Ten O'Clock News; Henry Hampton calls for more campus activism

[Beeping] [Reporter] A lot of the civil rights movement of the 60s was played out in the streets. Students of that day were in the front lines, in some cases they paid dearly. The summer of '64, three civil rights workers found murdered in Mississippi. That same summer, 1,000 others spent time in jail in Mississippi. In Birmingham, the fire hoses used against marchers had such force they tore bark off the trees. In Nashville, 19 year old Fisk University student Diane Nash confronted the mayor outside city hall. [Nash] I asked the mayor first of all, "Mayor West, do you feel that it's wrong to discriminate against a person solely on the basis of his race or color?" [West] I do not agree that it was morally right for someone to sell them merchandise and refuse them

service. And I had to answer it just exactly that way. [Reporter] Today's college student has at most a fleeting memory of those days. Most of them were a year or two old when Martin Luther King was assassinated in '68. So today at Boston University, high school and college students got together to learn some history and to get some advice from civil rights activist and filmmaker Henry Hampton. [Student] We at Boston University talk about getting our minority enrollment up, do you have any answers or any direction that you can have us go in to solving some of these problems? [Hampton] I think what has to happen with white and black students from a university like this is one, persistence, the kind of continual emphasis that this is a priority. That this is important because in your dream about the way the world is, you will not have it any other way. [Reporter] What is happening here today is the middle aged veterans of the civil rights movement are trying to pass along the torch to a new generation. [Speaker 1] How many of you are part of the NAACP, the Urban League? How many records did you buy this month or the last 3 months? We keep taking, we've got to give. [Reporter] What do you think

Dr. King would think of the activity today civil rights activity? You have your assessment. [Speaker 1] I think he would probably be crying for the lack of inactivity, for meaningful experiences in civil rights. [Speaker 2] There's definite apathy, there's no type of cooperation or participation in any of the leagues. Partly I think it's because of lack of news, of knowledge of what exactly is going on and what organizations are open to students. [Speaker 3] And we see small groups of students marching but we don't see large masses of young people coming together behind any one candidate with a big gubernatorial candidate or a presidential candidate. I think that's because many of us are disillusioned. Many of us are skeptical.

Many of us still want to hope and many of us still look to someone and something. [Reporter] students of '88 have yet to find a cause like that which inspired activists in the 1960s. But this room was packed today and in all likelihood these students will try to find a way to make a difference. [Hampton] You must begin to learn how to reach for what we had. You must learn how to dream, if you will, because that is what Dr. King did so well for us. [Reporter] For the 10 O'Clock News, this is Jan von Mehren reporting.