> 00:43:25,943 He had an epiphany. 752 00:43:26,020 --> 00:43:29,860 He realized that this was the moment that he had to act. 753 00:43:30,608 --> 00:43:33,318 [man] An address by the President of the United States, 754 00:43:33,402 --> 00:43:35,032 speaking live from Washington. 755 00:43:37,364 --> 00:43:39,034 Good evening, my fellow citizens. 756 00:43:39,742 --> 00:43:43,542 "This nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds." 757 00:43:43,621 --> 00:43:47,171 "It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal." 758 00:43:47,916 --> 00:43:51,706 [Carson] When I think of that speech, I think of it in terms of the way 759 00:43:51,795 --> 00:43:55,715 Lincoln eventually responded to the moral issue of the Civil War. 760 00:43:55,799 --> 00:43:59,889 I think that in both cases you have a president who is reluctant 761 00:43:59,970 --> 00:44:03,140 to face the moral implications of what's going on, 762 00:44:03,682 --> 00:44:08,022 who's finally convinced that they need to catch up with the world. 763 00:44:08,854 --> 00:44:13,074 "One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, 764 00:44:13,150 --> 00:44:17,400 yet their heirs, their grandsons are not fully free." 765 00:44:19,907 --> 00:44:23,197 [Kennedy] They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. 766 00:44:23,285 --> 00:44:27,825 They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. 767 00:44:28,415 --> 00:44:31,375 And this nation, for all its hopes, 768 00:44:31,460 --> 00:44:35,420 will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. 769 00:44:37,007 --> 00:44:40,717 My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all. 770 00:44:40,803 --> 00:44:43,313 That phrase, "our fellow Americans, " 771 00:44:43,389 --> 00:44:47,389 that he repeats over and over and over again as if he's giving a sermon, 772 00:44:47,476 --> 00:44:52,516 is exactly why King invoked the 14th Amendment in the first place. 773 00:44:52,606 --> 00:44:55,526 Kennedy calls upon folks with privilege 774 00:44:55,609 --> 00:44:58,609 to recognize the humanity and the citizenship 775 00:44:58,696 --> 00:45:00,066 of folks with darker skins. 776 00:45:00,155 --> 00:45:02,775 We have to treat them like you want to be treated. 777 00:45:02,866 --> 00:45:06,576 "Who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed, 778 00:45:06,662 --> 00:45:07,962 and stand in his place?" 779 00:45:08,622 --> 00:45:13,462 "Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?" 780 00:45:14,044 --> 00:45:17,594 Given all the things that have been happening to Black people, 781 00:45:17,673 --> 00:45:20,843 it is time for you not to wait any longer. 782 00:45:20,926 --> 00:45:24,426 I am therefore asking the Congress to enact legislation. 783 00:45:24,513 --> 00:45:28,233 [Berry] He finally had done what Martin had asked him to do 784 00:45:28,308 --> 00:45:32,058 way back on the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation 785 00:45:32,146 --> 00:45:36,146 when he would not announce then a Civil Rights bill. 786 00:45:36,650 --> 00:45:38,650 I think it's one of the most profound address 787 00:45:38,736 --> 00:45:41,856 ever made by an American president since Lincoln. 788 00:45:41,947 --> 00:45:45,697 "Now the time has come for this nation to fulfill its promise." 789 00:45:52,458 --> 00:45:55,708 [Carson] I think King must have been surprised when he heard the speech, 790 00:45:55,794 --> 00:45:59,804 'cause this was something that Kennedy had been pushed to do 791 00:45:59,882 --> 00:46:03,182 by the movement that was going on in the South. 792 00:46:03,844 --> 00:46:07,104 I am therefore asking the Congress to enact legislation 793 00:46:07,723 --> 00:46:09,853 giving all Americans the right to be served 794 00:46:09,933 --> 00:46:12,063 in facilities which are open to the public. 795 00:46:12,144 --> 00:46:17,784 Hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments. 796 00:46:17,858 --> 00:46:20,238 This seems to me to be an elementary right. 797 00:46:20,319 --> 00:46:24,619 [Berry] And his Civil Rights bill would use the 14th Amendment 798 00:46:24,698 --> 00:46:29,448 to pass a law that provided for equal access to public accommodations. 799 00:46:29,536 --> 00:46:32,576 I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, 800 00:46:32,664 --> 00:46:34,714 will stop and examine his conscience. 801 00:46:34,792 --> 00:46:40,842 For the first time he presents the need for civil rights reform as a moral issue. 802 00:46:43,217 --> 00:46:45,137 King achieved the goal 803 00:46:45,219 --> 00:46:48,179 of getting the engagement of the Kennedy administration. 804 00:46:53,602 --> 00:46:55,652 ♪ I see the future ♪ 805 00:46:55,729 --> 00:46:57,729 ♪ Martin Luther dreamt ♪ 806 00:46:57,815 --> 00:46:59,775 ♪ When he was a man ♪ 807 00:46:59,858 --> 00:47:02,738 ♪ I feel the blood my momma fought for…♪ 808 00:47:02,820 --> 00:47:06,370 [Carson] There's this momentum building, and King symbolizes it. 809 00:47:06,448 --> 00:47:08,948 There are demonstrations in Chicago, 810 00:47:09,034 --> 00:47:11,794 there are demonstrations in the San Francisco Bay Area, 811 00:47:11,870 --> 00:47:14,460 there are demonstrations in New York going on. 812 00:47:14,540 --> 00:47:16,710 The March on Washington was the culmination. 813 00:47:17,793 --> 00:47:19,803 ♪ Go tell 'em, go tell 'em ♪ 814 00:47:20,420 --> 00:47:22,130 [Carson] I was only 19 years old, 815 00:47:22,214 --> 00:47:24,934 and decided that I wanted to be there at the march. 816 00:47:25,008 --> 00:47:28,298 I had grown up in a small town in New Mexico, not very many Black people, 817 00:47:28,387 --> 00:47:32,057 and then suddenly it was more Black people than I'd ever seen. 818 00:47:32,140 --> 00:47:35,020 I had a real sense that this was something really special. 819 00:47:35,644 --> 00:47:38,234 [Berry] Most people who've heard about the speech he gave 820 00:47:38,313 --> 00:47:39,773 at the March on Washington 821 00:47:39,857 --> 00:47:43,857 think that it has something to do with how his little children will grow up 822 00:47:43,944 --> 00:47:46,154 and how we want everybody to be known 823 00:47:46,238 --> 00:47:50,328 "not by the color of their skin, but by their character" or something, 824 00:47:50,409 --> 00:47:54,539 and they've probably forgotten completely the first part of the speech. 825 00:47:54,621 --> 00:47:58,131 [applause and cheering] 826 00:47:58,709 --> 00:48:01,709 Five score years ago, 827 00:48:04,006 --> 00:48:08,966 a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, 828 00:48:09,636 --> 00:48:13,176 signed the Emancipation Proclamation. 829 00:48:14,308 --> 00:48:21,108 But, 100 years later, the Negro still is not free. 830 00:48:22,274 --> 00:48:24,154 [Carson] Like many at the March, 831 00:48:24,234 --> 00:48:27,864 I thought it was about just passing Kennedy's civil rights proposal. 832 00:48:27,946 --> 00:48:31,366 But what King is doing is saying it's about much more than that. 833 00:48:32,910 --> 00:48:36,710 [as Dr. King] "America has given the Negro people a bad check." 834 00:48:37,247 --> 00:48:41,127 "A check which has come back marked 'insufficient funds.'" 835 00:48:42,085 --> 00:48:46,415 But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. 836 00:48:47,132 --> 00:48:49,472 [Carson] We've been waiting for the promise 837 00:48:49,551 --> 00:48:52,931 of the Emancipation Proclamation to be realized. 838 00:48:53,013 --> 00:48:56,223 We're waiting for the Fourteenth Amendment to be realized. 839 00:48:56,308 --> 00:48:59,478 A hundred years of patience is quite enough. 840 00:48:59,561 --> 00:49:02,361 [applause] 841 00:49:02,439 --> 00:49:07,439 "Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy." 842 00:49:07,527 --> 00:49:09,817 [Berry] People will say, "Why can't you wait?" 843 00:49:09,905 --> 00:49:12,115 Or, "Eventually, things will change." 844 00:49:12,199 --> 00:49:13,329 You can't wait. 845 00:49:13,408 --> 00:49:15,868 It is "the fierce urgency of now." 846 00:49:15,953 --> 00:49:19,333 [applause and cheering] 847 00:49:21,166 --> 00:49:22,536 Now is the time. 848 00:49:23,543 --> 00:49:27,423 [Stevenson] Dr. King understood how we couldn't endure much longer, 849 00:49:27,506 --> 00:49:31,006 the time for being patient and quiet was over. 850 00:49:31,093 --> 00:49:32,553 Now is the time. 851 00:49:32,636 --> 00:49:34,546 [cheering and applause] 852 00:49:34,638 --> 00:49:38,638 "Wait" almost always means "never," almost always means "never." 853 00:49:38,725 --> 00:49:42,265 That "wait" gets met with another "wait," another "wait" and another "wait," 854 00:49:42,354 --> 00:49:45,654 until you've died before you can even actually see the rights 855 00:49:45,732 --> 00:49:47,362 that you have been fighting for. 856 00:49:47,442 --> 00:49:50,032 -Now is the time. -[applause and cheering] 857 00:49:50,112 --> 00:49:55,532 It was radical in its insistence on real change now. 858 00:49:55,617 --> 00:49:59,497 "It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment." 859 00:50:04,876 --> 00:50:08,256 [Crenshaw] It was the promise of equal protection under the law. 860 00:50:08,338 --> 00:50:11,338 It was the promise to do what was necessary 861 00:50:11,425 --> 00:50:13,545 to actually deliver 862 00:50:13,635 --> 00:50:16,925 precisely the thing that the 14th Amendment 863 00:50:17,014 --> 00:50:19,064 had put into play. 864 00:50:19,641 --> 00:50:22,021 These were rights that already existed. 865 00:50:22,102 --> 00:50:24,312 This wasn't about new asks. 866 00:50:24,396 --> 00:50:26,226 This wasn't about a favor. 867 00:50:26,314 --> 00:50:28,484 This was about making good on the promise 868 00:50:28,567 --> 00:50:33,357 that is the foundation of the new American society. 869 00:50:39,327 --> 00:50:42,707 [Cunningham] Dr. King said, you don't get to rest because I don't get to rest. 870 00:50:42,789 --> 00:50:44,419 None of us goes to sleep. 871 00:50:44,499 --> 00:50:47,089 None of us goes to sleep until this thing is solved. 872 00:50:47,961 --> 00:50:49,671 Waiting puts my children at risk. 873 00:50:51,339 --> 00:50:53,129 Waiting puts my parents at risk. 874 00:50:54,718 --> 00:50:56,508 Waiting puts my community at risk. 875 00:50:57,888 --> 00:50:59,428 Waiting puts my job at risk. 876 00:51:00,265 --> 00:51:04,055 Waiting puts my ability to breathe the breath of life at risk. 877 00:51:04,144 --> 00:51:06,154 I do not have time to wait. 878 00:51:12,944 --> 00:51:15,494 [as Dr. King] "The newfound strength of the Civil Rights Movement 879 00:51:15,572 --> 00:51:16,952 will not vanish or wither." 880 00:51:19,743 --> 00:51:23,753 "We are ready to suffer where necessary, and even risk our lives, 881 00:51:23,830 --> 00:51:26,330 to become witnesses to the truth as we see it." 882 00:51:27,501 --> 00:51:29,041 "It may mean going to jail." 883 00:51:29,795 --> 00:51:32,255 "It may even mean physical death." 884 00:51:36,134 --> 00:51:39,894 "But if physical death is the price a man must pay to free his children 885 00:51:39,971 --> 00:51:42,101 from the permanent death of the spirit, 886 00:51:42,974 --> 00:51:45,194 then nothing could be more redemptive." 887 00:51:48,021 --> 00:51:50,441 Martin Luther King 20 minutes ago died. 888 00:51:50,524 --> 00:51:52,234 [shocked gasps] 889 00:51:55,278 --> 00:51:58,658 [as Dr. King] "Negroes have learned the strength of their own power 890 00:51:58,740 --> 00:52:01,540 and will unleash it again and again." 891 00:52:02,077 --> 00:52:04,077 "They have left the valley of despair." 892 00:52:04,579 --> 00:52:06,669 "They have found strength in struggle, 893 00:52:07,457 --> 00:52:09,127 and whether they live or die, 894 00:52:10,210 --> 00:52:14,010 they will never crawl nor retreat again." 895 00:52:16,842 --> 00:52:19,302 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 896 00:52:19,386 --> 00:52:23,716 is a powerful answer to the demand for enforcement of the 14th. 897 00:52:24,558 --> 00:52:27,768 It's not the end of the struggle, but it's a key milestone 898 00:52:27,853 --> 00:52:30,563 on that long march toward full citizenship. 899 00:52:31,398 --> 00:52:34,938 It serves as a reminder that the time to demand justice 900 00:52:35,443 --> 00:52:37,533 is always now. 901 00:52:40,323 --> 00:52:44,083 We know, as Dr. King and so many others throughout history taught us, 902 00:52:44,161 --> 00:52:47,121 that protest is actually what creates the pressure 903 00:52:47,205 --> 00:52:49,075 so that the policy can get passed. 904 00:52:49,166 --> 00:52:50,826 [cheering] 905 00:52:50,917 --> 00:52:53,667 When the news stop reporting it two weeks from now, 906 00:52:53,753 --> 00:52:55,053 we gotta band together. 907 00:52:55,130 --> 00:52:57,220 We gotta go beyond electoral politics, 908 00:52:57,299 --> 00:52:59,969 and we've gotta organize within our communities. 909 00:53:00,051 --> 00:53:01,681 ♪ Revolution ♪ 910 00:53:02,637 --> 00:53:05,017 [narrator] Because when we refuse to wait, 911 00:53:05,932 --> 00:53:08,022 when we combat complacency, 912 00:53:09,519 --> 00:53:11,689 look at what we can accomplish together. 913 00:53:11,771 --> 00:53:15,861 ♪ Where will you be for the revolution? ♪ 914 00:53:17,777 --> 00:53:21,317 And look who else we can inspire to demand equality for themselves. 915 00:53:22,741 --> 00:53:25,491 I am for freedom and equality for everyone, 916 00:53:25,577 --> 00:53:28,787 and a major oppressed group in the United States today is women. 917 00:53:28,872 --> 00:53:31,462 We want to have control over our own bodies 918 00:53:31,541 --> 00:53:33,041 and equal opportunity. 919 00:53:33,126 --> 00:53:36,206 We want the Fourteenth Amendment to apply to women. 920 00:53:36,296 --> 00:53:39,046 ♪ Wake up, things might get rough ♪ 921 00:53:39,132 --> 00:53:42,642 ♪ No need to stress Keeps you down too much ♪ 922 00:53:43,470 --> 00:53:46,260 ♪ Wake up, I heard they found a solution ♪ 923 00:53:46,348 --> 00:53:49,938 ♪ Where will you be for the revolution? ♪ 924 00:53:50,018 --> 00:53:51,978 ♪ Oh, whoa ♪ 925 00:53:52,062 --> 00:53:53,402 ♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪ 926 00:53:53,480 --> 00:53:55,480 ♪ Whoa, whoa ♪ 927 00:53:55,565 --> 00:53:56,935 ♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪ 928 00:53:57,025 --> 00:53:58,985 -♪ Whoa, whoa ♪ -♪ Yeah ♪ 929 00:53:59,069 --> 00:54:00,449 ♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪ 930 00:54:00,528 --> 00:54:02,408 ♪ Whoa, whoa ♪ 931 00:54:02,489 --> 00:54:04,069 ♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪ 932 00:54:04,157 --> 00:54:06,867 ♪ I'm so high up ♪ 933 00:54:06,952 --> 00:54:11,292 ♪ So high up and I like it, hey ♪ 934 00:54:11,831 --> 00:54:13,961 ♪ I'm so high up ♪ 935 00:54:14,042 --> 00:54:18,302 ♪ So high up and I like it, hey ♪ 936 00:54:18,380 --> 00:54:21,340 ♪ I am happy today ♪ 937 00:54:21,925 --> 00:54:25,175 ♪ This not like other days ♪ 938 00:54:25,262 --> 00:54:28,642 ♪ Somehow I feel okay ♪ 939 00:54:28,723 --> 00:54:31,983 ♪ Somehow I feel okay ♪ 940 00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:34,350 ♪ Whoa ♪ 941 00:54:35,397 --> 00:54:37,857 ♪ Yeah, whoa, whoa ♪ 942 00:54:38,733 --> 00:54:41,493 ♪ Yeah, whoa, whoa ♪ 943 00:54:42,279 --> 00:54:44,699 ♪ Yeah, whoa, whoa ♪ 944 00:54:45,865 --> 00:54:47,735 ♪ Oh, whoa ♪ 945 00:54:47,826 --> 00:54:49,286 ♪ I'm your big brother ♪ 946 00:54:49,369 --> 00:54:51,289 ♪ Whoa, whoa ♪ 947 00:54:51,371 --> 00:54:52,791 ♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪ 948 00:54:52,872 --> 00:54:54,712 ♪ Whoa, whoa ♪ 949 00:54:54,791 --> 00:54:56,251 ♪ I'm your big brother ♪ 950 00:54:56,334 --> 00:54:58,254 ♪ Whoa, whoa ♪ 951 00:54:58,336 --> 00:55:00,166 ♪ Whoa, whoa, whoa ♪ 952 00:55:00,255 --> 00:55:02,755 ♪ Let go, life does get tough ♪ 953 00:55:02,841 --> 00:55:06,301 ♪ No need to stress Holds you back too much ♪ 954 00:55:07,178 --> 00:55:10,098 ♪ Let's go Heard they found the solution ♪ 955 00:55:10,181 --> 00:55:13,601 ♪ Where will you be for the revolution? ♪ 956 00:55:15,103 --> 00:55:21,483 [instrumental music plays throughout]