John Lewis: Remembering "The Dream"

i'm j mcintyre and this is katy our prisons fifty years ago thousands of americans marched on washington dc and listen to martin luther king jr gave his iconic i have a dream speech also speaking at that nineteen sixty three event a twenty three year old activist named john lewis at the time he was the chairman of the student nonviolent coordinating committee organizing sit ins and participating in the freedom rides across the south fifty years later congressman john lewis and did as almost an elder statesmen this week as thousands gathered to commemorate that nineteen sixty three march on washington and he has served in congress since nineteen eighty seven representing the fifth district of georgia and he has been called one of the most courageous leaders of the civil rights movement congressman lewis's commitment to social justice and equality earned him the university of kansas dore leadership rise back into thousand seven he spoke with jonathan

earle history professor e k u who was ben serving as acting director of the dole institute of politics their conversation was originally broadcast for the fans of public radio fun november fourth two thousand seven i want to begin tonight's program by saying thank you for coming to kansas to accept the two thousands of 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 i wanna start out for people who don't know your background you haven't read your wonderful book walking with the wind a little about your background and your family you grew up outside of a tiny town in alabama trial

them at the height of jim crow and that you had a very strong fan it tells a lot about the family and with the durham i would say that i'm delighted to be here had to be here to set us naval senator dole it is i think more of a verb less polite and think you'll an institute for having me it is true that i grew up in rural alabama fifty miles outside a place called it sure that my father was a sharecropper other people a bike in it for the four when i was four years old and i do remember when i was four my father had say three hundred dollars and with three hundred dollars a bottle hundred and ten acres of land and on this lander is a lot of crying and corn peanuts falls cows and chickens and one of the wonderful mother wonderful fargo wonderful

red pants a river like a first cousin this end i have souls of radiation racial discrimination as leon show you know my mother used to say anonymous mostly because as a lot of questions i wanted to know i used it used to be so would come and visit her visit my father i would want another room of the house in the city and i listen well and the moment they left the house can i ask you what was that all about issues that warrior's road for people and so would be in the mine the old enough to go downtown duluth town of troy to montgomery but dudzinski a possible sign of say white men colored men white women colored women a revolt in the state owes almost like children had were upstairs to the balcony inaudible point children downstairs the first floor and the source of additional source of discrimination that tasted a

different races and i kept saying why why it was so desolate is an almost sort of harsh don't know don't get in trouble don't get in the way since the choir the whistle mostly will get involved in other people's business and i have a friend and they were always told me said congressman don't get involved in other people's julie silver reminded me and since it was my mother's day but another young person of those people is bob rosenthal undoubtedly and so i got in trouble and that in a way that not that i'm one of the people still am surviving did you write in 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 wearing your pants 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 was yesterday israel was obsolete lovato fifteen was young children within play in avignon and unbelievable storm came up what's unevenly available read today little shotgun house and i was trying to make the race maybe minute the caribbean and kansas went over the shotgun houses but shouldn't have work manage to have an agreement into law had a simple plaintive lot of the plantains and as you know a shotgun houses whole houses one way in one we're in a nun promises of the house

when you can bounce a basketball for different going to go straight up tobacco when the military says all hospitals that we could fire a shot to the front of the political straitjacket once an evolution and eventually in this song the windstorm on a thunderstorm rolled into light display flashes and the race for the tin roof with those or shut them possible to move i just thought that she was terrified to the colossal political way not all of schoolchildren together it was going in and we're going to vote with an expanded role and lightning into their flesh and the raincoat didn't have the ability to move from the social of the house and we tried and we tried that once homeless or i'll sock it to be lifted from its foundation wanted us to walk in a column titled hours we will support it

but the house employment in norway and so i tried to make the point in a bowl of water looked when the memoir walking with the wind and in china holds how's the rest of america's civil rights movement was all about kind of old american hours ago that it was in effect that we all live in the same house it doesn't matter what looked like why the hispanic asian american a native american there will one people were one family where one house the american house people story opens up his book and i likened the pre season that's for sure now that 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 they view community the idea of fluency that would just be the un wants the union the preacher and that i remember curiosity our story about how he once the 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 with 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 all the what i called a spirited history that maybe just maybe yesterday history tracking down i remember the first time i met one of the king jr in two years later but not run up that it would be administered i really did i wanted a priest to ask for one of the senate to bring about what the believers and from time to time to help my brothers and sisters and first cousins they get all about chickens together in the chicken yard like all these people gathered in a school where the chicken little my brothers and sisters and first cousin made of accommodation and i would reach back there was a

legitimate so much aggression that is the simple truth is that it took to listen to the muslims alike you have to wonder for gifted congresspeople from here that they can to listen and listen well the other one hundred ceo of others and on some polls show him a little productive rallies that would you say i really wanted to be a minister and i think the civil rights movement mccain caught a whole lot of ministry of mortar church in a sense so i still feel like a divided some type of service some type of ministry and maybe it is not delivering a message a sermon the collection as leslie my involvement in a surprise move that survival in

american politics as an extension of a monthly which makes perfect sense to push a little more because there are a lot of veterans of the civil rights movement who are for religious leaders like reverend jesse jackson or reverend sharpton or some people stayed in activism like to end by albert hughes entered 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 run up in rural alabama i never had an opportunity a grown up and this is the state capital among them are fifty miles away but when i went to washington mahdi nineteen sixty one of the freedom rider 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 the morning the king jr us all paul the men and women in

politics play and i think my involvement in the movement kept saying oh there's a role that you can play a major role in rent about change in american politics and i my present and a mile of a cannon and i am an adaptable president johnson and i wanted to find a way to be a wall on stage and was assassinated after robert kennedy was assassinated after like i had a mission ali used to live 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 show was like meeting for the first time or for the first time and the engineer had this brief period i waited til college in my own small record for state for

universities summit of applications last winter and for another it away from schools not one more because they knew i had read her of it i guess from all blacks hospital so an america where some italian my teachers didn't have a mother or my father you know my sister's of reverend omar or i wrote a lot about it and told him i needed and need support he wrote mean well i think it is but he read from my porch troy and i guess it was set himself as anything good come out of four alabama so he really bad and so the russian ground mustard and invited me to come among them are missing in the meantime at the necessity of a law school in issue an awful mind in a hundred dollar bill moment in a way

dimeo for walker told and mumbles everything all in it for walking in september nineteen fifty seven fifty years ago everything that all the supposed had a lot of school soon enough international about two weeks ago one of my teachers that have been in front of in one of the tension and it's been to the kitchen table for a ten percent college in atlanta so he inform one's attention there was an issue but i can go back in church as a justice when i was over springer great diplomacy slim margin it is a day on a saturday morning but this time are making it so my father told me to the greyhound bus station a boarded a bus traveled to fifty miles from tripoli on a young african american boy you met him at a greyhound bus station had never seen a lot of the four fishermen would avoid of roles a lot of it usually to the

first baptist church in downtown london for nasa by reverend ralph abernathy a colleague about hitting a movement also scare them what to say and ushered in the past that the officer richard russell moore luther king jr and matt abernathy's denying adults and dr king says we get more from short o u joe's book opened so it was again a whole day a mindful and they chased by lions and his mentor you for her really became we came for i did some i know wanted for say my focus or for the holy arm of her we removed a land sovereignty and a disturbing image of saul is an issue about it will come mostly from time to time and meetings and obviously an

investigation is non politician a statin in south africa and he stood in the way pence says this is a lot better than a minute because reading from your book is one thing we've actually mentioned that what you read in thorough and in a lot of her second about a generational shift in the civil rights and because when we teach about civil rights and 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 work for a black workers to talk about dr king who brought a new type of nonviolence to the montgomery bus boycott while you were in college in nashville you were part of a vanguard of a new type of the sit in how big cities

which were predominantly practiced by casas young people change the civil rights act the second movement of the late fifties and early sixties we have on the quartets is in downtown nashville in the fall and when it might have been an impetus to four different ways but before forever first openness tools in greensburg spotify where the first sitting in regular basis they restore civilian and we have a report today is tuesday and thursday and said oh we thought were like last weekend that is possible people sit all day i remember sitting down at a lunchtime

readable working on a papal decision awaited to these are immediate do's and don'ts total blackout sit up straight kotok that all the indians an entity in the videos about this is remember the teachers overall the morning to you in the day the first mass arrest was for twenty seven nineteen sixty and every student i got arrested at a local people in mantua tennessee an image or reprint the do's and don't innovate but we received an emmy award with peaceful non violent fashion we'd interview says and some would come up to speed on a polite <unk> hair about a guy one often lunch house to store the union you just sit there

in the stryker in one day you know bhutto your ego down on this day probably beaten and layton will be arrested the second what happened the day i was arrested i watched all of the chao don't get in trouble don't get in the way and it could get in trouble with the more it was inevitable or peaceful when hunters and even now some of the broader point was that non violent as a way of life as a way of living and when we were arrested and jailed a first i feel so free i feel so liberating often like a crossbow this explains why when i showed us a picture in david halberstam's book about the civil rights movement 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 that say oh that's been taken out of jail in a good way well officer

rhodes no went out to protest but also sometimes and we wanted to show the contrast and i had on my new suit and you know one of the interesting articulate they want to look like that what did it mean in your representative valerie say we say the condition we get at the recent kansas what would need to have young people college students in on the ramparts of civil rights activists say it was worth it one of the finest hour or more and there's nothing nothing and he was so gratified to see that young people sitting in he knew the end that the young people picking up the message of the movement to see young people believe in man

and the philosophy and in the distance so to have one version fouls a college student at a high school student adopted a philosophy it's a saying yes a woman to the rest of the pedestal from the beating and what i'm also a lot those of us in the non violent training file a petition and of the philosophy and the discipline never waiver and never waiver and never had any desire to turn back to strike that i go to seven non violent as a way of life as a way of live and you come to that why many believe that in the bills like every human being there is a song of the images cho is destroyed and it didn't matter what it was cool because i

save what about your door policy at the ship lock in selma alabama that you know mr wallace i share a lot of the nominees of the book came into the world maybe it was somebody in a salute chow some better way than some summer of rome but they were told a weather then but i remember that king and his volunteers and over and over again he used to have a function of 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 just isn't right and we can reduce it down that one speech which is a great speech but there was one word that i recently read your speech that day eventually admired president kennedy we're pretty hard on kennedy

and that's the ticket that you were 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 in people the sclc want to go they're going to prefer houses but don't worry about it in a recent but they're really a loss but today in today's language into this is that i think that would be now yes let us set them want to washington was twenty eight nineteen sixty three was not to support a piece of civil rights legislation little wife of jobs and freedom in in a region of texas and we can have a good conscience support them in a searchable surprise to those too little too late and then when i was working on the speech was read in the cockpit in your time not so white

women southern africa caribou science and one man one vote and so among the polls because a system to light one man one vote is the africa cry themselves to a mostly aloe and that became the rallying cry for the student when they made 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 to vote those of us is that stephen um on a committee said the only qualification for been able to receive a vote should be that age and residents and in another point of just the bottom in the barrios 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 long line of tunis the third 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 to ensure my rescue in american forces served there is the use of the word revolution theres nothing wrong with the use of a worm also slogans and also some time the bill i believe in other states 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 on washington the tech summit speech and was the archbishop of the bass in washington who was going to object to my speaking so some people think it was innovation within a candidate ministration it was a positive indication was not gonna give an indication of attention state sen university justice on the line in unison meaningful progress here today david m final more to washington but we may be forced to

hoist the south the way sherman did nonviolently to fall as inflammatory slim one point early in the seven hundred or so after the program's gotten music was going we met services to the right of the story and end up ditching the sentiment john and so like you know son of sam john mccain that's what i gather foot a second identity mr decarava and i can say no and say no difference and change the rules were and civil wars since it is an online outlets are not like sharing the drug references so i want to ask about about dr king peter when you read histories before and you say well you know another artist in the famous sixty years now no no but when i look back on it and each time it in spades and i feared go to the set it really

is 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 until more people and he spoke from his so he spoke from the sky and he knew he was speaking he was really good to have a nose people's reasonable and i think my hero jackson's my bike in the bag say tellme about a dream poem about it and they get into it and it you really get any weight for and it was marvelously but i think one of those restrictions well that was a great speech but i think one is they don't want the show with the minute he spoke at riverside church in new york city on april fourth nineteen sixty seven and related

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 there to students and historian people they should read this is the part i really have been dreading all day but when i ask about what happened on the bridge the edmund pettus bridge in nineteen sixty five do you remember what happened that they're 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 was i remember i remember very well but what's six hundred of us walking into an orderly peaceful nonviolent fashion from a look at home run champion richard slowly we conduct of them unfortunately we had a little slow in the lineup into balls when a bag before the confessional to what that that i don't have in that backpack yeah yeah and

then i have a backpack or how much risk so we got to the edge of the area's crossing the alabama river disorders war the mobile me and my water beside the label's a williams about the tunes on his agent said john genius way of assets and all and supposedly use them is that a little and i say well that's too much more about it would have on the job not one that would fall into the wall and we came to the highest point it has really crossed an album over the mineral resources below and we continued to walk with him with inherent distances and a man identified himself and said i'm major john plow an alabama state trooper this is an unlawful march would not be allowed to continue again three minute to disperse return to check and also set major give a small community pray and less

than a minute or so i'm at the norman lear center they came toward us a bit in those who might say assemble travelers were horses really isn't a ticket remember been hit in a hit just a trickle with nightsticks heaven and mondays just given up and singing i've been in the room this is the this is it the other woman on the spirit and i was very concerned about the people behind him i don't recall forty two years later i made it back across the route through the streets of selma traditionally male form 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 asked me to say something to the audience must have a process of align with with your skull fracture year i was i was well enough to stand up in the only thing i say it a rigorous an obsessive like i don't understand it i don't understand it have president johnson can send troops to vietnam it cannot send troops to selma alabama to protect people are designed to reduce the next thing i knew i had been admitted a local good samaritan hospital in south west eight percent and i was like you know it was operated by the catholic church of the mission there was modified sisters from cancers from cellphones are cancers that came down a few days later stayed in that night in her abdomen a mormon doctor to a ribbon evanescent came by to visit the hospital no

civil war regional we make it from selma civil rights that those rights but the thing is right because of what happened it's pitch a change there was a sense of righteous indignation two days later there was demonstration more than eighty cities in america i know president doesn't watch that they're not on the news at present laser beams were a disservice he says it was an initial komodo place at the white house appointed justices voted against the solicitor with shalit would represent just the nicest thing or silly but that he was so moved he tried to get governor wallace to say that people protectors they decided to march again and emma wallace cannot assure the president so march fifteen nineteen sixty five lyndon johnson in

my estimation they one of the most moving civil rights of water and speeches in american president maybe more into the local has set up there for instance it he started a special phone was fifteen percent speak tonight with a better man and for the best financial markets he finishes by saying and we shot and we'd show some of the very the very same line he said was deep and his family of the night and you sit and we'd show mr dickson one of the home will grow as we listen to themselves legislation to congress asking for the nation and then he said and we shall overcome look at dr king he cried tears and on the seas and we all cried at the president of the innocence and we show an individual congress debated but in the meantime the court

appointed monitor to protect us ornette came on friday it really made it to montgomery there were more than thirty thousand american black and white and there are another one of the speech to change there's that cover story of the washing magazine the new republic published about ten years ago the calls you the last integration test is has a division lot of style are you are you blessed and i like to think of annapolis like to think of him much less integration like that believe and i think that as a society has hundreds and also in the unabomber and i believe that we must have an integrated society we must make that war we must make it work where we must come to that point we lay down the bird in the race and craig surely interracial democracy

that's what the struggle was all about the biggest only way we're going to forfeit the train and create a more we have to do it and not just lost sales but for a generation yet unborn know we will live together and this allows and as dr king's and must learn to live together as brothers and sisters and we will perish as well and we can make it work in maine we can have a lesson and assert their political will get back to politics you very early on and worked for robert f kennedy's presidential campaign as never be told wednesday to work at in that body was running back in that all sixty seven what attracted you to him as a as a presidential candidate during those very tumultuous years after us well i got to know robert kennedy and in some time

at a call him suggest the moon looks festive it into one two three abc in one day even when i was just there even before want to washington was eleven twenty second nineteen sixty three the series of protests in cambridge and we took a break from the media that we have a global officials in cambridge state officials and the people the movement they call me to the side and he said john i'm on a stamp but young people need to see that changed taking place in the us and after the assassination of his brother if you can see what was happening and when he a mouse that was running made it official i was in jackson mississippi

so until a woman such a belief among job a basket of gold in an outpost in and to organize rallies meetings to get registered to vote and i went there and those workers alliance that people that was the day and before it before i was there you know you bring together a mass rally a blight supplies and so transitional neighborhood and we redid everything and then shot the lead in those conditions and i was under they put a rock in addition speaker and some honestly at the organizers group became spoke he was in another part of the nanny state since last hour that speech this to me and one of the best political speeches was that such a political speeches just a speech in the hall i was so that was robert kennedy that amounts to this crowd right here and ask

it because it was as we use it as a german news tonight once again junior been assassinated in memphis tennessee christian people don't know what to do he would almost pull up about his brother and also shot by white ancestors tried to engage in violence and in an annapolis shouldn't have been because of the chicken once again agreed that he had the capacity at ability or detained had all the satellites years between quotes the ancient poets as close to an angry crowd know and somehow worked he had the power to have been enough and in anatolia so tonight i am convinced that if robert kennedy had to do and it probably would've been elected president a country to make the world a better place than i became an assassinated

drop out of the campaign i would like to land in a word the protesters and i got back on the campaign trail and i went to war he lost a primer was basically nineteen sixty in which to tell us and just wasn't la fortunately the season's over we went the campaign between humphrey and eugene mccarthy and we were trying to convince people to show support robert kennedy and i remember going to his incredible privilege to speak that night the fifth woman that's the whole tale a joke with me is a johnny let me that today it's a momentous and more mexican american turnout in neighborhoods is what is that and he was just told that you know so well will we did that this is the only candidate in a sense on to remain here

and now like the victors and he went out and we were there with your why his sister jean canada's giant you feel for the village voice and medgar evers rather charlie ever and resort hotel and that evening i just wanted to leave la i just wanted to get a score atlanta and an experiment on the fly you know i think i cried all the way from listener to tell a little lie can ask about a diving header services their trip here was invented to do on apparel and invited to write a single tray from you from you to washington in a way to try to stop the new units i heard something of really

assassination of president kennedy once king jr and robert kennedy and on national security and also shows a nation as a people of those of those lives have completely recovered from i wanted to question its from the audience but article about the current campaign because the two leading candidates for the democratic presidential nomination and if there's a vote avidly sought your endorsement you need something to give them and then last friday you came out and endorsed hillary clinton for president was a difficult decision for you cause i know senator obama made its case pretty pretty hard to do well you know unlike a cynical baumohl like senator clinton ally president clinton told the friends sometimes you have to decide to make a decision here to heaven as the recession matures that's right it might not turn sixty and

nineties and i just two thousand president clinton came down from i am six of birthday celebration and sixty five two years ever since obama came in still so unknown to fix a full time long before president clinton became president so forgive me hillary clinton president and mrs clinton was social and it's not to take anything for most of all president clinton has more users called gifted but i think hillary clinton is much more than just a test to go back you know you work your entire life or civil rights for black freedom we had a pretty good chance to have a black nominee in the two major parties

mosul bombing didn't get a nomination of awarding campaign or were before the campaign although america for him but i think in american politics you got to deal with politics to transcend the issue of race but you know in america right now we have a lecture on intimate criticize police to have the unbelievable the candidate just wonderful people to have a woman who's over well they haven't done well how it is that there's no real reason to a certain mouse and a headset other candidate i saw in only devoting cables for political candidates it up voted against the record but i do want to mention some things of our country that a lot of people here find very disturbing that's what's going on sometimes i'm down in louisiana the jena six we have kind of the old jim crow

style terror racism right there on television screens again i know there's things happen 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 backsliding do we do we need to reinvigorate our struggle for i think there's something that says you know we see we've seen the security of justice whether in jordan or some other places i think we have to give him away continue to fight to bring about changes as celine about young people and they're not just african americans but of those of that amount of it from the justice system would

we have done their turf on the system and look so this and there's a way there's a better way that is going to see the young people overreact and acidic called historians and i think the most recent changes in this area well tell us more question and opened for questions to you from the audience this is syndicated a week as a martyr mentioned it is my belief that i talk to people who were in college republicans and young democrats and 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 the universe like this be to get involved how can they do and what can it wasn't a young people especially students it'll have to be a court challenge by

congressional leaders about a president it an amnesty because it would help 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 some of the sacrifices we were not called born 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 known when it was pretty well show and that i've been challenged by leaders you need to get out there and just do it just to have we heard that one of the changes we were deeply moved and inspired i think some oils by in the campaign of john f kennedy in nineteen sixty they saw the changes when a change morning after the lead is coming to washington to visit

but you say something there's no label embodies this economy speak honestly i don't know what we would have done my generation what you would have all of the technology at the day after day i just said earlier today we didn't have a website i know what we usually do we go in on the freedom that i thought it was dangerous i don't you know my kitten was twice in one day well yes and in rock hill and among them are the tone on on them on edge off from selma to

a full agenda will be needed so that's why in a bag that i had to look this one of the rich donors american political tradition that's right in and also had to and apple and on somebody in jail but when most war and says it will be a job for my friends and colleagues in a blue i wanted the restaurant today you know people think about something like that you're going to get out my recovery will be informed well you were in a tent were prison in the city for almost a month well i'm learning another for that we never made it to new orleans native to jackson state important inattention for sailors i guess what i'm saying for those of us immediately to go you know people are looking for a month what we do know for a sort of

interesting and gorbachev but that is on the whole the chevy i think we all have a lot of obligations a mission to give something back to do something not to be a steal we have to move out of the rough to be prepared to walk away or just get out there in question call it cannot require you cannot sixty points yesterday i were to take some questions from the audience starting over here i just wanted to ask you how you feel it's a really unique struggle that you've placed within the civil rights movement how now as a policymaker for the nation how that really

impacts how you would see that world of politics today especially with the situation such as in georgia that may be parallel what you sell the nineteen sixties when an oil i don't think i changed that much and turn them on philosophy in my head had to i think my involvement in the civil rights movement and made me a much better human being women out about a politician but the people in my district for the most part ana i was elected twice citywide in atlanta city council the first time i see the geico been on the council for twenty four years i would just in one is a cajun father was well past until i was going to run as a john mccain supporter say that a group of high school and palestinians together and six to nine point eight percent of the votes or that

line the iran for reelection and i got almost eighty five percent of the votes that i wanted to the city council and he ran for congress in nineteen eighty six percent of another chance and the personal debt and ronald reagan was much better known and another veteran of state from our wonderful friends again so well he did well he did very well because of my involvement in animals aaron and dna or a sort of filling stand up sometimes singing in another no other place we didn't like this we say this in our sense of ourselves you know this

was nineteen sixty five or nineteen sixty four we would take this we just would take it in older than enough illinois and on to the white house and some this president listen you know that the pope i give an example there was a senate president called it's my i get in trouble but i was also the president of holding one evening at home in washington and yet polio office also the cage poland house and i heard it on record slide an incident and so one day and he said john printed you get my call us at a few days ago and this president has appointed the richer mccall smith and i were talking and i said yes i know what you want he wanted to vote for her room to get a

job trying to find a job you have a desk and didn't have more definite and unlawful and eventually a vote for the ruble been a dilemma for a vote against do so part of that is mindful movements sometimes when i'm sitting on the floor the house before the whole committee often said to myself what was so i'm so do for redundancies at what were going to set up some time we have to step out of the box and some texture to dramatize edition of people use messenger in a city of a different religion and i was sam all was way people think and what the number of roses live we need to find a way to dramatize huge put a face on it and they couldn't

reveal some high in america they went on an actual election we need to make it real to dramatize mcgettigan arab i didn't get registered any of the special college student haskell still as a whole of what they are about all of us have to get out and vote likely no vote before it doesn't matter we just got to get up there and to testify i have been delayed that the vote is the most powerful as a symbol for us that we have an undemocratic society is almost sacred it is precious and we have to use the music to play the part that you've heard an extraordinary me and i think on behalf of the dole institute of politics i think i would like to

thank all the caucus but that program this evening and especially i thought i really would like to think for finding time to come for us to funding for your parents your dedication and for making a difference in the lives of so many people in the united states i would say not just of freedom for african americans because they want this is not free not just three so i think it's so important to focus for sending a few thousand seven kilometers of ties to congressman john lewis was recorded october twenty first two thousand seven aka using leed center it was a presentation of the dole institute of politics i'm j mcintyre keep your prisons is a production of kansas public radio at the university of

kansas if you missed last week at our present we celebrated one hundred fiftieth anniversary of victoria state university and kansas state university and found out how the one at the wildcats are marking their zest with a few myths that so it's now archived at our website he pr thirty you dad you along with many other key pierre presents programs kansas public radio still has one book about the history of emporia state university to give away if you like that you feel when that drawing aline k embassy i n t y r e educate you that the eu