That live all over the country. And we feel that is significant we continue to do the programming we already have scheduled. As we move through this historic time. Meant to help us focus on the movement for black lives and if you want to contribute in 1960 through 2015 we have the editor here with a lifelong collaborator and having some technical difficulties we will get to some q a. We will just enjoy some time with michael and get him on the line as well. The editor of multiple books so i just want to bring you one. And when he starts talking he will take up the screen. Can you hear me okay . That is a chokehold for me for trying to find organically is much as we can living in atlanta for several years i love the city quite a bit. A person on the screen but under speaker versus gallery view and lets talk about the george floyd protest is timely to say the least. And doctor king during this period. This must be they yearly 1970s so maybe then we can go to those. Now from pages 56 to 57 not the end of page 56 violences black children going to school for 12 years violences having black people and then to help urban people with the economy and i love this phrase socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. But only 77 per year but to spend 78 billion and with spiro agnew and the list goes on. So that we dont restricted and in a very broad term because obviously putting the book together you could not have known and we didnt know although since White Supremacy and Racial Discrimination and then to say we need you to go resonate today i meant it and then that supremacy and with that individual in dignity or the job and education rooted deeply in the logic of market systems to the culturally defined with the different units of labor. And one of the last pieces he gave our nation that continued year after year and it is approaching spiritual death. And it is one of my favorites but. A story and like to answer questions like this now but what do you think about the george floyd protest going on now . I think he would have been delighted. At the violence and lawlessness because it detracted from the protest. Black lives matter it mattered while he was alive and he was very admiring of that movement and he saw himself and then in a moment and it is a trifecta because we have the pandemic and Police Killings and here we are. And then to allow a moment and that would be some significant change. And the inherent work of everything. But then not to be opposed does that make sense to you . There were two views and one was a tactic and it was is a philosophy the former and not the latter and those who were engaged in selfdefense back then including the naacp and the leader and North Carolina and now we know , there is something at the time but now we know how many people really were armed during the Civil Rights Movement of the sixties. And to have some experiences during the movement the south it was cultural and it was protective. And then to talk about and if there was a shoot out somewhere. And with the Nonviolent Movement and the strength. I dont want to put too much into it as a friend of mine but but in montgomery but was a pacifist. But then carried a gun . No. In the black panther guys on the west coast he came to visit and then to drive them around and decided he should back down. I dont know if his brother james found the gun but somewhere there was a gun. [laughter]. I think it is opposed to the war in vietnam and that was the war that was happening then and as time went on, you realize he probably didnt qualify in the proper sense of the term. When he was called before the draft board and they called his name and the person said i know all about you and then he says youll never get this it was some sort of punishment. [laughter] they classified him as mentally unfit to. Morally unfit. Host said he didnt serve in the vietnam war or the military at all and the rest of his life [inaudible] maybe we can go back to the beginning of. Let me state where we are right now and then i will go back to the beginning. I think that he would be appalled. The republican field had been filled before julian died, so we watched that and there were as you will recall many people 17 or 18 or so when they started and like most people, he didnt take him seriously and didnt think he was a serious option as the partys nominee. So from day number one he would have been appalled. When trump was first elected he said with wha what would he thid what would he say and i said at the beginning he would say dont agonize, organize. He would have been geared towards making sure he was a one term president , but i dont think any of us, well i cant speak for him or even the rest of us that i couldnt imagine that it would be this appalling. Its like he out does himself on a daily basis. And the speech he was giving for the last three or four years had in mind about the other party being shameless and they still are its true then and its true now. In the back pocket of either party they should have independent politics and it would be a mistake to lose leverage. I found it really interesting when he initially ran for office he wasnt sure which party to register with. Very early in his career with nixons southern strategy, you saw where the party was going and how it wanted to get their. So theres never really been an option and he spoke about this he would have both parties vying for the vote and then more to show for it but that hasnt been the case in the last at least 50 years. Host youll have to forgive me everybody for wearing at tonight. He had this two party system and folks could determine which party at least in the 60s or 70s that pam is talking about a. I know he agonized over that of course and in a speech he said there was rage following a shooting but nobody transferred that were transitioned or morphed into an organization that had policy goals so it seems to me that it was about moving the politics. Can you comment on that . That is a big subject of debate. They discussed it endlessly as they do most things and there was a lot of discussion and argument because by some he had been coopted not turning his back on the movement and what can you accomplish in elected politics so the decision was made obviously that it was a good idea and people ran his campaign and they were pretty strategic about how they ran and how they handled his campaign so the whole idea of running for office is that they were going to accomplish something and have an agenda. His First Campaign was what is so they say the most workable way to get the votes and that is to knock on peoples doors and introduced herself and find out what the people were thinking and what they were not a so that is what he did and that is how he approached the politics and the Political Office is full political career. Host its interesting, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee reported into the little bit that when running, as she said he would show up and people were tagging along with him [inaudible] if everything worked out okay they would have a barbecue and invite the neighbor and they would say whats wrong with politics involved would you like to see accomplished and they would take that and put it into a platform to so it was a neighborhood platform which was a beautiful way to run rather than to bring your platform to the neighborhood coming to meet the neighborhood and to develop their. So, lets go back to the beginning. Could you discuss some of the Family History and tie it to why he became a civil rights activist . You can talk us through maybe a little bit of his Family History. Before you Start Talking in between talking and listening if you could view to your microphone and when youre done speaking because they are getting a lot of feedback on the line. Host okay, sure. Did you get my question . Yes, yes. This family on both sides was educated in so education was a scene as the way to a future, the way to help and influence the race. His grandfather was a slave born in 1963 and a key along the way he was born in kentucky and that is where the college is. At some point he learned about it and always told the story of his grandfathers name was james, the original james bond, took his tuition and walked across kentucky to the college and the college with him and. It took him many years to graduate but when he did come he gave the valedictory address and went on to get a theology degr degree. So i always used to say that if you didnt have a doctorate that were considered undereducated. , so they were all educated on his fathers side. His father himself a became graduated from college when he was like 16, got a doctorate at the university of chicago, became a noted educator and vintage research but is still considered groundbreaking on education. His name closebrace education in alabama and his mothers side was almost as educated, and she herself was a graduate of [inaudible] who at the age of 52 got a degree in Library Science and then worked as a librarian until she was 92 and debated whether or not she would retire then and decided that she would. So, you know, it was a very distinguished family and his father became president at lincoln university, lincoln, princeton, his father was the first black president there because surely there were the white people that didnt school didnt think there were any blacks were good enough to preside over it even though it was an allblack student body. So you can imagine the politics of that. He wasnt a withering persona and is i know that there were difficulties. But everybody came from anyone who was anyone including Albert Einstein as you could imagine was invited to speak at the College Campus at the United States and he wanted, he made a point of wanting to go and get go so she met him while. Howard einstein said dont authorize anything that isnt already written out. He lived by this worked his whole life. It was a fabulously enriched environment and then the schools for segregated and a there were three kids and they sent all of them to private school and he went to com, as you mentioned, George School in pennsylvania and that was a Quaker School where he was the only, there was one other black students who was the son of the cook at the school so he spoke very fondly of George School hallways and had many friends. Buthat wasnt easy for him eithr and theyre working is like the school told him not to wear anything that said George School into town because they didnt want the townspeople to know they had a black student. But it was a wonderful tradition for which he was always grateful and then of course moorhouse, you know what they say about them. You can tell in moorhouse man that you cant tell them much. [laughter] host so the interest and nonviolence of George School in speaking truth to power these are basic quaker principles and informed him throughout the rest of his life [inaudible] guest because his father left a Big University and got a job as dean at Atlanta University and that coincided with his graduation from high school, so the family moved to a and hes all a school they thought was moorhouse, which i think was spelled differently, he thought it was a wonderful looking campus and he wanted to go to school there so thats how he got there. And of course he could college when he was one semester short of graduation so you can imagine how they received that highly valued education and also his father insurer would consider himself a brace man so they were clearly supportive of the Civil Rights Movement and they were not going to tell him you couldnt be a part of it. They were both so im sure applaud. Host i remember reading some concerns he had about going south in 1957 if memory serves me correctly. And a 14yearold from chicago and mississippi and his mother [inaudible] and magazines and other National Publications picked it up and he must have seen the photo in front of the story. He expressed and trepidation about going into town. He wrote Something Like that is whaif thatis what they did to e, what wont they do to meet him as he was concerned that comfortable at home as moorhouse and according to a passage, city lights books just this year he describes his First Encounter and movement into the Civil Rights Movement. I am on page two and it begins this way. These wer are his words. It begins for me as it did for many more february 41960. Sitting in a cafe near my College Campus in atlanta, a place students went between board instead of classes. A student named lonnie king who played an important one of his life at this point, approached me and held up the days atlanta daily black newspaper. The headline read greensboro students set in for third day. The story told in detail how black College Students from North CarolinaUniversity Greensboro had for the third day in a row Entry Department store and asked for service at the wyoming lunch counter in the described their determination and returning the following day and as many days as it took they were not served and lonnie king said have you seen this. Yes, i have, i replied. What do you think about it . I think its great. It ought to have been here. Im sure it will happen here, i responded. Someone here will do it. Then to me as it came to others in the early days in 1960s, and invitation, a command. Why dont we make it happen here. He and i and joe talked to students inviting them to discuss the greensboro event and had duplicated ihave it duplicaa the Atlanta Student Movement had begun. So to the point la and didnt really have an organized Student Movement and this was the 1960s, five years after the montgomery bus boycott which is pretty telling especially in atlanta, but there he was right at the very beginning of the movement and he stayed with the movement until it collapsed. Did he talk a lot or very much about being involved in the Atlanta Student Movement clicks youve got to amuse yourself, im sorry. This is the downfall of having to me what and un mute. We cant hear you yet. There you go. Guest as th guest as the years went on and reunions were held, then of course you reminisce about all those days including the immediate preceding days to a s. Naacp. At the cafe and they all. It wasnt funny at the time i think he was the first arrest it always fills you with a bit of trepidation. But sncc came right after that because it was easter weekend. Host can you talk about that in his work. She understood and that it was important that students have their own organization and not become a part of the likely organization. She was a bit subversive because she worked for doctor king and made it clear that they needed to students of their own and no topdown leadership so they really bears the markings of ella baker and its approach to everything. So its at that meeting they were the temporary Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee because nobody knew how this was going to play out. And julian became the Communications Director which meant that his primary responsibility was to get the word out to the rest of the world no events have occurred that he wasnt asked especially not true because that is not his job that he be back in atlanta and be communicating with the press and at the time several of them were quite allies in the fight and made a huge difference in terms of how information got out into the way people reacted to that information. The. They would identify with the local activists from another part of the country and they would write a story for the newspaper. Com. They spread the word nationally about a snack but in a focused way. There was 82 of the voting district. So what happens after he gets elected, can you walk us through that story . Guest yes, while after the election, sncc issued a statement. There was a protest in tuskegee alabama and a sncc person named sam young who was from tuskegee and had served in the navy where he had lost a kidney and because of his having only one technique he had to go to the bathroom more than often and use the bathroom at a white only bathroom at it devastation in tuskegee and the owner shot him in the back and killed him. There was already antiwar sentiment bubbling, and this is early, this is way before king gave his speech in new york. So they issued a statement that was pretty strong about how to the United States government did and traddidnt trade its class s very well here and then expect them to die on the battlefield and so that was the extreme that the legislatures used to devote love to see him so there is a picture of him sitting while everyone else is standing taking the oath. Its a very, very pathetic picture and so there was a special election and he won that and by this time he had sued and actually lost a the suit and the court of appeals. The attorney general under carter voted as a part of the two judge majority said three judges handled the two to one vote not to see him and the rights had been violated for the rights of his constituents and so it went to the supreme court. The. Is that all youve got to. The. George smith was the speaker than they were on the floor and said mr. Speaker [inaudible] the speaker ordered the doorkeeper to put the white section of the gallery and the second location was one day when i went with a [inaudible] he was julians mentor. Outside the door of the chamber a white fellow came out and said i dont know if he is a legislator or not but i am the meanest and meriwether county. He pulled back and just sort of brushed off his chest. The two incidents really put the fear of god in me.