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The Real History of Civil Rights Part 1 A New Constitution · The Matt Walsh Show

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  Speaker 2: If you ask American teenagers basic questions about American history,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: you'll quickly discover that they don't know much about it.
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: One Gallup poll found that most American teens are unaware
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  Speaker 2: that Columbus arrived in 1492. More than two-thirds don't know
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  Speaker 2: that states' rights were an issue in the Civil War.
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: And three-quarters are unaware that the United States gained independence
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  Speaker 2: in 1776. More interesting is what they do know. In
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  Speaker 2: May 2008, two college professors gave 2,000 American high school
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  Speaker 2: juniors and seniors a simple prompt. Starting from Columbus to
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  Speaker 2: the present day, jot down the names of the most
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: famous Americans in history. The only ground rule is that
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  Speaker 2: they cannot be presidents. The top three answers were all black.
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  Speaker 2: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and in first place, of course,
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  Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Jr., who was named by two-thirds of
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  Speaker 2: the students. Benjamin Franklin, by comparison, was named by just 29%.
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  Speaker 2: Thomas Edison made the top 10, but was outranked by
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  Speaker 2: Oprah Winfrey. A similar survey of college students between 1975
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  Speaker 2: and 1988 had radically different answers. Their top choices, Betsy
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  Speaker 2: Ross and Paul Revere, didn't even make the top 10
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  Speaker 2: by the mid-2000s. This is because sometime between 1988 and 1995,
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  Speaker 2: things radically changed. National heroes like George Washington and Ben
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  Speaker 2: Franklin were replaced with a new class of central figures
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  Speaker 2: in American history. As the authors of the study put
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  Speaker 2: it by the mid 1990s, quote, African-Americans and women had
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  Speaker 2: moved to the center of American history. Ask any American
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  Speaker 2: who went to public schools between 1995 and today. They'll
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  Speaker 2: tell you the central feature of their social studies classes.
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  Speaker 2: as history became known, were the histories of slavery and
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: the Civil Rights Movement. They likely remember watching videos like
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: this one in school. We wanted to show you a
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  Speaker 2: clip of Martin Luther King Jr. 's I Have a
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  Speaker 2: Dream speech there, but it turns out we couldn't. That's
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: because King's family owns the audio from the speech, and
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  Speaker 2: they wouldn't let us use it. You might think that's weird.
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  Speaker 2: This is America. Surely you can use a short soundbite
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  Speaker 2: of an extremely famous speech in an educational video. And
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  Speaker 2: in most cases, you'd be right. But according to our lawyers,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: we can't. In fact, we can't show quotes or read
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  Speaker 2: on air any portions of speeches owned by King's estate.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: It turns out his family has done all sorts of
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: things to stop people like us, including, amazingly, releasing the
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: speech as an album so they could secure special music rights.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: They published his life's work as a book to secure
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: additional rights and recently blocked OpenAI from allowing users to
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: recreate King's likeness. These gimmicks gave them total control over
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: how King is portrayed in media today. Why would they
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: rig our legal system like that? Well, money is one reason.
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  Speaker 2: When CBS broadcast portions of the I Have a Dream
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  Speaker 2: speech on air, the family sued and the company settled.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: King's family has made a lot of money suing media outlets.
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  Speaker 2: But another reason is that they want to silence critics
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  Speaker 2: like us. They need to protect his legacy and keep
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: making money off it. What they're doing makes it very
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  Speaker 2: difficult to honestly reevaluate Martin Luther King Jr., and you're
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  Speaker 2: about to see why they don't want people to do that.
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  Speaker 2: It turns out the king you've heard of is a
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  Speaker 2: carefully curated creation. His estate's efforts perfectly illustrate what the
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: civil rights movement has become, and as we'll show in
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  Speaker 2: this episode, what it always was, a gigantic lie. Over
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  Speaker 2: the course of this video, we are going to judge
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Jr. not by the color of his skin,
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  Speaker 2: but by the content of his character. What you will
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  Speaker 2: see will shock you. Some of it isn't suitable for
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  Speaker 2: young children. We'll also confront the movement that he spearheaded.
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  Speaker 2: Were his true aims a colorblind society or something far
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  Speaker 2: more radical? Who bankrolled him? What did other civil rights
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  Speaker 2: leaders think of him? What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham,
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  Speaker 2: Alabama in 1963? Was civil disobedience actually peaceful? And most importantly,
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  Speaker 2: is America today stronger, more unified, and racially equal than
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  Speaker 2: before King's rise? These questions demand answers, and as Americans,
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  Speaker 2: we are entitled to a full accounting of the civil
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  Speaker 2: rights movement and its consequences. King's movement fundamentally transformed our
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  Speaker 2: country and our system of government, That's why we're tackling
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  Speaker 2: the topic in two parts. First, the hidden history of
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  Speaker 2: the civil rights movement, its key figures, agendas, funding, and scandals.
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  Speaker 2: And second, the profound, lasting changes to our society and
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  Speaker 2: their consequences. This is the real history of the civil
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  Speaker 2: rights movement, part one, a new constitution. Soon after making
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  Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Day a federal holiday, President Ronald Reagan
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  Speaker 2: had some very nice things to say about the civil
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  Speaker 2: rights leader.
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  Speaker 3: Today is Martin Luther King Jr.
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  Speaker 2: 's birthday.
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  Speaker 3: Let us honor him by living the kind of lives
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  Speaker 3: that will make this dream, his dream.
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  Speaker 2: A reality. But behind the scenes, and as late as 1983,
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  Speaker 2: when Reagan created the new federal holiday, it wasn't always
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  Speaker 2: certain that it would come to be. The proposal was
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  Speaker 2: controversial enough that congressional leaders bypassed committee hearings and rushed
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  Speaker 2: to vote on They didn't want committee hearings. This outraged
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  Speaker 2: North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, who delivered a speech on
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  Speaker 2: the Senate floor in which he made some bold accusations.
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  Speaker 2: He claimed, for example, that Dr. King, quote, kept around
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  Speaker 2: him as his principal advisors and associates certain individuals who
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  Speaker 2: were taking their orders and direction from a foreign power,
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  Speaker 2: referring to Soviet communists.
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  Speaker 3: Dr.
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  Speaker 2: King, he said, was a highly controversial figure during his
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  Speaker 2: lifetime and remains so today. Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy called
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  Speaker 2: Helms' speech a last-ditch stand against equal justice and said
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  Speaker 2: that he would not dignify the comments with a reply.
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  Speaker 2: They reflect no credit on this body. When Helms gave
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: fellow senators binders full of background research on Dr. King,
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  Speaker 2: New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan described it as filth
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  Speaker 2: that has been distributed in this chamber. We have senators.
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  Speaker 4: Of putting on the desks of United States senators.
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  Speaker 2: This packet of filth. The bill ended up passing, but
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  Speaker 2: it was hardly unanimous. So what was so controversial about
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  Speaker 2: someone who wanted everyone to just get along? Well, as
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  Speaker 2: it turns out, there's a lot more to King's story
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  Speaker 2: than we've been told. Even Ronald Reagan knew this.
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  Speaker 3: Today, the job that Martin Luther King Jr. started is
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  Speaker 3: ours to finish.
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  Speaker 2: While Reagan was praising King in public, he was attacking
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  Speaker 2: him in private. When a former New Hampshire governor confronted
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  Speaker 2: the president about King's communist ties, Reagan responded, quote, He
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  Speaker 2: added that, quote, And now, eight years later than Reagan expected,
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  Speaker 2: we do know. It turns out Helms was right. In 2019,
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: following one of President Trump's declassification orders, thousands of pages
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  Speaker 2: of documents related to Martin Luther King Jr. were also
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  Speaker 2: made public, primarily FBI transcripts. That's how we know that
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  Speaker 2: in October 1962, King's top advisor was a man named
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  Speaker 2: Stanley D. Levison. He was, according to the FBI, a
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  Speaker 2: shrewd and dedicated communist, and King has long been aware
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  Speaker 2: of this. The FBI launched this investigation into King not
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  Speaker 2: because he was a civil rights activist or because FBI
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  Speaker 2: Director J. Edgar Hoover hated him, though that's true, but
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  Speaker 2: because King was in constant contact with known members of
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  Speaker 2: the U.S. Communist Party. The evidence regarding King's communist ties
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  Speaker 2: was so strong that the wiretap was personally approved by
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  Speaker 2: Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, a liberal and political ally
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  Speaker 2: of King's. On a visit to the White House Rose Garden,
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  Speaker 2: John F. Kennedy told King that The FBI considered Levison
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  Speaker 2: a conscious agent of the Soviet conspiracy and that he
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  Speaker 2: was under very close surveillance. Kennedy urged King to end
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  Speaker 2: his relationship with Levison because it threatened King's reputation and
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  Speaker 2: Kennedy's political career. King continued to communicate with Levison anyway,
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  Speaker 2: mostly through an intermediary. When the Kennedys discovered King didn't
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  Speaker 2: keep his word, that's when they began wiretapping King's office
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  Speaker 2: and his home and his hotel rooms. Why did King
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  Speaker 2: insist on staying in touch with a known communist who
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  Speaker 2: the president asked him to stop talking to? One reason
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  Speaker 2: is because Levison, who also served as a fundraiser for
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  Speaker 2: the Communist Party, was central to King's operations. According to
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  Speaker 2: the FBI, Levison was instrumental in making King a national
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  Speaker 2: and international figure. James Wood, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's
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  Speaker 2: public relations director from 1960 to 1962, quote, said that
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  Speaker 2: during that period, Levison acted primarily as King's business manager
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  Speaker 2: and donated large sums of money to him when funds
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  Speaker 2: were low. According to Wood, Levison was very close to King,
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  Speaker 2: had his confidence, and was one of the few people
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  Speaker 2: who could get King alone, give him advice, and always
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  Speaker 2: have the advice accepted. King is a Marxist. IRS documents
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  Speaker 2: show that in 1957 and 1958, Stanley Levison, who had
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  Speaker 2: first met King only at the very end of 1956,
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  Speaker 2: had arranged for King to receive a total of $ 10, 000
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  Speaker 2: in cash gifts from himself and a close friend, 70-year-old
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  Speaker 2: Alice Rosenstein Lowy. That's the equivalent of nearly $ 120, 000 in 2026.
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  Speaker 2: Levison was so close to King that he played a
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  Speaker 2: role in determining the date of King's famous March on
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  Speaker 2: Washington campaign. Nine days after the march, on September 6th, 1963,
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  Speaker 2: a federal agent named James Bland, chief of the FBI's
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  Speaker 2: subversive control section, wrote to headquarters that Levison described King
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  Speaker 2: as a, quote, wholehearted Marxist who has studied it, Marxism,
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  Speaker 2: believes in it, agrees with it, but because of his
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  Speaker 2: being a minister of religion, does not dare to espouse
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  Speaker 2: it publicly. King's communist ties were part of a concerted
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  Speaker 2: effort to destroy the United States. In the process of
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  Speaker 2: surveilling King and his communist advisors, the FBI discovered that, quote, King,
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  Speaker 2: who is married, maintains intimate relationships with at least three women,
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  Speaker 2: one in Atlanta, one in Mount Vernon, New York, and
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  Speaker 2: one in Washington, D.C., and that King's extramarital affairs while
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: posing as a minister of the gospel leave him highly
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  Speaker 2: susceptible to coercion and possible blackmail. Most important, in view
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  Speaker 2: of his continued close association and willingness to accept advice
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: and submit to the influence, of such communists as Levison
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: and his assistant Jack O'Dell, we should have as complete
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: coverage as possible of King's activities. In early January 1964,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: the FBI placed a recording device in a room at
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  Speaker 2: the Willard Hotel in Washington, D.C., where King was staying.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: According to the transcripts, King and a Baptist minister from
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: Baltimore were recorded discussing which female parishioners, quote, would be
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: suitable for natural or unnatural sex acts. When one of
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: the women protested that she did not approve of this,
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  Speaker 2: the Baptist minister immediately and forcibly raped her. Handwritten notes
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: in the margin state that King looked on, laughed, and
• 13:13
  Speaker 2: offered advice. During the course of his stay at the Willard,
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  Speaker 2: King is described as engaging in a sex orgy with
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  Speaker 2: other reverends, excessively consuming alcohol, and engaging in acts the
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  Speaker 2: FBI described as degeneracy and depravity. And on the night
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: before King was to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Norway in December 1964, Police were called to King's hotel
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: because a white prostitute was caught stealing money from King's brother,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: the Reverend A.D.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: King.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: An aide later confided to a friend that King's group
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: was running naked, drunk white prostitutes up and down the
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: halls of the hotel. In total, the FBI transcripts we
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: have access to suggest that King was a drunk, a pervert,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: the likely father of a bastard child, and a hot-tempered
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: boss who once threatened to jump out a window when
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: a woman refused to tell him she loved him. The
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: audio recordings of these events were bizarrely sealed by a
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: federal judge named John Lewis Smith in February 1977 for
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: a period of 50 years, presumably to protect King's reputation.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: Time is nearly up. On January 31st, 2027, we'll finally
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: get to listen for ourselves, and millions of Americans will
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: likely realize that it's far past time to reevaluate King's legacy.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: And that it might be time to stop force-feeding the
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: myth of Martin Luther King Jr. to American school kids.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: If you spend your days thinking about history, you start
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: to notice that people in the past had a lot
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: of problems we don't have anymore. Disease, war, terrible plumbing. Fortunately,
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: we have modern civilization now. Unfortunately, though, we still have
• 14:49
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• 14:53
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• 14:56
  Speaker 2: One thing history teaches you is that human beings have
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: always understood the importance of sleep. Difference is, people used
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• 16:12
  Speaker 2: The United States in the 1950s was a radically different
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: country than the one we live in today. And not
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: in the ways most people would think. For one thing,
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: it was a biracial country with an overwhelming racial majority. 89.5%
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: of the population was white and 10% black. 90% of
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: the population identified as Christian. The country's population, roughly 150
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: million at the time, was less than half the population
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: of the country we live in now. New York, not California,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: was the most populous state. Cleveland was twice the size
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: of Miami. At the time, the city of Detroit was
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: roughly the same size as Los Angeles.
• 16:51
  Speaker 6: You are about to witness the very exciting story of
• 16:54
  Speaker 6: a city and its people. That city is Detroit, home
• 17:00
  Speaker 6: of nearly 2 million people.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Detroit was known then as the Paris of the Midwest,
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: and back then was 84% white. It was among the
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: most prosperous cities in the world, with some of the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: highest standards of living for both black and white residents,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: thanks to America's post-war economic supremacy and strong manufacturing economy.
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: Car manufacturing required large workforces, so auto companies offered high
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: wages and colorblind hiring practices. They have been doing the
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: kind of job.
• 17:29
  Speaker 7: That sprung the luxuries loose for every man. Luxuries. and freedom.
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: According to political scientist Kevin Slack's book, War on the
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: American Republic, black workers constituted, quote, 20 to 30 percent
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: of automotive workers in Detroit. At the Dodge Assembly Plant,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: black workers constituted an estimated 60 percent of the workforce.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Detroit in the 1950s was the closest America would ever
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: be to economic equality. In 1951, the median income for
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: a black family in Detroit was $ 3, 500, which is was
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: just barely below the national median of 3,700. The nation
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: had come a long way since the 1860s.
• 18:08
  Speaker 6: Detroit, an exciting place to be, to live, to grow,
• 18:13
  Speaker 6: to work shoulder to shoulder, regardless of national origin, color,
• 18:18
  Speaker 6: or creed.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: As it turns out, the mid-20th century was an economic
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: boom time for black Americans. In 1940, 87% of blacks
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: lived below the poverty line, By 1960, that number had
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: dropped to 47%. In northern and western states in 1959,
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: the mean earnings of a working married black woman were
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: higher than a working married white woman, according to the
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: United States government. Mean family incomes where both spouses worked
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: were close to the same between both races outside of
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: the South. The economist Thomas Sowell points out in his book,
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Civil Rights, Rhetoric or Reality, that in the decade before
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: the passage of the Civil Rights Act, quote, the number
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: of Blacks in professional, technical, and similar high-level positions more
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: than doubled. In other kinds of occupations, the advance of
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Blacks was even greater during the 1940s, when there was
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: little or no civil rights policy. According to Soule, quote,
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: The Civil Rights Act of 1964 represented no acceleration in
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: trends that had been going on for many years. The
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: percentage of employed Blacks who were professional and technical workers
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: rose less in the five years following the Civil Rights
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Act that in the five years preceding it, the percentage
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: of employed Blacks who were managers and administrators was the
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: same in 1967 as in 1964 and in 1960. The
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: key factor in Black economic improvement between 1940 and 1960
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: was the massive migration of Black Americans from low-income areas
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: in the South to high-income cities in the North. The
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: scale of the migration is comparable in scale to the
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: mass influx of European immigrants to Ellis Island. As Slack
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: puts it, quote, Blacks took industrial jobs in cities like Chicago,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: whose Black population rose 77 percent during the 1940s and
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: another 65% in the 1950s, an increase from $ 278, 000 to $ 813, 000.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Non-white median annual income had risen faster than that of whites,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: almost quadrupling from 1939 to 1951, a fact not lost
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: on American business, which estimated a black market of $ 15 billion.
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Blacks started making major cultural inroads. Jackie Robinson made his
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. The same year,
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: Harry Truman ordered the desegregation of the armed forces.
• 20:45
  Speaker 8: The American people as a whole know what's right, they
• 20:49
  Speaker 8: know what's wrong, and they act on what's right and
• 20:51
  Speaker 8: what's wrong. And in the long run, this equal rights
• 20:55
  Speaker 8: thing will become a part of the custom of the
• 20:58
  Speaker 8: United States as well as the law.
• 21:00
  Speaker 2: In the 1950s, Hollywood started reducing overt, stereotypical exposure of
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: blacks in films and started releasing all-black movies, including Porgy
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: and Bess and St. Louis Blues. The music I play
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: is the music of our people. It's not mine, it's theirs.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: Attitudes in northern and western states were shifting. Between 1951
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: and 1959, Oregon, Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, South Dakota, Nevada,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: and Idaho repealed laws against interracial marriage. Minneapolis mayor and
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: future vice president Hubert Humphrey proclaimed this at the 1948
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: Democratic Convention. There will be no hedging, and there will
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: be no watering down, if you please, of the instruments
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: and the principles of the civil rights program. As the
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: North shifted, some parts of the Deep South remained radically
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: old-fashioned on race relations. Only about 4% of adult blacks
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: were eligible to vote in Mississippi in 1950. By 1960,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: it had risen to just 5.3% due to poll taxes
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: and literacy tests and intimidation. Public and, in some cases,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: private spaces were segregated in Mississippi and Alabama. However, in
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: major cities like Atlanta, enforcement of segregation was less extreme
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: than in rural parts of the Deep South. In 1959,
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Atlanta Mayor William Hartsfield called Atlanta the city too busy
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: to hate. Atlanta wasn't the only place in the South
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: where things were trending towards equality. In 1954, in Washington, D.C.,
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: which was then a majority white city, segregated public accommodations
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: were voluntarily desegregated two years before the historic 1954 Brown v.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Board of Education decision, according to Seoul. The number of
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: blacks registered to vote in Louisiana rose from 10,000 in
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: 1947 to more than 160,000 in 1956. In Texas, the
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: number of black registered voters doubled from 1947 to in 1956.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: In Florida, it tripled. These are the conditions that not
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: only allowed activists like Martin Luther King Jr. to thrive,
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: but also set the stage for massive nationwide racial conflict.
• 23:10
  Speaker 2: It was life getting better for blacks, not worse, that
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: provoked the most destructive and racially divisive riots in the
• 23:19
  Speaker 2: nation's history. You know, I recently saw The Odyssey, as
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: you may have heard, which is one of the worst
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: movies ever made, but If the movie accomplished anything, it
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: reminded me that you should actually read Homer, because the
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Iliad and the Odyssey aren't just old stories for English class.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: They're foundational works of Western civilization. For thousands of years,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: people have read these stories to understand courage, honor, loyalty, sacrifice,
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: what it means to be human. And unlike whatever Hollywood
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: decides to do with them, the originals are actually worth
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: your time. That's why Mount Titano Media, the company we've
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: been telling you about behind Finding Our Words, Words That
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Made America, has created The Story of the Iliad and
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: The Story of the Odyssey. They're beautiful, accessible editions designed
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: to bring the Homeric tradition into your home. Each book
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: is paired with other works from that tradition, along with
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: a reading guide by Alison Ellis that helps you explore
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: these stories with your family. Most people get a brief
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: introduction to Homer in school if they get one at all.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: These stories deserve better than that, and they certainly deserve
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: better than Hollywood. Read the stories themselves. Find out why
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: they've endured for thousands of years. Go to mounttitanomedia.com and
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: bring the Homeric tradition home. When we opened the episode,
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: we talked about the American icons who high school students
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: consider the most famous in American history. Number one was
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Martin Luther King Jr. Number two was Rosa Parks. This
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: is the story most of those students were taught in school.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Parks was a seamstress who was tired after a long
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: day at work. A seamstress, slight in stature, but mighty
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: in courage. The story goes that Parks sat down in
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: a whites-only section of a segregated bus in Montgomery, Alabama
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: in 1955. When the driver asked her to move, she
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: refused and was arrested and went to jail. This action
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: sparked a torrent of outrage and inspired spontaneous protests. making
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: her the first domino in what led to a total
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: transformation of the country. But here's the problem. Rosa Parks
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: was not just some meek, quiet seamstress who didn't know
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: what she was getting into. She was a professional activist.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: She joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP as its
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: secretary in 1943, more than a decade before the bus boycott.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: Five months before her arrest, she had attended the Highlander
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Folk School in Newmarket, Tennessee, which had been set up
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: by a the Congress of Industrial Organizations, a major labor union,
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: for training agitators. Declassified FBI documents show that the Highlander
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: School's co-founder, Donald Lee West, was likely a member of
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: the Communist Party. Nine months before Parks was arrested, another
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: black woman named Claudette Colvin was arrested in Montgomery when
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: she refused to give up her seat for a white passenger.
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: The NAACP rejected her because she had an out-of-wedlock child.
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: They wanted someone who'd be more sympathetic. Rosa Parks was perfect.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: She was a model citizen. She was polite. She was employed.
• 26:25
  Speaker 2: And she had extensive training. The reality is that Montgomery
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: in 1955 had draconian laws that treated blacks like second-class citizens.
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: Using professionals to confront that system made sense at the time.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: It also illustrates the level of energy that's been poured
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: into propaganda-making. That Rosa Parks is the second most famous
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: figure in American history to American high schoolers, but that
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: most of those students also don't know her actual story,
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: is an insane indictment of America's education system. It's also
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: worth pointing out that Parks was a radical. Parks and
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: her husband attended Communist Party meetings for years. She collaborated
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: with socialist organizations and domestic terrorists, including the Black Panthers
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: and Black Liberation Army. In 1995, she attended Louis Farrakhan's
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: Million Man March. She blamed white people for the Detroit
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: riots and said that widespread looting was, quote, understandable. In
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: her autobiography, Parks described her time at the communist-tied Highlander school, saying, quote,
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: I spent 10 days at Highlander and went to different workshops,
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: mostly on how to desegregate schools. One of my greatest
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: pleasures there was enjoying the smell of bacon frying and
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: coffee brewing and knowing that white folks... were doing the
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: preparing instead of me. According to Parks' biographer, Jean Theo Harris,
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: in the mid-1990s, Parks had a conversation with a black
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: nationalist lawyer who asked who her hero was, assuming she
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: would say Martin Luther King Jr., given that they worked together.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: But in fact, she said her hero was Malcolm X.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Because of boldness and clarity, his affirmation of what needed
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: to be done for black people made him her champion.
• 28:07
  Speaker 6: We are not nonviolent with anyone.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Who is violent with us. In her own autobiography, Parks wrote, quote,
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: We always felt that if you talked violently and said
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: what you would do if they did something to you,
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: that did more good than nonviolence. To this day, I
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: am not an absolute supporter of nonviolence in all situations.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: One civil rights leader who disagreed with King and Parks
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: was Reverend Joseph H. Jackson of the Olivet Baptist Church
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: in Chicago. Jackson was a major figure at the time.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: In 1953, he became president of the National Baptist Convention,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: the largest black religious body in the nation with roughly
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: six million members. His own church had the largest black
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: congregation in the country with more than 20,000 congregants. In 1964,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: the New York Times profiled him on a full page
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: spread of black civil rights leaders that included Martin Luther
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: King Jr. beside him and Malcolm X below him. The
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: historian Taylor Branch called him the Negro Pope, and the
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: sociologist E. Franklin Frazier compared him to being the black
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: president of the United States. What made Jackson different than
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: the others is that he opposed civil disobedience, which he
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: saw as, quote, not far removed from open crime. He
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: thought civil rights should be advanced legally through the courts
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: and political system. Jackson also worked with Chicago's city leadership,
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: including his political ally, Mayor Richard Daley, to preserve the
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: racial distinctness of Chicago's neighborhoods. Basically, he wanted to keep
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: the South Side black. He, along with six black aldermen
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: known as the Silent Six, voted against integrated housing initiatives
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: and other civil rights reforms in the city. Reverend Jackson
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: didn't want to end housing segregation because he believed in
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: economic self-reliance. He strongly supported the idea that black Americans
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: should focus on building themselves up individually and through self-help
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: efforts rather than relying primarily on white people or external
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: forces for advancement. It came from a long line of
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: black intellectuals, including Booker T. Washington, who believed self-help was
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: the best model for improving black lives. It was this
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: kind of thinking that resulted in a lot of black
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: progress that happened between the Depression and the early 1960s.
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Within Chicago, Jackson's approach of civil rights through law and order,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: was effective. Along with Mayor Richard Daley, Chicago's black residents
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: got expanded public housing, access to prime city jobs, favorable
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: contracts from the city government, and municipal investments into primarily
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: black neighborhoods. Jackson's views must have been at least somewhat
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: pervasive among American blacks who kept re-electing him by massive
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: margins to his position atop the National Baptist Convention. Jackson's
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: strategy infuriated Martin Luther King Jr., who hated Jackson and
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: believed the weight of the National Baptist Convention should be
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: used to push his political agenda. In 1960, King decried Jackson,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: saying he was, quote, sick and tired of seeing Negro
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: preachers riding around in big cars and living in big
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: houses and not concerned about the problems of the people
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: who made it possible for them to get these things.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: For his part, Jackson described Martin Luther King Jr. as
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: a powder keg philosopher who was part of a new
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: breed of hoodlums and crooks in the pulpits today. King
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: may not have been a hoodlum, but he certainly was
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: a radical, especially later in his career. The king most
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: students learn about was the one who called for people
• 31:37
  Speaker 2: to be judged by the content of their character and
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: insisted on nonviolent civil disobedience. Less taught is the King
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: who called for, quote, a radical redistribution of economic and
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: political power. In private, King declared that there must be
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: toward a democratic socialism. In his book, Where Do We
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: Go From Here?, King called on Western nations to give
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: 2% of GDP to countries of color, a global redistribution
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: of wealth for the sin of racism. King writes, quote,
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: in short, White America must assume the guilt for the
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: black man's inferior status. You must acknowledge your white guilt,
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: he says. Quote, redemption can come only through a humble
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: acknowledgement of guilt and an honest knowledge of self. King
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: didn't believe in judging others by their individual character. He
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: believed in judging them for their collective sins. It was
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: literally the opposite of the I Have a Dream speech.
• 32:35
  Speaker 2: It was a racial shakedown. It was a call for reparations.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: By the late 60s, King openly hated the United States.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: On April 4th, 1967, at Riverside Church in Manhattan, King
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: said this. His mandate started in Selma and Montgomery and
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: by the end of his career had creeped into the
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: rest of the world. of which he said he was
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: a citizen.
• 33:12
  Speaker 8: I speak as a citizen of.
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: The world, for the world as it stands aghast at.
• 33:17
  Speaker 9: The path we have taken.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: Even the media at the time were appalled by the speech.
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Life magazine called that speech a demagogic slander that sounded
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: like a script from Radio Hanoi. The Washington Post said
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: King has done a grave injury to those who are
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: his natural allies and an even graver injury to himself.
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: When Congress passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: in the mid-1960s, it whetted King's appetite for, of all things, revolution.
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: He told organizers at a conference, quote, We have been
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: in a reform movement, but after Selma and the Voting
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: Rights Bill, we moved into a new era, which must
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: be an era of revolution. In short, we have moved
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: into an era where we are called upon to raise
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: certain basic questions about the whole society. He then noted that, quote,
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: we must recognize that we can't solve our problems now
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power.
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: In his last essay, which was published posthumously by Playboy magazine,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: King said, quote, America is deeply racist and its democracy
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: is flawed both economically and socially. The black revolution is
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: much more than a struggle for the rights of Negroes.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: It is forcing America to face all its interrelated flaws. Racism, poverty, militarism,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and materialism. It is exposing evils that are rooted deeply
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: in the whole structure of our society. It reveals systemic
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: rather than superficial flaws and suggests that radical reconstruction of
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: society is the real issue to be faced. Would any
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: of this rhetoric be out of place during the woke-up
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: evils of 2020? Are those the words of an America-loving moderate?
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: Someone deserving of a federal holiday? No, not at all.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: Joseph H. Jackson realized that, and his critique of King
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: had been proven right. In July of 1968, the Chicago
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: City Council renamed South Parkway, the major thoroughfare fronting Olivet
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: Baptist Church, to Martin Luther King Drive as a tribute
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: to the recently assassinated leader. Jackson reacted with fury. He
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: reoriented the church's main entrance and official address to the
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: cross street at East 31st, ensuring that neither the church's stationery,
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: denominational materials, nor daily operations would carry King's name. The
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: new address remained until Jackson's death in 1990. That's what
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: one of the 20th century's most popular black leaders thought
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: about Martin Luther King Jr. There was a time when
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: owning a cell phone required strategy. Yet a limited number
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: of minutes, text messages didn't exist anymore. Then they did,
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: and there was a character limit, and you had to
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: pay for each text. And if you wanted to have
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: an actual conversation, you waited until nights and weekends because
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: apparently phone calls became cheaper after 9 o'clock. This was
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: considered advanced technology. Then came unlimited talk, unlimited text, unlimited data.
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: The phones got dramatically better. Somehow, the bills stayed dramatically expensive.
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: So here's the latest development in the history of wireless service.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: PureTalk is offering any plan for just $ 15 a month
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: for your first three months. Any plan. That includes their
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: unlimited high-speed data plans, even their top-tier $ 65 plan, $ 15
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: a month for your first three months. That's savings of
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: up to $ 150. And unlike the cell phone contracts of
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: ancient history, there's no service contract, no cancellation fee. Pure
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: Talk also has 100% U.S.-based customer service if you need
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: help making the switch. So we've gone from paying by
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: the minute and waiting until 9 o'clock to call somebody
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: to unlimited high-speed data for $ 15 a month. I'd call
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: that progress for a limited time. You can get any
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: Pure Talk plan, including unlimited data, for just $ 15 a
• 36:58
  Speaker 2: month for your first three months. Simply go to puretalk.com
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: slash Walsh to claim this offer. Again, that's puretalk.com slash
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: Walsh to start saving today. Most American students spend considerable
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: time learning about Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. If a black
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: person wanted to vote in Birmingham... You had to pay
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: a poll tax, demonstrate steady employment, own at least $ 300
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: in property, clear a vague moral assessment, and pass a
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: literacy test that included questions like, if a person charged
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: with treason denies his guilt, how many persons must testify
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: against him before he can be convicted? Local ordinances segregated
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: everything from restaurants to theaters to very famously drinking fountains.
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: Willie Mays was playing for the San Francisco Giants, but
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: in Birmingham, he wouldn't have been able to play against
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: white athletes. When the city was ordered to integrate the parks,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: it just closed them instead. Birmingham in 1963 was uniquely bad.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: It was, according to Martin Luther King Jr., the most
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Against this backdrop,
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: on October 20th, 1962, King announced that he was going
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: back to Alabama to make a people-to-people tour to recruit
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: a nonviolent army for a new front of the attack
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: on the system of segregation in the whole state. The
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: key word he used was nonviolent, a term King used
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: over and over again. His strategy of civil disobedience meant
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: breaking unjust laws in nonviolent ways. This, he believed, would
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: help convince moderate white people to join his cause. When
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: King got to town, Mayor-elect Albert Boutwell, moderate, quote, warned
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Birmingham Negro citizens against strangers whose sole purpose is to
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: stir strife and discord here and then who will leave
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: our citizens to pay the penalty of this discord. The
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: mayor-elect noted, quote, I do not need to tell the
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: people of Birmingham that this is an attempt to stage
• 39:04
  Speaker 2: a big show, to make headlines throughout the country. At first,
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: the protests didn't generate much news. The local paper, the
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: Birmingham News, reported that King's first march on City Hall, quote,
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: fizzled with only a handful of Negroes following him to
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: the municipal building. Over time, the crowds grew. With them,
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: so did the city's desire to maintain order. On Sunday,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: April 7th, a significantly bigger crowd marched on City Hall.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: from page two of the paper quote more racial demonstrations
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: were planned for birmingham today following a march on city
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: hall sunday in which police dogs were used to scatter
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: a crowd of 500 negros why were police dogs at
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: a non-violent protest According to the paper, quote, police set
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: up a roadblock two blocks away from a church where
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: the activists were organizing and told them they would be
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: arrested if they crossed the intersection. Demonstrators crossed the street
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: and were halted by police captain G.V. Evans, who told
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: them they were under arrest. While the demonstrators were being
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: loaded in the paddy wagons, police scattered the large crowd
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: of Negroes with police dogs. The dogs were used only
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: after the crowd of Negroes refused to obey officers' warnings
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: to move back. A 19-year-old Negro, Leroy Allen, turned to
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: fight a canine dog with a small piece of clay pipe.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: The dog downed the youth and the crowd started surging forward.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Another Negro pulled a knife and about 15 policemen, joined
• 40:29
  Speaker 2: by police dogs, moved in and forced the crowd back
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: on the block. Context here is important. Alabama at the
• 40:36
  Speaker 2: time was bursting at the seams. Just below that article
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: was another about someone taking a shot at the governor's mansion.
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: President Kennedy announced he was monitoring the situation in Birmingham
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: from his compound outside Palm Beach, Florida. Interestingly, Birmingham's chief
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: of police saw his role as maintaining order by keeping
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: angry white people away from angry black people. Quote, There
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: has been no violence or bloodshed. This has been true
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: because Birmingham police have not permitted white or Negro citizens
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: to come in conflict with each other. Good judgment has
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: been used by all of our citizens in cooperating with
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: police officers to Those who have refused to obey the
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: lawful commands of officers have been properly arrested. By April 10th,
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: the city had had enough. At their request, a state
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: court issued an order enjoining 136 Negroes and eight of
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: their leaders, including King, from further participation. King and the
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: Reverend Ralph Abernathy called the order unconstitutional and immediately called
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: for a mass march at noon on Good Friday. That day,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: April 12th, King and Abernathy attempted to march to City
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Hall and were arrested for contempt of court. Next to
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: the pictures of King's arrest in the paper was a
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: statement from local pastors and rabbis who complained, quote, We
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely, just
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: as we formerly pointed out that hatred and violence have
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: no sanction in our religion and political traditions. We also
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: point out that such actions as incite hatred and violence
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: are however technically peaceful those actions may be, have not
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: contributed to the resolution of our local problems. Referring to
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: the fact that the city had just adopted a new
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: governance model that had taken power away from hardcore segregationists,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: they said, quote, In Birmingham, recent public events have given
• 42:23
  Speaker 2: indication that we all have opportunity for a new constructive
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: and realistic approach to racial problems. The letter infuriated King,
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: who from his solitary confinement cell in the Birmingham City
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: Jail wrote, quote, I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride towards
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: freedom is not the white citizen's counselor or the Ku
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: Klux Klan-er, but the white moderate who is more devoted
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: to order than to justice. King noted, while Mayor-elect Boutwell
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: is a much more gentle person than Mr. Conner, they
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: are both segregationists. It is an historical fact that privileged
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. As time passed,
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: the protests kept coming, and so did the arrests. On
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: April 20th, King was released from prison. His first move
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: was to hold a press conference. He filed a class
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: action lawsuit in federal court to block the state courts
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: from preventing protests. Mayor Boutwell promised to give immediate and
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: determined attention to resolving the difficulties that face us. King
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: responded to the overtures by unleashing black children upon the city.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: May 2nd marked the start of the Children's Crusade, in
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: which over 1,000 black students skipped school to march downtown.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: On May 3rd, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy issued a
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: statement saying, The timing of the present demonstrations is open
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: to question. School children participating in street demonstrations is a
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: dangerous business. An injured, maimed, or dead child is a
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: price that none of us can afford to pay. Kennedy
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: noted that the new mayor had already made clear his
• 43:57
  Speaker 2: intention to resolve the difficulties facing the community. King didn't care.
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: kept the pressure on and the children out. On May 4th,
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: the paper reported, firemen reportedly hosed down a crowd of
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Negroes waving and throwing rocks, sticks, and bottles as racial
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: demonstrations flared in Birmingham. Police dogs were brought up, but
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: most of the time were held behind the firemen. They
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: chased away two Negroes armed with rocks who attempted to
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: climb on a car. Several firemen were struck in a
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: barrage of missiles, but none was injured seriously. Police wore
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: hard hats for protection. The Reverend James Bevels, a civil
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: rights leader himself, told the paper, I saw at least
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: 25 Negro men with guns. According to the article, one
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Negro teenager ran toward a group of policemen and struck
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: an officer in the chest with a rock. The policemen
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: chased the youth down and hacked him across the back
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: with his billy club and let him go. It was,
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: as we like to say now, a mostly peaceful protest. Now,
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: it's worth pointing out that spraying down protesters wasn't a
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: novel tactic. Cops had been using it against white people
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: to disperse riots, protests, and strikes for decades. In 1912,
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: officials in Lawrence, Massachusetts, used fire hoses on striking workers
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: at a textile mill. When communists led a rally against
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: a Ford motor company in 1932, the Dearborn, Michigan, fire
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: department sprayed them down with fire hoses. In 1937, striking
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: autoworkers in Flint, Michigan turned fire hoses on cops to
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: prevent them from stopping the strike. But let's go back
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: to Birmingham in 1963. If Mayor Boutwell was right that
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: outside agitators had come to town with the goal of
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: making headlines around the country, then they had accomplished their mission.
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: Photographs and video footage made the national news and horrified Northerners.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: On May 9th, the Birmingham News reported that, quote, at
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: least 18 officers and firemen, two newsmen and five Negroes
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: have suffered injuries requiring medical attention in racial demonstrations beginning
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: here on April 5th. The city's fire chief had been
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: struck by bricks and many more firemen were struck but
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: were protected from injury by their helmets and thick coats.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: The next day, on May 10th, protest leaders, city officials
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: and business representatives reached an agreement that included the desegregation
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: of lunch counters, fitting rooms, drinking fountains, and restrooms in
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: downtown stores, the hiring of black workers, the release of
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: jailed protesters, and the formation of a biracial committee for
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: further talks. The local paper reported that some 300 Negro
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: demonstrators were still in custody and were being released as
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: rapidly as bonds could be made as a racial truce
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: eased tensions in Birmingham Saturday. The reduced tensions lasted just
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: one day. On May 11, 1963, multiple explosions rocked Birmingham,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: targeting the hotel where King was staying as well as
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: his brother's home. The police used tear gas to disperse
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: crowds of black and white people. The mayor declared that
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: this city will not tolerate violence, especially the dastardly hit-and-run
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: bombers who wreak vengeance without regard for life or property.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: It wasn't enough. Race riots broke out immediately. According to
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: the Birmingham News, quote, a white woman, Mrs. Dora Hanks,
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: was taken to University Hospital after being hurt when a
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: rock was thrown through the windshield of a car in
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: which she was riding. A white taxi cab driver was
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: reportedly stabbed. Tires were slashed. Police were attacked. Within a day,
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: 28 blocks were sealed off by law enforcement after rioting, arson,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: and hand-to-hand fighting by Negroes and police. President Kennedy sent
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: federal troops to bases near Birmingham and drafted an executive
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: order to federalize the Alabama National Guard. The point of
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: going over the details of King's Birmingham campaign is to
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: point out that the civil rights movement was not peaceful.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: King constantly paid rhetorical tribute to the idea of nonviolent protest.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: This made King more moderate than other civil rights leaders,
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: some of whom were openly militant. The black power activist H.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Rapp Brown told his supporters that violence is necessary. Violence
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: is a part of America's culture. It is as American
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: as cherry pie. He died last year while serving a
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: life sentence for the murder of a sheriff's deputy. Part
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: of King's mainstream appeal is that he preached nonviolence, but
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: as the Birmingham campaign shows, even nonviolent protests led to
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: the hospitalization of police officers. As Christopher Caldwell notes in
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: The Age of Entitlement, quote, the riots were the civil
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: rights movement. Not the whole of it, certainly, but an
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: important element of it. Over time, a new cycle was born.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Whether it was justified or not, when police killed a
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: black person, the media would cover the story. Race grifters
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: would come to town and cry racism. And the black
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: population would rise up and then they'd burn their neighborhood down.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: Usually the worst violence happened after civil rights leaders had
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: major victories. Two weeks after the Civil Rights Act was
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: signed into law, a New York City policeman shot and
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: killed a black teenager named James Powell. The cops said
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: Powell attacked the police officer with a knife. Powell's friends
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: said that he was attending a peaceful protest. Body cameras
• 49:17
  Speaker 2: didn't exist back then, so for six years, nights, Harlem burned.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: Hundreds were hospitalized. Then riots broke out in Rochester and
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: Jersey City. And in an August 1964 survey, 87% of
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: respondents said they hurt the Negro cause. Now, they were wrong,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: of course. In every case, violence led to major concessions
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: to the demands of the rioters. What started as riots
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: in Watts in 1965 and Detroit in 1967 and eventually
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: became a full-fledged rebellion by 1992 in Los Angeles when
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: police officers were filmed severely beating Rodney King, a career
• 49:55
  Speaker 2: criminal who was high and drunk, a regular PCP user,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: and had led police on a 110-mile-per-hour high-speed chase. When
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: riots broke out, King said this. Can we all get along?
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: Can we get along? By the turn of the century,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: it seemed like the answer might finally be yes. But
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: when America elected a black president in 2008, the riots
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: came back. In 2014, Ferguson, Missouri burned down after a
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: police officer shot gentle giant Michael Brown when he attempted
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: to pull the officer's gun. In 2015, Freddie Gray died
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: in police custody.
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: We also gave those who wished to destroy space to
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: do that as well.
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: Half the officers who were charged were black. The riots
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: finally reached a fever pitch, of course, after the death
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: of George Floyd in 2020. Even MLK, the supposed champion
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: of nonviolent protests, who looked at Gandhi as a model,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: had this to say about riots to CBS's Mike Wallace
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: in 1966. I think we've.
• 50:55
  Speaker 5: Got to see that a riot is the language of
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: the unheard. And what is it that America has failed
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: to hear? It is fair to hear that the economic
• 51:07
  Speaker 5: plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last
• 51:11
  Speaker 5: few years.
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: In January 1967, when asked if Negroes would be better
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: off if they would take advantage of the opportunities that
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: have been made available rather than spending so much time protesting,
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: 83% of respondents said they'd probably or definitely agree. But
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: to many black Americans, those opportunities just were not good enough.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: If white people did not deliver everything they wanted, the
• 51:35
  Speaker 2: violence would come back. Just ask Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: I hope that we can avoid riots, but that we
• 51:43
  Speaker 5: will be as militant and as determined next summer and
• 51:46
  Speaker 5: through the winter as we have been this summer. And
• 51:51
  Speaker 5: I think the answer about how long it will take
• 51:53
  Speaker 5: will depend on the federal government, on the city halls
• 51:56
  Speaker 5: of our various cities, and on white America to a
• 52:00
  Speaker 5: large extent.
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: The version of Martin Luther King Jr. most kids are
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: taught about is a man who believed that making the
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: laws colorblind would save the soul of America. It's conservatives
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: who generally promote this myth. They love selectively quoting from
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: his I Have a Dream speech.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: He so eloquently spoke of his dream. He spoke of
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: a dream that one day the sons of slaves and
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: the sons of slave owners might sit down at.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: The table of brotherhood. But King did not believe in
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: colorblindness at all. In his I Have a Dream speech,
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: King used for the first time a term familiar to
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: audiences of today, people of color. This was one of
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: the first signs that a movement which had begun in
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: the 1950s to end injustices against black Americans would, by
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: the turn of the 21st century, evolve into something radically different.
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: As Christopher Caldwell notes in his book, The Age of Entitlement,
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: This was a very significant change. Quote, people of color
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: was a harbinger of what later came to be called intersectionality,
• 53:10
  Speaker 2: a philosophical sounding term of the political strategy of bundling
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: different minorities into a coalition. It was a way to
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: bundle up all the various non-white groups into one package
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: to promote a new narrative of victimhood and oppression. It
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: was all on one. King championed this vision of white
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: men versus everyone else as early as 1963 when in
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: his letter from Birmingham City Jail, he described, quote, Black
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: brothers of Africa and his brown and yellow brothers of Asia,
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: South America, and the Caribbean. The United States Negro is
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: moving with a sense of great urgency toward the promised
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: land of racial justice. The yellow brothers of Asia and
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: South America had nothing to do with the Jim Crow South.
• 53:54
  Speaker 2: And yet here was King writing from a jail cell
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: in central Alabama, sowing the seeds for a new coalition
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: where the only thing the members had in common was
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: that they were not white. Most Americans at the time
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: didn't pick up on this and probably wouldn't have believed
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: it if you built a time machine to go back
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: and tell them what ended up happening. When King wrote
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: that letter, the Hart-Celler law that radically transformed America's demographics
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: hadn't passed yet. America was a 90% white country. The
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: people in it didn't realize that by 2024, white children
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: would be a minority among their multiracial peers. The extent
• 54:30
  Speaker 2: that civil rights policy became the law of the land,
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: it was a first primarily because of unelected judges who
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: ruled by decree. The first major case is also one
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: of the most famous, of course, Brown versus Board of Education.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: The question in this case was whether the policy of
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: separate but equal schools for black and white students was constitutional.
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: The unanimous court found that it was not, and ordered
• 54:54
  Speaker 2: the desegregation of every school in the nation. It was
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: a profound move at the time. Regardless of what you
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: think of the outcome, and surely most people today oppose
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: legally segregated schools, the court's decision was not based in logic. Instead,
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: the justices relied on, quote, qualities of which are incapable
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: of objective measurement and intangible considerations, which amount to a
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: feeling of inferiority among black students' status in the community.
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: To support these intangible considerations, the court based its opinion
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: not on precedent or the text of the Constitution, which
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: are tangible, but on a pseudoscientific psychological study that found
• 55:33
  Speaker 2: that black children preferred white dolls. The study was later disproven.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: It was a period of extreme decadence and radical judicial activism.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Before John F. Kennedy's assassination in November 1963, legislative progress
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: on major civil rights reforms was slow. Kennedy overwhelmingly won
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: the black vote in the 1960 election, but he was
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: hesitant to burn political capital on civil rights legislation. But
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: a wave of protests in 1963, plus pressure from civil
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: rights activists and union leaders, forced his hand.
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is
• 56:09
  Speaker 4: as old as the scriptures and it is clear as
• 56:12
  Speaker 4: the American Constitution. The heart of the question is whether
• 56:16
  Speaker 4: all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities.
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: When Kennedy gave that speech, 49% of Americans approved of
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: a new civil rights law that would promote racial equality
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: in public places, compared to 42% who disapproved and 9%
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: who had no opinion, according to Gallup.
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: Every American who enjoyed the privileges of being American without
• 56:38
  Speaker 4: regard to his race.
• 56:39
  Speaker 2: He was proposing what would become the most significant piece
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: of civil rights legislation in the period, the Civil Rights
• 56:45
  Speaker 2: Act of 1964. The law's central feature was the forced
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: integration of public spaces, but it also banned unequal voter
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: registration requirements, segregation in schools, and employment discrimination. Similar proposals
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: had languished in committee for years. The catalyst for its
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: passage was Kennedy's assassination, which his successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson,
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: used as a pretense to hammer the bill through Congress.
• 57:10
  Speaker 9: A memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President
• 57:16
  Speaker 9: Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the Civil
• 57:22
  Speaker 9: Rights Bill for which he fought so long.
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: At the time, most Americans believed the country was moving
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: too fast. Christopher Caldwell notes that in August 1963... the
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: month of the March on Washington, when Kennedy was still alive,
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: 50% of Americans said the country was moving too fast
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: on integration versus 10% who said not fast enough, a
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: ratio of 5 to 1. That ratio fell 2 to 1,
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: 30 to 15% in January during the debate on the
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act. But in October, on the eve of election,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: it was back over 3 to 1, 57% to 18%.
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: The law was sold to voters as something that would
• 58:01
  Speaker 2: punish racist whites in the South. In fact... reflected by
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: how Congress voted on it. More than 90% of Northern
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: members of Congress voted yes, and more than 90% of
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: Southern members voted no. Riding the coattails of Kennedy's assassination,
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: and thanks to Johnson's talent for intimidating members of Congress,
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: it passed overwhelmingly.
• 58:20
  Speaker 7: I'm about to sign into law the Civil Rights Act
• 58:24
  Speaker 7: of 1964.
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: To ensure the bill had popular support, its sponsors made
• 58:29
  Speaker 2: bold promises about what it would and would not do.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: Almost everything they said ended up not being true. When
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: opponents claimed the law would lead to racial quotas and
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: affirmative action, the bill's manager, Senator Hubert Humphrey, claimed, quote,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: I will eat my hat if anyone can find language
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: which provides that an employer will have to hire on
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: the basis of percentage or quota related to color, race, religion,
• 58:52
  Speaker 2: or national origin. Quotas at the time were extremely unpopular.
• 58:56
  Speaker 2: Even the NAACP opposed them. And yet, almost immediately after
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: the law passed, lawyers and government bureaucrats started instituting systems
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: of racial quotas. I wonder if Humphrey likes his hat
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: rare or well done. When Florida's Democratic Senator George Smathers
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: expressed concern that the bill might lead to busing, Pennsylvania
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Republican Hugh Scott responded, saying, quote, Does the senator not
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: agree that there is nothing whatever in the bill which
• 59:23
  Speaker 2: relates to the transportation of schoolchildren by bus from one
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: district to another? I find nothing in the bill which
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: pertains to any such provision. Humphrey claimed if the bill
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: were to compel it, busing, it would be a violation
• 59:37
  Speaker 2: of the Constitution because it would be handling the matter
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: on the basis of race and we would be transporting
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: children because of race. New York Senator Jacob Javits said
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: anyone who used the bill to promote busing, quote, would
• 59:50
  Speaker 2: be making a fool of himself. And yet, two years
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: after the law was enacted, it was used as the
• 59:55
  Speaker 2: legal basis to implement nationwide busing. Were the politicians promoting
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 2: the bill intentionally lying? Or did they not know what
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: they were doing? Well, it's impossible to know. But we
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 2: do know that their sales pitch worked. One Gallup poll
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: from October 1964 found that voters supported it 59% to 31%,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: nearly a two to one margin. Notably, after the law
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: was enacted, 40% of Northerners either disapproved or were undecided
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 2: on the law. But bizarrely, they also didn't want it enforced.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Three months after it was signed into law, Gallup asked
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Americans if the government should enforce the law. The results
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: are shocking. 62% of Americans wanted gradual enforcement of the
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: law versus 23% who wanted it to be strictly enforced.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: As Christopher Caldwell puts it, fewer than a quarter of
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: Americans actually did want the law to be enforced. Those
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: findings were replicated by other pollsters, including one that found
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: only 19% of Americans wanted vigorous enforcement of the law.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: By May of 1965, Gallup found that 45% of Americans
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: believed that the federal government was moving too fast on
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: integration compared to 14% who said it wasn't fast enough,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: roughly the same as it was earlier. Public skepticism and
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: the desire to delay enforcement made no difference. Almost immediately
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: after passage, it became clear that the Civil Rights Act
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: was a major coup for lawyers and bureaucrats. Turns out
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: the law wasn't colorblind at all, nor was it primarily
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: directed at segregationists in the South. Exactly one year after
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: he signed the Civil Rights Act into law, Lyndon Johnson
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: announced that it wasn't enough.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 7: This is the next and the more profound stage of
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 7: the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 7: but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity, but human ability.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 7: Not just equality as a right and a theory, but
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 7: equality as a fact and equality as a result.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: In 1965, Johnson signed Executive Order 11246, which ordered government
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: contractors with more than $ 10, 000 in business to set up
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: affirmative action programs, an order that wasn't rescinded until 60
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: years later when President Trump eliminated it at the start
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: of his second term. The actual text of the Civil
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 2: Rights Act includes things that were radical then, but are
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: familiar now. Section 706 notes that if the courts find
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: that a business is, quote, intentionally engaging in an unlawful
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 2: employment practice, then it could order such an affirmative action
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: as may be appropriate. Practically speaking, that meant the courts
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: now had a role to play in investigating the employment
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 2: practices of almost every business in the country. This represented
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: the birth of the modern HR department. By 1971, a
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: unanimous Supreme Court completely reinterpreted Title VII of the Civil
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Rights Act by banning race-neutral, colorblind aptitude tests and instituting
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: a new framework. From then on, the courts would address
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: systemic barriers that resulted in disparate outcomes, like how requiring
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 2: job applicants to have a high school diploma made it
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 2: so fewer blacks got hired. The brief period of colorblind
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: civil rights was over, Like Johnson himself, the court had
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: shifted from looking at fairness to looking at outcomes. Going forward,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: the Civil Rights Act banned not only overt discrimination, but
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: also practices that are fair in form, but discriminatory in operation.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: In the words of Christopher Caldwell, quote, Just half a
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: decade into the Civil Rights Revolution, America had something that
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: it had never had at the federal level, something the
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: overwhelming majority of its citizens would never have approved, an
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 2: explicit system of racial preference. It was a total and
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: complete transfer of power from the old constitutional system, which
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: was based on the participation of voters, to a new system,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: which was based on an emerging group of diversity activists, lawyers,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: and media figures. Governance, according to Caldwell, was now based
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: on a model of executive orders, litigation, and court redress.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: In fact, civil rights law is not law in any
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: sense of the word. Law must be universal and enforced,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: and in America, passed by elected representatives. The civil rights
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: regime consists of layers of agency rules, administrative guidelines, interpretive memos,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: judicial statutory construction, and cryptic judicial doctrines. And all of
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: these are subjected to special interests that evade the democratic process.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: The new system was directly at odds with the old constitution,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: which allowed property owners to assert their rights and guaranteed,
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: among other First Amendment rights, a freedom of association. Those
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 2: rights were incompatible with the emerging order. If the government
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: could force a hotel owner in the South to have
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: black customers, then surely it could also force a Christian
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 2: bakery owner in Colorado to make a cake for a
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: gay wedding. And over time, that's exactly what happened. The
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: Civil Rights Act, which was supposed to be a remedy
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: for Jim Crow laws in the South, ended up becoming
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: a new legal framework to advance the rights of Asians, Hispanics, homosexuals, women,
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: transgender people, the elderly, and literally every single group except
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 2: white heterosexual men. As Caldwell put it, quote, if the
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: spirit of the law was to humiliate Southern bigots, then
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: the letter of the law put the entire country, all
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: its institutions, under the threat of lawsuits and prosecutions for discrimination.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Americans may not have realized it at the time, but
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: their country had changed dramatically. The early changes had massive
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: political implications. In the 1966 midterm elections, Republicans, seizing upon
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 2: growing skepticism of the Civil Rights Act and other major
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: liberal reforms of the 1960s, picked up 47 seats in
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: the House of Representatives, three Senate seats, including one in Tennessee,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: and eight governorships, including in Arkansas and Florida. Liberal Democrats
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: were totally routed. Political upstarts rode a wave of discontent
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: in response to the civil rights law. California elected a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: fervent opponent of the Civil Rights Act who said, quote,
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 2: If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: in selling or renting his house, it is his right
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: to do so. His name was Ronald Reagan, and he
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: won Los Angeles County by a 14-point margin because his
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: message appealed to white working-class voters. In 1972, while running
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: a campaign focused on law and order and a Southern strategy,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: Richard Nixon won a landslide 49-state victory. Twelve years later,
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: Ronald Reagan, the supposedly exiled arch-conservative governor of California, did
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: it again. But both men failed to roll back or
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: even limit the excesses of what had happened to the
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: country in the 1960s. No matter what American voters did,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: no matter who they elected, nothing seemed to change. There
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 2: was no democratic way to roll back the new regime
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: of civil rights. The legal and bureaucratic apparatus kept expanding
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 2: regardless of how they voted. The era of democratic self-determination
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: was over. The old Constitution had been replaced with a
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: new one. If you enjoyed this episode, you won't want
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: to miss its sequel streaming now on Daily Wire Plus,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 2: The Real History of the Civil Rights Movement Part 2,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: The Looting of America. Watch it now, available only on
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 2: Daily Wire Plus.