A Word on Words; 0861; Taylor Branch

a word on words a program building their offer is tonight taylor branch talks about parting the water america in the king years nineteen fifty four to nineteen sixty three your most forward onwards mr john sigg and publisher of the tennessean and editorial director of usa today good evening ladies and gentlemen once again welcome to a word on words this evening gown is not lecture in your good fortune to have as our guest distinguish what uprising author taylor branch welcome to world words back into the book parting the waters so really i'm reached out and grabbed this country after it was published the summer months ago it was all a prize is it really a reminded us about the eighteen years it

took us back to that we so desperately saying anxious to forget an upturn reminded those of us who lived through it what it was like and also help another generation appreciate how we were and what they have a capacity looking back on all the hedge elation that's company and some of the criticism that's come to you anything about that you feel that youth were really a continued to better understanding society's better understanding of the planet so that to me people thought but forgot why do have a lot of people so has never forgotten as an unfortunate so result of the book but i have been stung by

the interest and you know a nine hundred page history about vince almost thirty years ago particularly involving mostly racial politics of the fact that it has excited all the centrist and has had a traveling around the country and still time to readjust my life think about the work on the next book i don't really know what it what it means i think that there's some sort of hunger maybe it's such and such a contrast with the current times to have that sort of to recall what kind of intensity and anxiety and hopefulness and sense of possibility even with all the strife all it is a remarkable time you know i didn't i was too young for most of that sober in some respects the reason i did it was because i felt the little amidst breathy and only after mandela was a high school senior and sixty four so i missed most of it i want to go back and find out what it was like and so i think basically a lot of readers kind of felt the same

thing that made me want to write it which was that they knew they'd been influenced by they were curious about it but they didn't really hadn't been leno's going on on the inside i have a policy on this program and occasionally it happened my name will turn out and look for and that is a military to have a character you know it has turned up in in your book there's a man in malta waited write five books at once at a day of a black female cia agent in west germany whose name was john c and someone walked into your office and said oh i thought you were it related to john singing fall of a swinging publisher and she said no one of these a swinging publisher that has brought but i'm treated gently courteously kyle a long way by

you on this book kat and so on like that disclosure to the to the audience and end up to the extent that i might have criticisms about books which my ears i simply refrain from that as a person of criticism but i don't think this is a program which outrun my axis and frankly not that many axes i think of being around with your book there are some people arthur of for reasons that are a natural worry about history creating an image that was removed from the intensity of the time and we can discusses some of that as we go on but it while our audience knows that i appreciate the year and the year inclusion not end the end the audience can judge from this point on how they challenged the law that having said that i

admire the book very much and i think that for that you must as you have indicated be the year prior and the king years is that the way they're going to be no oh i don't know they're not generally known that this to me is kind of a conclusion after spending almost eight years now working on this that if you start and i think the kings career is only fourteen years he was only thirty nine when he was killed but it began and fifty four year of the brown decision when the united states is really kind of adjusting to its new role as a superpower and it ended in sixty eight and only lasted fourteen years again with basically the disintegration of american liberalism as we have known it then and so in that sense the career really does trace in iraq and i came to believe after following him from the inside that but that's the best central character to fall through their intimate in that sense king really does force the

issues as to what freedom means and what democracy means all in and in a whole new era in an era with racial ideological tensions that most people were trying to ignore so i felt that way you know it's been several presidents as most people call the years when kennedy was president kennedy years of the eisenhower years everything but for the euro itself that spans that period seems to me that that well whether people like you are not king was the one who really all went to the main nerve of the issues that define that time we have recently another glimpse on the book by ralph abernathy's only has been flown into tehran and honduras to work largely because of the three paragraphs two hundred words unsaid in that sense in which you're never matthys says he was tempted and was not able to resist

temptation our moon is it possible that that sort of that the societies preoccupation with the sec's lever and then ensure that his injuries legacy i don't think so in itself frankly i don't i think really that what's going on is that people who resent the lead the legacy anyway or are looking for an excuse and will seize upon that as a way of discrediting and well but those are people who didn't really want to confront the issues of theological moral and political about a king raisin is a lifetime anyway there is it is an object of curiosity and not just among the opponents are enemies are people who tend to tilt against the king's memory will i go everywhere i go even people who used to work with and that's what they want i ask about so it is it is a difficult you know we have to face the fact that

sex always excites a certain amount of curiosity but it is also a vehicle to use a typewriter discredit wrong people were generally it's an excuse i doubt that there are very many people but there are some who really believe in dr king's mission who are studying it can understand its route relevance to the contemporary world who read those two other words were ever met and so i've i should throw that out yet let me ask you a moment well i don't know one thing ralph abernathy has done he has made certain that at least the one subject his true record him as the definitive authority an interview with close to limiting who has yet made when common law disclosure but that without it without a side of me ask about another aspect of his character that for some reason that is overlooked in today's violent world i mean it is rare today

to hear anyone spousal and cause a peaceful nonviolent protest as damien's bring about change here again societal values or legislative policy and and it seemed to me that for a movement to then so vital is over and so all are persuasive in changing attitudes that that that is somewhat surprisingly no recession vets there is john lewis and i mean they are very close to and in essence of the young and it seems to me that that there is no one knew who espouses the cause certainly no

one who wages the fi no i don't think so either and i think they are related thing it's also remarkable that there's there's not anybody even calling for or praising cross cultural literacy and if that court cross cultural contact in the coins is on either side by a large black leaders are insular to have been since the black power era and in a world where everybody has a minority although it's a in that it's an insular approach that we can afford i think king was we're going to taurus leslie order anything about really about learning about how to live in the world you don't hear about nonviolence and you really don't hear it's about what a movement as i think most people take it for granted what a movement isn't it can be about toothpaste or a new brand of car now but the movement is a reserve a leap into the unknown in you discover things in yourself you didn't know were there his faith in strangers as it gets very close to what democracy itself isn't in this day and age i think one of the sad things about it is that when you

don't have that feeling very often in america however its approach through nonviolence or war or through talking or or on campuses or or anywhere i think that we are the worst for that i think maybe one of the things that surprises people when they read the book is that is that is that they see how much intensity and excitement theory is when people are really dealing with fundamental democratic issues of peace and race and poverty and how people are treating them now particularly where in your judgment did come from in the eye i think most people i know in white society who are raised to accept the conventional more eyes as the norm and not through struggle against them now eleven the nod not a protest novel is held up to speak out not to

write letters that not to make tv appearances but the third sunday disagree with and we're hearing a lot of fiber but here you had a young man beginning in nineteen fifty four and suddenly exploded on a national chain has won who was committed to a philosophy of non violence and ten and again he was a model for him and a very real sense un and it when i know what i know about his father who was very conventional and very mainstream religions religion is it's difficult to me downstairs well you know one of the things that was the biggest surprise for me when i started going through all of king's papers as a student was how sophisticated how much inner turmoil on his religious views were is a student who has it confess i can't afford them as

southern baptist preacher and all and he had tremendous conflict with his father over everything but the takeaway over fundamentalism in king was pretty close to him it was a magnet confessed agnostic as a steamy rejected everything when i'm in conflict with a smaller he rebuilt his outlook is religious and political and moral outlook on reinhold niebuhr a lot of things were very surprising in student a career in it to be very brief about it i think that his religious beliefs was very close to classical democratic faith that if all men are created equal that kind of implies a spiritual brotherhood that implies a moral universe and a benevolent god and that out of that so that it was very easy for him to two to believe that he was for his religious police in his political beliefs and brotherhood and nonviolent violence were all one part of the same thing and they never changed

another thing that struck me at most books or articles about dr king have been getting more more radical in changing his views are growing in getting more sophisticated i think that was true politically but what struck me is an incredible balance and stability of his fundamental outlook then he left his phd program from nineteen fifty or all and carried all the way until he was killed in memphis and i think part of that was his own conscience was pretty relentless and his daddy wasn't an incredible antagonists and once he could do it could establish of believing as the force of their decaying they were pretty solid let me ask about the about a criticism that i've heard from some black leaders about what they say that they are disappointed and the trail of leadership in the last period of his life and

that that that you're riding solo suggests that in a very real sense he had huge losses tried to point out that you write about a commentator diane nash in which she said you told people true to lead to get involved at this parade and i do not giving him anything to do with that the movement under his leadership had sort of lost its howard sway in its and its stephen and that that's an unfair criticism of him and how you react that well i was a i was a very temporary moment this is right after the birmingham church bombing all this is not the end of his life is at the end of my book which only listen to carole years of the sixties three on there had been that

was our an emotional clorox following the amazing summer of sixty three up to the march on washington which was a truly great moment in american protest politics and racial politics but only less than three weeks later they have the birmingham church bombing a lot of things tend to fall apart and king felt paralyzed the clothes he felt he wasn't getting a response out of the white house to president kennedy appointed earl blake you know it was a football coach to go down there and they never even submitted a report law and to make matters worse the king's black leadership in law in birmingham said you're responsible for this bombing don't come back you don't do any you know don't do any demonstration so in many respects and if you do we're going to denounce you immediately felt completely him demand was for a time paralyzed and made a speech that was not public speech with a private speech to his followers say he didn't know what to do i have a poignant moment in there where he

said somebody i find burn and china and you wanted to get some of his old sermons it was that he was a lost diane nash confronted him at that moment what she said was true and it ended heard him wanted it was not true for the whole rest of his life the main event but isn't it true that let isn't it true that the snake at that point and from that point on as often as not said if necessary will go along all sore and then after john lewis got the bug and stokely carmichael emerged that mean if you take this from sixty four to sixty eight in toronto is now an unwanted reflect that's a bumpy ride a very bumpy ride and of course that the conflicts and the tensions between stick and dr king story before that moment in that and that was a that was just a bad one and they got much worse later all in many respects is a very interesting thing though

because along with generations and tactics they were really at loggerheads over roles of lee are sure because king although he was considered a liberal leader in person in the people will never abandon that the very hierarchical i am the king any made grand entrances and he expected to the little baby him and staff meetings and he was very much of a of a kingly figure unknown bob wills isn't the sick people on didn't believe in that and they resented be automatic deference the black preachers in particular in general and king in particular the mandolin were and were given they believe more in leadership from the people so there were two completely different leadership styles of course ironically later on when the controversy really got bad the snake people one after pope was of a leadership so quick soqui carmichael became every bit as much of a celebrity and dictators cain was on one in the early period and mississippi they were a conflict over really how we make decisions and democracy sometimes the

movement was so powerful that have you could walk across their family do it with another criticism from another direction on that is a lot closer to my home have been found in what would be safe to the criticism of those people who just fall robert kennedy who suggest that your depiction of his motives is out of kilter because in every case you suggest that it was only a political moment that there was no idealism there well first of all itself and that's true all because i do think that my account shows bobby kennedy doing more then i would have expected and hoped that i would do if i were in this phone and he was the first attorney general really to throw himself into the city's actually go and take his shoes off and need these people and it was a warning with people whose his attorney general united states responsible for law enforcement here are people with whom he has no contact by large know

means political ties and whose major method of operating is to break laws on and naturally there's one of the songs all it's very difficult for him to completely sympathize with them in every respect well some of it was politics there were many times when he wanted to do the right thing and would be mad that he couldn't all because of for political considerations and i also think that to a large degree was tied because of his his brother in the news caught between j edgar hoover and the movement and national politics on dealing in the south where his brother got his largest margin and nobody knew how jack kennedy could be reelected and sixty four she lost the south pole so given all of those things i think they performed pretty well but that does not to say that he wasn't a politician at northern tip he didn't change i think that he did change later on i

think that he was more about winning and more about having a good time most people need a tragedy or something that happened to them and there was a divorce some sort of failure to make them to turn them more in tone all to introduce reflection and a sense of perspective in their lives and leaving sixty three i remember nineteen sixties we had a big influence on law obviously i have some you know more about that and i do so now they were no idea why though is that out of the building of course i think that john doerr is morally great heroes and tell stories it's an unusually radio's american history and all of the phonograph record in that moment yeah ties really makes the case for now that's not to say that ms sabir marshall doesn't always come off the way burke martial law might like to see are the people who admire him but see i think part of that is because in

an america you tend to see things from the point of view in the drawer any culture and so you have this whole civil rights movement that has started twenty years earlier come percolating up and nobody wanted to pay any attention to it and then push was coming from the movement then and to some degree gets incorporated mossad blocked three channel where even been adopted finely by the politicians and the cars are used to seeing them as the prime actors you tend to see them as those leaders but my point of view looking at it from the point of view of the movement doesn't make robert kennedy or burke marshall appear to be the the initiators of a lot of this to the same degree that people who are comfortable with them like to think but i think that's only a natural thing they're involving other things and what would you say oh what would you save you look at it at the other relationship for example but wayne king and stanley lemons stanley lonesome falsely accused by hoover being a kind of stand alone

and son believed on the basis of who would report by many people and so forth soon be a comma than those reports were unequivocal a simply branded falsely men deserve to deserve great praise for his courage in its commitment to mark the king taught what would you say his influence was stanley senior archaeologist finish this last week reading almost ten thousand pages of daily wiretap conversations of stanley levison from the sixty four sixty a period at the risk of not all going to have next book would this is stanley levison is an amazingly was that character i think i think that he has won a great unsung heroes of that period of her next book it's really likes that really remarkable man and nobody knows anything about it in it's a great shame based

the accusations against him were the linchpin not only of all maneuverings with the people in the justice department in the white house but it was their justification a lawyer for the open and the wiretap and the nico intel pro and trying to get people to break at you know the whole movement against the civil rights movement by the fbi a covert clandestine illegal campaign was all justified on the grounds that there was a connection cain was connected so and so was connected to king and things connected the leveson levison was if not a soviet agent at least a top communist and why don't you know what you might do i maintain that many people see who were conducted bombings and making worse larry was the only other hand when you look at the record it is difficult to suggest set he was not terribly evil influence on his time by jowl thought about hoover into dealing with the ball by ball is a genius bureaucratic things to make an essence severe mistake i

think and they came into a cartoon like character of evil my own simple roller take on him is that the american people should taken as a lesson of what the founding fathers meant in the federalist papers that if you're in power for a long time you wanna be more like it came in like a democratic a public official he didn't want to be accountable to anybody want to be more like a spy master on our call and not to be have the question by anybody and therefore he wanted everything secret and people to defer to his word so he turned more and more into a spy master and completely counter to every democratic principle he was supposed to be upholding in the war is it possibly a judgment that history looking at king outside a context of attention the times will judge him more harshly than yours or i mean and works may suggest that his influence was minimal at best the clothes while revolution

produced change some would say that a brown versus board of education it was only a matter of time and maybe more time it hadn't force and forth to the streets i do think it's possible will win probably not that people said he didn't do anything and it was a negative influence but that it will be minimal minimal was on i think part of that is because of the continuing discomfort with rates people want to make a label and put the subject of science does one reason why were so dissatisfied with most of the books about the subway they're all rhetorical even if their militant books there are rhetorical and i wanted to try to do storytelling books into people want have labels of acting and even some of his admirers taylor branch author of parting the waters america in the king years nineteen fifty four to nineteen sixty three as ben our guest on the word on words teetering john sigg and thought

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