BackStory; BlackStory: BackStory Celebrates Black History Month with a Compilation

major funding for baxter is provided by the anonymous donor the national endowment for the humanities and the robert and joseph cornell memorial foundation somehow welcome to back story amazing collie if you need to the show each week my colleague brian balogh and ayres join freeman and i explore the history behind the headlines now you may have heard back surprise show a few weeks ago or reward the first ever backstory prize for public history to the national memorial for peace and justice in montgomery alabama it opened in two thousand eighteen and it's dedicated to the thousands of african americans who were lynched between eighteen seventy seven and nineteen fifty a story in the data williams studies racial violence targeting african americans including the wave of lynching that began in the aftermath of the civil war over the course of her research she came across many accounts of lynchings what is striking about lynching is at these were secret crimes

often because of lynching would be published not only local papers than national outlets like the new york times and while these accounts can give details on what happened the day of the lynching and i usually sympathetic to the victim davis georgia may at charles atkins a negro fifteen years old one of four taken into custody today in connection with the killing of mrs elisabeth kitchens twenty years old was burned at the stake tonight the lynching occurred at the scene of the murder and followed an alleged confession from the fifteen year old prisoner he was tortured over a slow fire for fifteen minutes and then shrieking with pain was question concerning his accomplices members of the mob comprising nearly two dozen people then raise the body again fascinated to a pine tree with trace chains and related to fire more than two hundred shots were fired into the charred body following the boys death my dear mr white this is a

little knowledge and saying i'm busy you're very much appreciate where we say earlier it was an ally writing you was i'm looking around for a good lawyer to bring suit against the state of georgia for the lynching of mice on the age of thirteen years old the year nineteen twenty two at the day of may and i'm sending to you for information the fact the crowd tied a rope around my neck and also taught me to still be my wife almost to death she is not going well from that time and they kept me in jail for twenty one months in my wife in jail for seven months i'm now looking for to bring the matter to the state court just as soon as possible or as soon as i can get some good lawyer to take the case up you know to support my family i feel that the state should help taking you from wood used unfamiliar what you are going to do

i wish to have a favorable let's assume spitefully owes the interactions when african americans wrote the department of justice when it was the prison of the united states the often that a form letter back sane this is an issue that should be taken up with your state government what's curious that a number of african americans get that form letter and they actually write back and say i went to my state government first and they did not you could also imagine him potentially riding to the local newspapers but that would be less likely to occur because newspapers especially the local ones were lynchings occurred assume the guilt of the person who's been let's end don't really pressed down on the fact that even if they have committed a crime that they were still entitled to due process needs protection under the law they take the story that the mob class to justify the killings and so if he writes now that could be seen as a direct act of defiance and that's not this up the

newspaper from publishing a letter including his address where he is and put in the bull's eye on its path then that when lacey pd hariz up to this poorly positioned itself as an outline they're going to investigate lynchings themselves they're trying to get the family story out about the killings that he's writing to the end italy c p because he's hoping that they can help and get justice for himself and for a son july sixteenth nineteen twenty six to a nine taylor street camden new jersey is service i wrote you sometime ago concerned what happened to me now i'll tell you the facts in this case to the very best of my knowledge may nineteen twenty two in washington county state of georgia apple was lynched for killing a white woman was carrying us mail today was for georgia bubble was thirteen years old at the time his name was charlie after he was lynched

without any investigation by the people of washington and johnson county myself and my wife was beaten to death because we set them up boy did the killing and it was said shortly after this happened that a white man killed a woman and gave my boy her auto to make it appear that my boy did the killing since my boys knew no better and let this man give him this auto know this is all for this time please let me hear from you by return mail as i would very much like to hear from you as quick as possible yours truly interacts all the letters are written long here the handwriting is actually carrying me probably doesn't have the fine literacy skills that you know some of our listeners might enjoy today but even without that you still get a sense of who he was as a person and i cannot imagine count as a grieving father who's been beaten has been present who's left

his home community in order to be safe trying to do something to try and have meaning in his life by giving a degree of justice for himself and so that i feel on the peach when i interact with the letter on july twenty six nineteen twenty six water white assistant secretary from the end of willie seek he wrote again or seconds back my dear mr atkins i have your letter of the sixteenth row acceptable and she never son i am taking the matter up with a well informed people in georgia i will keep you advised of all about dance your theory truly walter white i don't believe i have his initial response gears letters referred to earlier correspondence with walter white and receiving information from him for the letter that i share with you while there's only the little bit that i just read what often happens when the first response it is an expression

of condolence a hope to do what they can to help the family get justice if that is at all possible now the challenge is that in the nineteen twenties then the police e p you know they're running out of fuel they have money to give federal anti lynching legislation passed and also beginning the slow process of china branch out beyond lynching and take of segregation in education and other places the public accommodations so part of what they're able to do at this point is to try to apply some pressure to the governor to try to shame the state into taking some action because that's their only recourse at this point i don't think that people again are actions noted that's the situation the internal situation in tbilisi pee at this point all he knows is that they've thrown him a lifeline with a lynching victims' families they feel as though they don't have anything else to lose but to ask and ask and

ask and ask and ask for more something to get them closer on september seventh nineteen twenty six iraqis for another letter to walter white you directed me to do but i did not get very much satisfaction out of his letter so i thought i would write you again to see if you would write the high sheriff of washington county georgia and also milo was addresses sanders phil george washington county see if you can get any information from them concerning this case i'm getting older now and feels and emi jobs and most of the time that these people cause me to lose himself and so what i asked you to do all that you can for me good many ways is burnt my heart to do all you can afford

the loss of my child is worse than all this or i was consulted government concerning the matter is i was as huge direct me ask just how to get at the matter mulloy mr evans is the man that cleared myself and my wife of this crime but my child is gone he suffered death my wife suffered for a long time also and also myself went to sue especially yours interactions what stands out in the letter a gaze gain actions this popple bald greek and agony and losing his boy it's obvious that he's deeply affected by the killing and his beating and his imprisonment and i think that for mean what the letter does its it to next charles or charlie as his family called him to community it says that even though he was isolated from his people at

the time of this that that he was only human that he was part of a family that greet his that long after it occurred and for me i think that that's really important because it shows a very different side of lynching that we don't get when we look at the newspapers and if i can also connect that to part of what we're seeing with the new legacy museum down in montgomery one of the things that they've been able to do is do something historians haven't done we just connect directly to you and there are publications in the documentary said they're working on and even in the museum itself they are bringing the story of lynching victims' families clinching victims connectedness to communities to light its letters by gamers that at least from the cost a course correction in the nature of my research the writing that i did on when she

was just an impersonal it's discovering gainers letter that change that because i now saw charley i had to ground down on the ground those victims to make those victims to their people because that's how they were in life as letters like dinners really reveals to me got away with is a historian at wayne state university and author of the left a great mark zandi african american testimonies of racial violence from emancipation to world war one a hundred years ago this year a white mobs forced the entire black population of corbin kentucky to leave the town at gunpoint i was one of many racial

expulsions in the united states but if you're looking for an account of the incident he would sense the official histories of corbin in vain our friends at scene on radio investigated the story of what happened in corbin and how has all but disappeared from the public record until now we join host john biewen as he speaks to the mayor of corbin willard mcburney a retired postal service manager people and not peer group from they said they had heard from their grandfathers art from their dead and it was just really pressed on them from generation from generation and that that's really them that just because of my knowledge of these are heard that there there was a a group will one that it forced a bunch of the of blacks out of corman but dan that i've heard it a law that we knew wasn't how to that severely that you oh they were that they

were employed by the rural company and they did move some out but then they brought back in two weeks later to finish the job that is the railroad brought in another crew of black workers in this version of the story that's proof that the expulsion was not about race in fact in affidavits collected for the state's criminal investigation several months later white eyewitnesses backed up the story told by the african american man they said the armed mobbed announced its intention to rid corbin of black people and that black baggage workers who tried to return a few days later were threatened and left again i know that some of the negroes who were compelled to leave corbin where property owners and had always been considered peaceful and law abiding i do not consider that it would be safer and the negroes to return to corbin kentucky at the present time as a result of the investigation in nineteen ninety a man named steve rogers who would work for the railroad was convicted of leading the mob and spent two

years in the kentucky state penitentiary a lot of people in corbin say there's no point in dwelling on something that happened so long ago but that's how mayor mcburney feels but the same time he admits the expulsion haunts his town and its image i had to go to a marketing meeting in cincinnati mcburney remembers an incident in the late nineteen eighties when he was working for the postal service probably over a hundred is the main speaker at the meeting was an african american who'd flown in from chicago and he was more than half our plans would do this and that if any of us had any problems but he says at the sound of the car but a twenty co cork east about will not come to carbon in that really made me feel small to be singled out with a group i knew that he had heard of the stigma that has fallen and i mean that was someone from chicago

air for decades after the race riot corbin was known as a white man's town with a visible klan presence a town that would tolerate only a token handful of black people the criminal investigation did find that several whites stood up to the market a few protected black people in their homes or businesses and as you heard the local newspaper condemned the expulsion of the time journalist elliot justin says most people in corbin and the other towns where racial expulsions took place don't know this part of their history either when you have the fable the pro tax of their people the trinity or lost actually lose their heroes writers silas house thinks white people in a place like corbin

are especially reluctant to talk about their town's troubled past because of worries about eastern kentucky stereotypes illiterate police racism but the decades of silence recorders leaders may have backfired silas says by failing to publicly own up to the nineteen nineteen expulsion corbin has missed a chance to move past it o'sullivan says so

it's it's important to know that question from storytellers poured their it's unfortunate about because i don't think that we live in that kind of life anymore and in a lot of differences on the edge of corbin a congregation more than a century old meets in a sprawling much newer building senior pastor tim thompson of the first united methodist church says in august two thousand five he was sitting in his office with some of the staff were watching the nose man this thing is just wiped out new orleans and biloxi all that coastline them thompson and his staff decided to turn their church into emergency housing for people who'd lost their homes to hurricane katrina overall charges and was soon as we want to we would we raise

issues we're certain some of osama telling of the surrounded by or sort of that i always said whatever whoever comes we don't care doesn't matter will deliver it to be fun and sold a variation said ok the church hosted about twenty five people from the gulf coast they stayed in the church for weeks or months about half were african american our hope was that maybe a few of the black folks that came would stay here and live and become a coroner live in corbin and assisted become pioneers so fifteen or twenty years from now there's a growing population of black people it's time but he and a half later almost all of the dozen or so african american guests from the gulf coast have gone back home or moved on to places like louisville or likes it all except david slone we heard at the top of the piece cutting his friends hair david came to

corbin from biloxi soundbite of amateur did the days inn opened up their door to bring as an american invention that driving when i met david he was working in a cabinet factory in corbin he said he'd gotten some cold looks in town and he thought unfair treatment in a couple of previous jobs here are stuck back in the sixties present corbin had not lived up to its old image as a sundown town a place where black person better get out before dark or else is seventy nine year old friend from nearby barbara spill over to boost agrees she told me these days she likes to shop in cork in it and they make it walk around oh that'll never than three you would hear this in current contract but matt it's going to be much much better now you can

walk into a store where you can get a nice smile still some people in corbin say their town has a lot of work to do in putting its hateful image to wrest starting with some straight talk about what really happened in nineteen ninety eight you know you're here or ten years and i don't think that you would recognize speaking about laura smith corbin native who told the story of her mother's life where they lived i checked in with her on the phone the other day and she recorded herself or is now thirty eight and he lives in egypt kentucky egypt is just forty five minutes from corbin

her parents still live there and she's in pretty close touch with what's happening in court on a farm to table restaurant downtown not that teachers really great region all faded as well as craft beers we have a really great coffee shop laura says with the coal economy's decline which affects the important railroad business in corbin the town has had other economic success is a new farmer's market led to other foodie businesses and the coffee shop all owned by younger people who'd lived elsewhere and came back on and they tend to be pretty progressive to you so you know when i walked into you know a downtown restaurant now it's you know one of the surprising things is that one that's packed and there's actually people back downtown which is great to see hand to you with a lot of young people and it's very much a diverse crowd people of color laura doesn't know of any meaningful change in the actual black population in corbin she

thinks those diverse people she sees downtown they're mostly just in for the day from the surrounding area college students and then there's also folks who are driving down from lexington and places like that are tourists aren't here are you know staying in the area are on their way to other places so i'm not sure in the town known as the home of colonel sanders you can now pick up a fair trade coffee at a local restaurant declared itself a sanctuary in the face of the trumpet ministrations travel ban on muslim countries corbin survive is increasingly inclusive as mark puts it which makes it all the more unfortunate in her opinion to the town still doesn't acknowledge its troubled past there's still no public marker of any kind about what happened in nineteen nineteen in two thousand seven the same year a version of my piece about corbin aired on npr laura and a young newspaper reporter in town organized a display about the racial expulsions at the public

library showing some of the documents you heard about in this piece those affidavits about race riot you know court proceedings documents on clips from the local newspaper and also some of the national newspapers that covered it and as reagan on display at the public library for anybody to view you know we there were you know there was a like a public dialogue around it that they were publicly presented also in two thousand seven the court and city government organized a lecture series on the history of the town featuring a local historian laura went to those lectures and was disappointed you know it kind of went from the founding and hunted early early history of that cantu jumping forward to you you know the mid to late nineteen twenties i'm so there is a sizeable gap of history that

wasn't talked about including including the year nineteen eighteen today the city of corpus website features a history page it includes some colorful details about the town's labor history even mentioned some violence among railroad and timber workers in the late nineteenth century that says gave the town a rough reputation at the time but about the expulsion of hundreds of black people in nineteen nineteen and the town's image problems as a result of that nothing as somebody who's from a town that you know whereas significant race riot occurred i think it's incredibly important that we can here then talk about it and have constructive dialogue around it you know and memorialize it in some way gone and i think that while there are folks that would think that would be detrimental to detain i actually think it would be

incredibly beneficial for the tehran on you know and the good efforts that are happening there for that to happen thanks to john biewen and our friends that scene on radio dot org that's s c e n e on radio dot org for that story of the racial expulsions corbin kentucky in nineteen ninety well the most extraordinary stories you've covered on backstory was a tale of a california celebrity known as the godfather of exotic an organist and choral up and paved it was a turban wearing exotic who became famous in the nineteen forties and fifties for his dreamy jazzy tones which drew freely from the melodies of south asia and african rhythms but as for dessert arias discovered the truth about quote panned it was even more complicated than it seemed back in the early nineteen

nineties journalist rj smith and his music nerd friends were his words not mine would travel around los angeles visiting his old tiki bars and cocktail lounges correlate handed wearing his trademark vigil turban was often one of the performers we would pull into a nightclub were old spot if they had a piano or best of all of the hammond organ there was choral the end you just played he's amazing exotic sounding songs that evoked asia ancient africa persian music as it really exists or existed as those of us who've grown up on hollywood movies this is soft spoken and philosophical he also had this whole long ever changing kind of back

story about how he was from indiana and boy go abroad and family and elite well off family in india and they sent him off his family did to the west not long after panda died in nineteen ninety eight smith was interviewing black bebop legend sir charles thompson thompson was originally from the midwest out of the blue he said i'm talking about when he was a young man he heard a guy play that was the best piano player in the region you heard of a boogie woogie player and he never knew what happened that guy's name was john read but then one day after three trials tottenham moved to los angeles and established his career he was watching tv one day and he saw this man with a faraway look in his eye and a turban on his head playing exotic sounds allegedly of the far you and he knew that i was it was john redwood heard he had her play as a young man and that just blew my mind i knew it was talking about coral appear that john redd was corp

and it you know wasn't the maniac he was actually african american and from missouri john rowland read was born there in nineteen twenty one but in the nineteen thirties he and other family members began to move to los angeles in la red started looking for work as a musician he was talented it excellent piano player an organist but southern california wasn't all that welcoming opportunities for african american musicians were still hard to come by so miranda who is light skinned in passing in his performances on one level it's simply an equation there are two different musicians unions in southern california a white one black one now if you're the black one there are only certain places your way every day gates now if you could pass herself off somewhere between white and black your opportunities multiply rent first tried out a latin american alter ego named juan rolando but early nineteen forties he had adopted the indian born persona correlate handed the identity he would maintain

for the rest of his life the centerpiece of his costume was his turban read was hardly the first african american to take this approach some black men were known to wear turbans to get around his treatment and segregation laws in the jim crow south in nineteen forty four pettitte had married a white woman named carol to be set in some speculated she helped him craft this character and it worked pentagon his big break and what was then the new medium in southern california in the late forties and early fifties and it was a tv star nina it was liberace before the ranch garland handed benches and music first aired on lapd

la and february nineteen forty nine they still perform live team on every weekday afternoon and he would just look out into the living rooms of southern california and his eyes were intense and mesmerizing and the music was intense and mesmerizing and housewives all over southern california swooned painted sign an appearance in the show wrapped in a mystery what is new is didn't know was that they were watching were the first african americans to have his own television show and its legend grew in the following decades as he told stories about his indian upbringing take this appearance on a local talk show i was born in new delhi new delhi india started performing music and the sense that the very aged two years and four months ago he went on to have a long career performing well into the nineteen nineties that's when smith met him around los angeles smith says that once he went to the

enigmatic panned it was actually african american he couldn't stop thinking about it and that is only if i invested by the people i'm talking to are it is only worth writing about not long after panda died in nineteen ninety eight smith publish an article revealing correlate and its identity and los angeles magazine smith wrote that had its children didn't know the truth in fact his son and even his wife barrel denied the story ended surviving son could not be reached for comment by many accounts the news shocked a lot of music fans that it didn't surprise the african american family of john rowland brett many of whom lived in los angeles there was so much more to quarter than main streams discovery of his cultural identity because it was a secret within the community that he came out of this is carla penned it's great

niece even hernandez she's the granddaughter of one of john and sisters adrian says she knew from an early age that her uncle wasn't the coral a panda but also uncle john sims are just miss article quotes and it is now just as known for his racial passing is for his work as a music and television pioneer but adrian says she doesn't really think of her uncle as someone who passed one of the things that is often covered when we discuss concepts of ideally the passing in this country is the sentiment that everyone who does that he is in a place of forsaking the traditions and culture that they come from i just don't think that our family experienced it that way because we had access to my uncle there was never a feeling of gold leaf lost him and it was a big part of her life he often visited the

family and they attended his performances adrian says many in their los angeles comedian knew he was the son of a local pastor ernest read she saw the persona of court were panned it as more of a performance caustic if my uncle fits into that category of passing is because american society needed him to have the look of court upended in order to fully receive the gift that he had to offer you know kind of inside joke about corners presentation was at the hollywood story is that he was handed and hindus don't wear turbans and yet all of his audience was willing to receive him as a hindu because that's what they wanted him to be they liked the turban they like the jewel another hand it's nice is my hernandez also grew up knowing her uncle seaney dinner first cousins maya says she's proud of what john wright accomplished in the guise of coral a panda ravel for him in some ways you know

and honestly feel comfortable where appropriating one quarter for another but i also think too he lived in a very oppressive time there was secrecy and hand it's worth from what we know he didn't tell his children about his racial background but he was a part of his african american family who view candid and read as one in the same it was something i think in some ways was supported by the family that anytime any of his siblings could've out a can there was opportunity there but it was something that was supportive because i think they saw the value in helping coroner be in a divisional and loving him for who he was there some people have criticized it smith from being the one who outed quality and it what was an outing him is an african american

is something to be ashamed of it i'm sure the corps well son of an african american leader in the community in los angeles i'm pretty tough and he was pretty tough in the tournament she'd work deals were not on it who he was it was tough for the rest of us were around sayre our our good served ej in april two thousand eighteen backstory mark the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of martin luther king jr with a show which explored king's real political views and assess his legacy

one of the topics we addressed was a major james poss and his rehabilitation in nineteen sixty six a gallup poll that found the king was viewed unfavorably by sixty three percent of americans today of course king as an american icon two thousand eleven poll found that ninety four percent of americans have a positive view of him so how did that happen my colleague brian balogh talked to a number of kings colors when i was thinking of the contributions to our country the man that we're honoring today passage attributed to the american poet john greenleaf whittier camps the mine's huge crisis brings its word and deed in america in the fifties and sixties one of the important crises we've faced with racial discrimination the man whose words and deeds in that crisis stirred our nation to the very depths of his soul was dr martin luther king jr a november second nineteen eighty three president ronald reagan

signed the martin luther king day holiday into law was a holiday that ronald reagan had opposed for decades but in a speech in the rose garden and for members of congress and members of martin luther king's family he praised came as a man awakens something strong and true in the american people in nineteen sixty eight martin luther king was gunned down by a brutal assess his life cut short at the age of thirty nine but those thirty nine short years had changed america forever session ended with a gasp bursting into an impromptu rendition of the civil rights anthem we shall overcome king had already appeared on a us postage stamp in nineteen seventy nine but the national holiday in his name was a crucial step to establishing him as a national symbol today martin luther king is celebrated in children's books inspirational posters and a monument in washington dc within sight of the lincoln memorial where king delivered his i have a dream

speech and gallup poll in two thousand eleven found ninety four percent of americans have a positive view of martin luther king in august nineteen sixty six a gallup poll found a king was viewed unfavorably by sixty three percent of americans so how we can make this journey from controversial civil rights leader to american icon first point was the assassination itself or the way cayne died of positioned him to become a martyr jason sokol is the author of the heavens might crack the death and legacy of martin luther king jr the other thing is that king's death itself accelerated the move towards radicalism and militancy among african americans and that that was something that was going on a law among young americans in general you know the weatherman gathered steam and momentum in nineteen sixty nine and beyond so a lot of the alternatives

that were offered in sixty eight sixty nine and through the seventies were these more violent alternatives and one when king's message was counter posed against those alternatives sheikh he began to seem even more moderate and so i think a lot of white americans could latch onto parts of king's vision that they were comfortable with for instance every american today probably knows a line from the i have a dream speech where king talked about how how he longed for the day when his children would be judged not by the color skin by the carter character now that's a message that a lot of what americans can embrace later in the same speech king talked about the unspeakable horrors of police brutality he talked about the whirlwind of revolt that were shake the nation and if justice didn't come soon to think you know there were parts of king's career in life or he really did offer this vision into racialism and colorblindness

and i think over the years once he was gone it became easy for it for white americans to embrace one part of his message that the interracial is amman colorblindness part and conveniently forget about the parts that were more threatening gayle kings challenge to american imperialism king's challenge to capitalism itself so has the creation of cain the icon come at the expense of keeping the radical political leader jean feel harris i think we like picking cool is easy well we don't tend to want is a king who challenges us who shows us our complacency is who calls us out for wanting easy change wanting change that won't cost us anything but i think we we like an association with getting re how about we like that only as far as it makes us feel

good about ourselves and and the minute it holds a mirror to our contemporary actions it becomes less appealing you're safe or don't allow enough for most americans who is more acceptable that's clay borg carson the director of the martin luther king research and education institute at stanford university they could see it happening in the moment he came to the funeral people who would not have been seen next to him when he was a lot of especially from the political world you know they all wanted to be in the front seat at the funeral and people who had known and followed under the king could even get in there was already the beginning of the reinterpretation of thing that he was the great it works figure of american citizenship because that's that's the part of

him that had become part of why the self conception of the nation the civil rights act kind of took away that stain of the jim crow system and ej so if you identified him with that i was something that embarrass the nation and the world in orbit but what he was doing during the last three years of his life of course was quickly forgotten tom help me out here today we go into schools and see pictures of martin luther king high heat is so much a symbol of our bringing the nation together if you will how did the king who is despised by so many are at the time how how did the king who was portrayed as a communist and a radical ideas be i how did that came become

domesticate it is a complicated process it's happening before the assassination you can see king speaking differently to different audiences he's lay will the moderate militant biology myer in nineteen sixty five not because he was both at the same time but because he spoke to different audiences based on his judgment of their values what they were ready to hear what was safe for him to say is no surprise that in a dream speech he would appeal to the christian american nationalist ideals and share this optimistic hope that one day his children would be judged on their character and not their color but nor is it surprising that a month later with twenty thousand trade unionists and madison square garden that he would include a much more radical line from the standard dream speech i have a dream that my children would grow up in a nation where property and privilege are widely distributed a nation which does not take necessities from the masses to give lectures to the

classes king has become quite a hero of those who identified on the right side of the political spectrum ronald break him and a number of neo conservatives have embraced came as a symbol for america absolutely and there are elements of symbolism and pieces of rhetoric that support a kind of conservative approach or a celebration of america as post racial my best example is when reagan signed the holiday bill after years of debate well not only did he say you know won't find until twenty twenty seven whether he was really coming to us what he did is he wanted black schools and lectured that martin luther king believed that all of you should be judged by your character and i hear color as individuals his dream was the american dream it's a dream that made america great and it has come to pass and you

know all have opportunity because of dr king and had he lived he would support my policies of reaganomics because an unfettered marketplaces the best eric arena in which that kind of individual freedom can thrive he would've opposed affirmative action because it's not the state it's god that gives you your rights and affirmative action is a violation of that sacred principle of individual liberty you can quote came to support that and he did so that ideological contest at the same time there were marches on washington right there were bringing reagan to task look at the photographs of the nineteen eighty three march that i attended and they're all taking reaganomics to task for violating cadence economic dream oh real war on poverty of a guaranteed annual income and of affirmative action that would uplift suppressed

minorities i think if we listen to dr king i dr king is calling out systemic racism and states there's this beautiful quote it right at the end of his life or his talking about how like people took white people on the words that equality means equality when many white people sort of take a quality is just improve met and are not committed to equality of all that dr king would be very dismayed at the ways that he is now deployed in the service of inequality in the service of standing in the way of movements for justice today you know we have mike huckabee's you know calling on ferguson protesters to be more like king or we have then mayor can seem worried parents saying that a king would never take a highway which is a gross distortion of cooking was and what he did but is a possible

fifty years after his death to reconnecting the icon with king the radical political leader playboy cars it is because you have a new generation coming up who are dealing with the problems left behind by the civil rights struggles that that's why i think the relevance of his last book where do we go from here they're he was writing that after the passage of civil rights legislation so contemporary movements are basically making the same argument that he made back in nineteen sixty seven they're saying that these changes were important but they didn't deal with the fundamental problems in america the fundamental problems was not this you know jim crow system that was important issue that need needed to be taken care of

but once you've done that it just makes the south like the rest of the nation and that's not like what people are thriving in the rest of the nation so i think that's where we are now we haven't answered his question where do we go from here scholars jason sokol jean phew harris thomas jackson clayborne carson they're discussing the legacy of dr king with our own bryan bell the senate you heard today and many more are in our archive at backstory radio dot org funding from the uk kellogg foundation is helping virginia humanities and back story change the narrative of race and representation that factories produce at virginia humanities majors support provided by an anonymous donor in ashland them for the humanities promos office at the university of virginia at the johns hopkins university for josephine robert cornell memorial

foundation and the art of writing davis additional support provided by the tomato fields cultivating fresh ideas to parts of the canaries in the environment brian balogh is a professor of history at the university of virginia and is a professor of the humanities and president emeritus of the university of richmond john freeman is a professor of history and american studies at yale university nathan connelly's baxter adams associate professor of history at the johns hopkins university back story was created by andrew went on for virginia humanities