Remembering Congressman John Lewis

it congressman john lewis was laid to rest this week following six days of memorial events including lying in state at the us capitol and the georgia capital services in troy in selma alabama and finally his funeral thursday in atlanta i'm kate mcintyre today and katie are present we remember the civil rights icon from his appearance at the university of kansas on october twenty first two thousand seven on that day lewis received the dole either surprise from kaye used dole institute of politics this event was moderated by jonathan earle then acting director of the dole institute of politics currently dean of the honors college at louisiana state university i want to begin tonight's program by saying thank you for coming to kansas to accept the two thousand seven the leadership rights center don't

want to express his personal congratulations and thank you for your service to our country ailes wants a diverse the matter it is such a joy to share the stage with one of my personal heroes so thank you personally for me one of our slogans of the dole institute of politics is that politics can be an honorable profession and sometimes only the headlines it doesn't seem that way but you do your country and your profession on her every day for people who don't know your background you haven't read your wonderful book walking with the wind a little bit like a background in your family you grew up outside of a tiny town in alabama trial them how the height of jim crow and that you had a very strong family he tells a lot about the family of the termites homicide and i'm delighted to have her pleas to be in had to be here to set us on a naval senator dole it is toward a lot of liver a blessed by it and they view

an institute for having me it is true that i grew up in rural alabama fifty miles outside of little plays cultural and it showed that my father was a sharecropper a clinical a bike in it for the four when i was four years old and i do remember when i was four my father has saved three hundred dollars and with the three hundred dollars to one hundred and ten acres of land and on this lander is a lot of corn peanuts falls cows and chickens and one of the era's wonderful mother wonderful fargo wonderful read as a report at a lot of first cousins and sall was segregation and racial discrimination as a young show you know my mother used to say and that was mostly because as a lot of questions about wanting to know i used to eavesdrop so would come and visit her visit my father i would want another room of the house in the city and i

listen well in the moment we left the house unless you know what was that all about issues that war as proof of people within my old enough to go downtown duluth town of shoring up to montgomery but dudzinski a subtle signs that said white men colored men white women colored women in revolt initiator almost like children in a way of reform ourselves of additional saw racial discrimination tasted a different reason why there was this enormous issue he's been in trouble don't get in the way since the choir the whistle mostly will get involved in other people's business and i'm afraid that they will always tell me don't get involved in other people's goalie

so reminding the answers of what the mothers but to be mostly young person of those people is bob rosenthal and dan thinking and so i got in trouble and that in a way that not that i'm one of the people still a meal writing this wonderful autobiography a scene that i've never did talk about another and i wanted to talk a little bit about some it happened when you were still little boy and you are worth your aunt's house and experienced a very frightening storm and it gives you kind of a metaphor that you open your book with i remember going to happen like that yesterday israel was obsolete we've been going out in the yard and unbelievable storm came up what's unevenly available we did a little shotgun houses and i was trying to make the

roof maybe many people here in kansas with a little shotgun houses ms greenlaw yes a lot women's issues a shotgun houses whole houses one way and what we're in a non thousands of the house when you can bounce a basketball three different though it was true that that line in the letter is this as all house review of the general we have different ones and eventually in this storm and the race for the tin roof with his own shotgun house but the two issues that she was terrified to the colossal political way with all the school children together

it was born into and we're going to vote with them and enroll the line into the flesh of an arrangement and to be able to move from the social of the house and he cried and cried and one homeless also he had been at the police foundation wanted us to walk in a coma to try to hold the house digital sport but the house in norway and so i tried to make the point in a bowl of water looked when the memoir walking with the wind and you're trying to hold his house though most of america's civil rights movement was all about kind of old american hours to withstand an affair that we all live in the same house it doesn't matter what looked like a wider hispanic asian american a native american there will one people were one family the white house the american house people story opens up this book and i likened the pre season

that's for sure now you once said that you felt like you had been lifted up by history and historians alike alike when people say and yet i think people here can tell by the way you communicate do you want to be richer than i remember kerry also tell a story about how he once out human speech the chickens in the back your house on intelligence report that story but also what made you choose instead of being a preacher which you on your school to do which is seen as a natural facility with and become a politician i really do feel that i was quote the public orders for the history that maybe just maybe just for the history tracking down i remember the first time i met one of the king jr in a few years later but no one of that it

would be administered i really did i wanted to preach the gospel what allows the senate floor to bring about more the panels they believe in senegal and from tended to have to help my brothers and sisters and first cousins we get all of our chickens together in nature you're like all these people gathered in a school where the chicken little over my brothers and sisters and first cousin made the accommodation and i would preach a single chicken about it and so much aggression has assembled to listen to me much to wonderful gifted congresspeople from here that they can do this in a less well known of others alone elizabeth mckenzie's i really wanted to

be a minister and i think the civil rights movement mccain caught a whole lot of ministry award or church in a circus stars still feel like a divide in some service some type of ministry and maybe it is not delivering a message a storm but election as leslie my involvement in a surprise move that survival in american politics as an extension of my faith put a little more because there are a lot of veterans of the civil rights movement who are poor religious leaders like reverend jesse jackson sharpton or some people stayed in activism like julian barnes ah but you enter an electoral politics it seems you know it just seems different for for me in some ways that he chose to work with in that particular system well i'll run up in rural alabama i never had an opportunity a grown up and this is the state capital amman them are fifty miles

away obama went to washington mahdi nineteen sixty one on the freedom ride but in nineteen sixty three and we had a meeting with president kennedy and oval office of the white house and later meeting with leaders of congress on both sides about another go to from time to time about them or nothing king jr us all but paul piff was the role of men and women in politics plays an i think i am often in the movement kept saying oh there's a role that you can play a major role in bring about change the american president and i wanted to find a way to be a mole on stage and was assassinated after robert kennedy was assassinated after like to have a mission before mosul which of

these two men on love you mentioned meeting martin luther king jr for the first time i know you've talked about wanting to enter into the movement after her and speak on your radio was like in the bush before the first time a us briefly to college in my own small local or state for universities summit of applications last word transcript away from the skills not one word because they knew i had reverend it i guess for mob likes the hospital so an america where some detail my teachers didn't have a mother to my father you know my sister's of gravity on my own i wrote a lot about it and told him i needed and needed support he wrote mean i think at the peak

he recommended you for the point i had a short and i just a visit himself as anything good come out of four alabama and says they're roughly around boston and invited me to come among them are asleep in the meantime ivan is that the law school in nashville and a lot of mind in a hundred dollar bill moment in overhead and if a lot of holes in the book everything all initial markets of the nineteen fifty seven fifty years ago everything adolescence those chickens after school soon enough international about two weeks ago one of my teachers that have been a competitive one attention and it's the kitchen table for a ten percent college in atlanta so he informed one's attention there was initially a kindergarten

church as just when i was over springer so much in it that day on a saturday morning but this time are making it so a father going to the greyhound bus station a boarded a bus traveled to fifty miles from tripoli then a young african american boy that led to greyhound bus station and no civil war before fishermen of the lawyer for rosa clark talk about it usually the first baptist church in downtown denver as mrs a colleague about hitting a movement also spirit i don't know what to say when an ocean into the past at the office of richard russell moore luther king jr in manhattan at least the nine addressed and dr king's a little more from short o u joe's the whole day

weekend mike daisey monologue i was someone who wanted for say my focus so for the only part of her we will lose the lamb saw continued despite initial financial incentives you about it will come and speaks at meetings and obviously you must have been in his workshop studying in south africa spit into a passive resistance to live on it in a minute because recently the book the one thing we actually mentioned that when you read a thorough and it got a lot of her second about a generational shift in the civil rights and because

when we teach about civil rights in some like me can talk a lot about thurgood marshall working through the legal system to desegregate schools in america we talk about a philip randolph who worked for a black workers to talk about dr king who brought a new type of nonviolence to the montgomery bus boycott well you in college in nashville you were part of the vanguard of a new type of the sit in how big cities which were predominantly practiced like oh six young people change the civil rights act the sit in movement of the late fifties and early sixties we have of the quartets is in downtown nashville in the fall and when my inability to four different ways before forever first openness tools and reuse or spotify were to first sit in in regular basis they restore civilian and we have the record today is tuesday and thursday and said if we were

like last weekend that is possible and class of people will come up get to sit all day i remember sitting down at a lunch renewable working on a cable or sitting there waiting to be sir immediately of do's and don'ts oh i sit up straighter or baby the committee and other goes about this is remember the teachers overall unwanted attention in the day the first mass unrest was farewell to twenty seven nineteen sixty an heiress to the again arrested had happened and we'll be able to

measure it in a sea of a major regret the druze and in the paper but we recently met an award peaceful non violent fashion wade into these lives we often want to store the union is just sit there in the stryker in one day bhutto your ego down on this day we probably beaten and layton will be arrested the second what happened the day that i was arrested almost all of the chao don't get in trouble don't get annoyed and he'd get in trouble with the law when you leave now some of those who wrote to point us that non violence as a way of life as a way of living and when we were arrested jailed the first time i feel so free i feel so liberating often

like a crossbow this explains why when i showed a congressman was a picture in david halberstam's book about soul pictures of comes mostly lit up to jail he remarked in the time where i would say oh that's me when i got my bar mitzvahs nearly twenty five bert they say oh that's an even taken off to jail and in a good way well toughness we sort of redress but also sometimes we wanted to show the contrast in an online news and you know one of the interesting go to jail that they are one of the best what did it mean in your representative valerie say we say the condition we get at the recent kansas would have young people college students in on the ramparts of the civil rights movement and cities want to get it

i think one of the finest olive oil an initial ratify or seven years he knew that the young people picking up the message of the movement to see young people believed in iran and the philosophy and the discipline of non violent so they have one version of vowels a college student at a high school student adopting a philosophy it's a saying yes i went to the arrest of a pedestal for the beatings and what i'm also a lot those are words in the non violent training file a petition and of the philosophy and the discipline never waiver and never waiver and no good had any desire to turn back to strike that

i'm outta southern non violent as a way of life as a way of it that you come to that point where you believe that in the bills like every human being that is this also a vivid image of i have a right to use destroyed and it didn't matter what it was going to say what about policy and the sheriff clarke in selma alabama there was job loss none of these people came into the ward at that there was somebody innocent lichtblau some sort of rome a limited all day but i remember about getting in those volunteers set over and over again he used to have a larger number you were one of ten people to speak

at the great march on washington in august nineteen sixty three are obviously we have all these pictures of the mind of dr martin luther king jr the final speaker that day i'll sometimes i regret that in the way we taste isn't right and we can reduce it down that one speech which is a great speech gerson exactly oh eventually admired president kennedy we're pretty hard on kennedy in that speech you gave the day you very hard on liberals in the kennedy administration and congress you came off to me as someone who was far more i was erratic because you're not talking about black power you're talking about things pushing things faster and ralph abernathy and martin luther king the people the sclc want to go they're widely prefer own words the goals but today oddly in today's labor in today's

society it would be mo yes that's a that the march on washington or twenty eight nineteen sixty three was not to support a piece of civil rights legislation will go on for jobs and freedom in in a region of texas and we cannot a good conscience support the minister schauble polls closed too little control it and then when i was working on the speech was read in the cockpit in your time muscled white women of southern africa caribou science and one man one vote and so among the postings assistant like one man one vocalist africa cry disaster we must be out and that became the rallying cry for the student model one admitted a surprising candidate took the position that if a person has a sixth grade education she should be because of the litter and it should be able to register poll those of us in this that steve in a moment when a committee said the only

qualification for been able to receive a vote should be their age and resident and in another point it is the time in the barrio speech and said you tell us to wait you tell us to be patient we cannot wait we cannot be patient we want our freedom and we want it now and in another a line of tunis the first set the black we are nine ball the series revolution the black masses are restless and some people objected to the use of the word revolution and the use of the word mass incidents and like a mask in a philip randolph came to my rescue in his baritone forces so there's no use of the word revolution the use of a worm also say using also some time well i believe in the state we must keep in mind we all have a pair of speech and make it available to the rest of the group and the night before the march to

washington attacks of the speech and was the archbishop oh the best in washington who was born to get my speech so some people think it was innovation within a candidate ministration he was positive indication was not only given indications of attention state senator university justice on the line in unison meaningful progress here today the data funneled more to washington will we met before sort of the south the way sherman did nonviolently so a couple different strategies we met services to the right of mr lincoln and dr king sentiment john and so like you know son of sam john mccain that's what i gather foot a sense of unity

mr decarava and i can say no that are picking up and say no different and then change those were and civil wars since it is in an online outlets are not like sharing their job correctly about dr king peter when you read histories before and you say well you know another artist in the famous sixty years no owners no no work but i look back and each time i hear this speech tonight year ago to start with a little more analysis focuses more oil as well as more than answers so this description in the staff the service that i would drain once again join you over twenty eight nineteen sixty three and i think that day dr king transform those steps to smaller steps and two more people as he spoke from the so it's fall from the sky and he knew he was speaking he was

really brutal and most people's original more and i think my hero jackson's my bike in a bike say tellme about a dream poem about ukraine and he got into it he really get anywhere before and it was one of those restrictions well that was a great speech but i think one is the one with the minute he spoke at riverside church in new york city on april fourth nineteen sixty seven and elated to the year before and one year to the day he was assassinated this really spoken this fall biggest one there was a wonderful speech and i was i just do those and historian people they should read this there's a bar i really have been dreading all day but when asked about what happened on the bridge the edmund pettus bridge in nineteen sixty five remember what happened that they are going to have to cobble together memories from other people's

accounts do remember being attacked by the alabama state troopers as he tried to march peacefully i remember i remember i remember very well of us six hundred of us walking into an orderly peaceful nonviolent fashion from a luxurious home run champion richard slowly we conducted a man fortunately we had a prayer a little slow in the lineup into balls when a bag before the confessional to what that test yeah it is among the backpack at how much risk so we got to the edge of the area's crossing the alabama river you saw this war about mobile me and i want them inside the label's a williams about the tunes on his agent said john genius way of assets on all am supposedly this plan is a little known so much more about i remember my job not one

that would fall into the wall and we came to the highest point on it the pittsburgh cross an album over dynamo resource it will slip through and continue to war we came within hearing distance of the state troopers and a man identified himself and said i'm major john plow an alabama state trooper this is an unlawful march will not be allowed to continue it new three minute to disperse return to maturity and also set major give us a moment to kneel upright and less than a minute or so the majors they choose the best use of these guys who know my guest left they came to one of a beaten us who might stay visible travelers were horses really isn't a ticket the inherent in it was a nightstick government

mandates just given up and singing i've been in the room this is a this is that i hear on the spirit and i was very concerned about the people behind a i don't recall forty years later on the streets of selma traditionally law firm but a sunday afternoon under recall been in the church the church's full to capacity want to follow people outside china get into practice what happened to someone something to do with your skull fracture i was i was well enough to stand up in the only thing is it a remembers an obsessive like i don't understand it i don't understand that president johnson can send troops to vietnam it cannot send troops to selma alabama

to protect people or desires to register to vote the next thing i knew i had been admitted a local samaritan hospital in south west eight percent and it was a black and a hospital you know it was operated by the catholic church of the mission it was modified sisters from cancers from cellphones are from kansas that came down a few days later stayed in it because of him civil war john we make it from selma to montgomery and of water rights advocate it's right there was right the pitching was right because of what happened on voice and became known as a really did galvanize it's pitch a picture of america there was a sense of righteous indignation two days later there was the most racially motivated

citizen america i know president doesn't wash that very night on the news what happened here and it was very visceral he says it was an initial komodo plays a white house appointment justices voted against the solicitor which would represent just a nursery but he was so new you try to get their wallets too so that people protectors they decided to march again and there was another issue the president for more fifteen nineteen sixty five lyndon johnson in my estimation may one of the most moving supplies of water and speeches that any american president maybe more than in a local this is a paraphrase woody says he started his speech off on march fifteen percent speak tonight for the dignity of man and for the destiny of democracy he finishes by saying and we shall overcome and we show some of the interviews are very very sad line and he said with his family at the

night what it said and we show also nixon once again join the home or will as we listen to a new jobs and jam session of congress and speak to the nation and then he said and we shall overcome looked at dr king he cried tears and on the seas and we all cried at the president of innocence and we show an individual congress debated in order to protect us ornette launched five days and related to one hundred to more than thirty thousand american black and white and one of the speech i do want to mention something for our country to a lot of people here find very disturbing that's what's going on sometimes i'm down in louisiana with ecology a six we have kind of an old jim crow style terror racism right there on

television screens again i know there's things happening right in your district where i am the young man who was put in jail for a ten year sentence for consensual sex with his girlfriend was seventeen years old are we back sliding do we do we need to reinvigorate our struggle for he says we see christy webber's story i think we have to give him away continue to find that very much changes as selina meyer young people and they're not just african american but others of becoming a victim of other from the justice system we we have to do better to reform the system and so thats a bit of the way there's a better way

that is good to see the young people overreact and acidic called historians and i think the system changes in this area four questions to the audience there's a civic engagement as i've already mentioned it is my mind i talk to people who were in college republicans and young democrats of people in my classes there is a very palpable sense right now in two thousand seven that young people want to be called to do something they think maybe things are going so well the world what would your advice to a young person's an undergraduate in the universe like this be to get involved how can they do and what can it was such a young people especially students it'll have to be a court challenge by congressional leaders about a president and a mistake

it would have to have a president calling on american people as not just young people not just to call on the nation to do something of course i have to do anything only people of their sacrifice right now our young men and our young women in harm's way in afghanistan or all the rest of us know we have a pretty well and all wit with pretty well sure that i've been challenged by leaders you need to get out there and just do it just to do it and we heard one of the danger we were deeply moved and inspired i think some laws by in the campaign of john f kennedy in nineteen sixty they saw the changes when a change one in africa that young believers coming

to washington to visit but this is something the seminal label on campus and often an emulsion at this epiphany speaker speaker i wonder what we would've done my generation it would have all of the technology that people have today i just said earlier today we didn't have a website so it's over what do you think we go and on the free flow of the river thought that we could i was dangerous on on the march from selma to an awful lot of what you know we would be beaten so that's why in a bag that i read two books

a lot of the derivatives outsiders that's right and also had to and apple and on john waters of the lead in jail but when muscle and says it will be a job my friends and colleagues in a blue today in a people problem think about something like that you're going to get out but we will be informed so as i guess what i'm saying for those people and lived for a month but first a lot of you know what will be arrested i'm going to have what they call a bit shabby i think we all have a lot of obligation a mission to get something back to do something not to be a steal we have to move out of the american league the actual roadway just get out there and push and cool

colombia was sixty you had to be a new ones a gesture that fat filet congressman john lewis speaking at the university of kansas dole institute of politics on october twenty first two thousand seven when he received the dole leader surprise this event was moderated by jonathan earle who was then acting director of the institute's congressman lewis was laid to rest last week following the six days of memorial events and j mcintyre keep your prisons continues with the latest episode of my fellow kansans right after this zoe

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