Im yuval levin. Im a scholar here at the American Enterprise institute, and it is my great honor and pleasure to welcome all of you to aei for this special forum to mark the 60th anniversary of the march on washington. The march took place on august 28th of 1963, so were a little early marking the anniversary and we decide it to be a little early so that we could bring together people who will otherwise be scattered across a variety of events and celebrations this month. And as a result, we really do have an extraordinary lineup of sessions today looking at the march and its legacy and the broader Civil Rights Movement from a variety of angles, thinking about what it has to say to us now in ways that are both timeless and timely. Were going to hear from scholars, from journalists, from policy thinkers, from religious leaders. Some of them are colleagues here at aei, including our president , robert doar, who has a lifelong connection to the Civil Rights Movement and conceived of this event. And some are guests who have come to mark the occasion by thinking with us about the effort to live out the true meaning of the american creed and how it was transformed by the march on washington and how its going now in contemporary america. Were honored to have these guests with us and to have all of you with us. I is deeply committed to articulating and interpreting and applying and living out that american creed. And this occasion is a wonderful opportunity to do just that. Were going to start this morning by considering the march itself as a stoical event, as a turning point in the history of the Civil Rights Movement and in the history of our country. And to do that with us, weve got one of those honored guests truly ideal person to start with, taylor branch, the historian and author whose three volume history of the Civil Rights Era is just an unmatched accomplishment on this front. The first book in that trilogy, parting the waters america and the king years, 1954 to 63, was published in 1988, won the Pulitzer Prize that year. It won many other awards and honors along the way. And with the second and third volumes in the trilogy, pillar of fire and a canaans edge, the series is really one just about every imaginable award for a history book. It represents an extraordinary 24 Year Research and writing effort that i think of as just a great gift to our country. Taylor branch will offer us the opening keynote this morning, setting the scene, and then he and i will talk for a bit. Hell take questions from all of you in this room before we move on to our second session on the legacy of the march. And so with no further ado, taylor branch, the floor is yours. Thank you, dr. Levin. Im im excited to be here. I couldnt say no to robert doar. I was devoted to his father and i did many interviews with him in the course of of writing that trilogy all those decades ago. And so im happy to be here with you today. Historians arent usually associated with enterprise of of at least often. But id like to tell you that. I grew up in a dry cleaning family. I thought my dad was a dry cleaner. And in the mid the early 1950s, he had a an mba from the university of chicago, where he was the only honors mba graduate with schultz, who became secretary of labor. And he told me that the dry cleaning industry was heavily concentrated in the 1920s. It was there were a few Mega Companies that owned the dry cleaning plants and in a fledgling industry, and that in the course of the 20th century, until he got in it, he said much to his dismay, it got decentralized. Its one of the few industries in American History that has grown more decentralized through the course of history until entrepreneurs like my dad were displaced by primarily asian entrepreneurs in the modern dry cleaning industry. So i claim a real devotion to private enterprise, because my first job when i was five was putting the trouser guards on hangers that came in a box of 500, and you had to put the trouser guard on there. And i worked in that dry cleaning plant every summer and many weekends off for my entire childhood in atlanta, georgia. So i have some enterprise. Before i got before the power of the Civil Rights Movement changed, the direction of my lifes interest against my will on merely because it was so tenacious and it raised such deep questions throughout my formative years. I was in the first grade, the year of the brown decision, and i finished college in the spring that dr. King and Robert Kennedy were were killed. So all in between all the issues of race, all going as deep as the constitution and as deep as the scriptures and as as dr. King used to put it on. Were in my face and eventually change the direction of my i dropped my premed courses in my sophomore year at chapel hill in 1966. Im here to talk to you about the march on washington. Were about to were coming on the 60th anniversary of a major event. The first thing i would like to say to you is that the march on washington like race itself is largely a subliminal phenomenon. We dont really deal with and analyze. We are not inclined to bring to the surface the forces that govern our Racial Attitudes in the United States. The march on washington occurred because of what happened in birmingham in may of 1963. What happened in birmingham in may 1963 is not acknowledged or studied very often, quite frankly, because its too embarrassed to acknowledge the fact that the emotional core of the United States resisted in doing anything about racial segregation in the United States until all the world saw photographs of small children being attacked by dogs and fire hoses. On may 2nd, 1963. The backdrop of that is also not studied, which is that dr. King, eight years after the brown decision and three years after going to jail everywhere, from everywhere he went. But three times in albany, georgia, had made no real headway, no real purchase on changing formal segregation laws in the Southern States of our country. And he feared greatly that the organized resistance to the Civil Rights Movement was gaining ground historically. And that and that the movement was losing its window to accomplish anything lasting in American History. And so he designed and kept secret from his father and most other people because he knew they would try to stop it a Great Movement to try to confront the heart of the beast. Segregation in birmingham, alabama, one of the most segregated cities in america. And they train for four or five months. James lawson, who is still with us, as far as i know, hes still here. Trained, nonviolent volunteers for four months in birmingham. And in april, they started daily marches down into the Downtown Business district to seek service, and they were instantly arrested and instead of building, which was the design and the core of the stories about what happened in the jail and what happened to the adult volunteers, no matter how strong their training was, meant that within. Two and a half weeks they couldnt find any more adult volunteers, and they were on the verge of of surrendering and leaving birmingham with dr. Kings head tail between his legs on the Kennedy Administration actually offered him Foundation Money if he would do that, to switch to Voter Registration instead of confrontations with segregation in in birmingham and he had a real dilemma. But some of his staff principally james bevel and his wife, diane nash, came and said, dr. King, before we surrender, i know we cant get any more volunteers and a movement cant move without soldiers. We want you to know that our numbers in the nightly teenage, the meetings that occur after the nightly meetings, mass meetings have been growing. We have more and more teenagers who are willing to do something about it. Not only that, we have people, kids younger than teenagers who who say this affects their future. And the rumor that dr. King might be considering lowering the age for demonstrators in birmingham seeped out into black birmingham and caused a vile revolt among black parents who came to him and said, you came to birmingham promising that you were going to bring liberty and freedom here in place of segregation. And now, months later, youve left our jails full of people and horrible stories about what goes on in both countries jails. You have brought no freedom. Theres been violence in the street. Many people have been fired. Youre on the verge of losing. And now you want to leave our children with criminal records and obliterate any chance that they might have. As black people in the United States of having a respectable life. How dare you . And the. And james bevel and diane nash got right up in their face and said, yes, these children are going to do the take these risks because you didnt do what you should have done to stop this. You didnt take any risks. And now they have to do it for you. And so dr. King allowed bevel and nash to train people in the basement of the 16th street baptist church, the same church that was bombed a few months later, primarily for this reason. Its where the marches started to go downtown. It was just a few blocks in the basement on may second, instead of 12 straggling adults out came 600 teenagers to the horror of the black parents who were across the street in kelly ingram park. But as the teenagers marched singing i aint scared of your police because i want my freedom to the tune of the old gray mayor and dancing they converted the parents who said, sing children sing as they were hauled off to jail. And the next day, over a thousand kids came out. Thats when bull connor thought he was doing them a favor since they were kids. And by this time, even Elementary School kids, mostly girls as young as six years old, he thought he was doing them a favor by scaring them away because the jail was already full from the previous days. So he brought out the dogs and the fire hoses and the kids didnt stop. They didnt run away. They marched into the dogs and fire hoses and those images went all around the world and they converted the Emotional Center of the United States, where the average person like me who made be fascinate ed by the Civil Rights Movement, as i was then a senior in high school, but fearful of it because it was scary made a transformation from somebody needs to do something about this segregation problem someday transform from that to i need to do something about this and demonstrations broke out all across the United States. There were over 750 demonstration ins within the next six weeks, leading to 14,000 arrests everywhere. President kennedy was astounded that there was even a picket line inside an air force base with the Nuclear Arsenal up in north dakota or wherever they are, south dakota. He said, how the hell did that happen . My own soldiers are marching on this, but it was the subliminal effect of birmingham, jim, that so changed the world. When king came out of birmingham after a settlement was finally reached there, he found that the whole world had changed that well, that his his schedule went from going to black church, from black church to black church and preaching about freedom and putting one foot in the constitution and one foot in the scripture. As he always did and said equal souls, equal votes. Take your choice. Were talking about your fundamental values and nothing would happen. What what happened after birmingham is that when he arrived in cleveland, he was treated like an astronaut with a white motorcade through the city of cleveland. And he gave six speeches in one day in white churches, in black churches. And he told his aides a week or two later, including Clarence Jones, we are on a breakthrough. I dont i dont want we need a mass protest. We need to go to the go to the capitol and take advantage of the fact that birmingham has touched the heart of america. Thats where the march on washington came from. And. The other point i want to make about how race is subliminal is that the the impact of the march on washington, on it is filtered through the lens of what the majority culture really wants to see. The truth of the march on washington is that before it occurred, this capital was terrified. They canceled Liquor Stores sales the whole week for the First Time Since prohibition. The chief judge, judge lewis, had 14 judges and he ordered them all to stop august vacations, come back in the city and be ready to hold all night bail hearings on people arrested for insurrection. The hospitals in washington, d. C. Stockpiled plasma. There were 4000 troops ringing the city and there were 15,000 paratroopers on higher alert at fort bragg in case all hell broke loose. When black people came in to the city of washington. And my favorite, because im an orioles fan and we all know how how hard it is to get professional sports to cancel anything or when president kennedy was killed later that year, they moved nfl games. You know, one day they moved my High School Football playoff from friday night to saturday night. Thats all. That was a concession. Major League Baseball canceled in advance. Washington senators game on the day of the march and also on the day after the march in advance. Assuming that we would still be cleaning up the mess the federal government gave its workers liberal leave not to come to work. And of course, what happened at the march on washington is what we have processed, which is this immense relief and a joyous i have a dream, you know, in figuration in black people arent so bad after all. All this this was really something. But what we forgot is the contrast. We forgot where our subliminal interest came. Life magazine said that washington had the worst case of jitters before the march since the battle. The first battle of bull run, which was actually inaccurate because people before the first battle of warren didnt think it was going to be a disaster. They thought it was going to be a picnic and in fact, packed picnic to go watch the battle and had to come flying back into washington when the confederates turned the tide at the first battle of bull run. But anyway, thats what they said afterwards. Our news media had had to do a gigantic backflip, having predicted mayhem and disaster, or to say that this was a wonderful role. Grant would type patriotic event. I have a dream and how did they do that . Ill never forget talking to Bayard Rustin about it. He said that he had never gotten any decent publicity. Was the principal organizer behind the march, Bayard Rustin was a black excommunist out of wedlock homosexual who who was denigrated by every standard in american life. And yet when the when the march on washington turned out so well he was made the ark. He was made the wizard who transformed who explained why armageddon had turned into a picnic. And he he confronted the reporters privately. And, of course, they never printed any of this and said, i know why youre being so nice to me. He was he was on the cover of life magazine, the wizard of the march on washington. He said he said, now you were reconciled to me and you wont say any nasty things about me anymore. As you were saying, i am the wizard who put porta potties all along the march and made all those nice enough for tea. And thats how the march on washington came out. So these are just two examples of the fact that most of what we think and what we feel about race is not openly discussed. We dont openly discuss the fact that race largely determines whether youre a republican or a democrat. When i grew up in atlanta, we never even heard of republicans. Hardly. There were a few eccentric judges who were who were republicans because they believed in the two parties system that didnt really exist. It was it it was a single party, democratic monopoly and always had been republicans were scarce as polar bears all. And then as soon as 64 came and Barry Goldwater proposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Strom Thurmond switched parties, saying that the party of our fathers is dead and worships the foot of materialism and an all consuming power in washington. Therefore, im going to become a republican republic and sprang up in the south out, nowhere out of dust. And now the south is the white. South is presumably republican or we forget that within four years after 1865, the republican of lincoln put the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments into the constitu ation, and then we put the 15th amendment to sleep for 100 years on. This is the subliminal power of race, in my view. It determines more than we like to think and our greatest challenges to discover it and ask questions about how it does. Because race in our Public Discourse is almost entirely an accusation or a summary to get past it rather, an inquiry about how we move forward and how race influences our dearly held beliefs. It it affects whether were called liberal or conservative, and in fact, on that score, there, there virtually are no liberals. Why . For the last 50 years, 60 years now, since the march on washington, has the word liberal gone into harmony . Well, i suggest to you its because it was mercilessly whipsaw, odd in the 1960s from the right by george wallace, who said that white liberals were just as afraid of black people as White Conservative was. He said that liberals in washington were so scared that they had to build a new Theodore Roosevelt bridge over the potomac river. For all the liberals trying to get out of w