Page 26 - Lunch Counters News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

In his hands." >> reporter: in the end, the 200,000 who turned out spent a peaceful day capped by a memorable speech. >> i have a dream, my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. i have a dream today. >> reporter: ten months later, president lyndon johnson signed the civil rights bill into law. >> the civil rights act of 1964 created modern america. it ended the civil war 100 years later. it integrated public accommodations, hotels, lunch counters. it gave powerful tools for fighting dis...

To tans and lunch counters and washrooms for blacks and whites. my own parents' marriage would have been illegal in certain states. someone who looked like me, often had a hard time casting a ballot much less being on a ballot. but over time, laws changed. and hearts and minds changed. sometimes driven by courageous lawmakers, but more often, driven by committed citizens. politicians often times follow rather than lead. and so, especially young people helped to push and to prod and to protest. and to make common cause with those who did not look like them.

In disguise when he was doing that investigation. he dressed as a field hand on his trips to collect evidence for that crime. he was known to drive 100 miles an hour to get safely out of town and to try to shake anybody who was following him. that's what it took to be the field secretary for the naacp in mississippi in 1955. he worked for voting rights in mississippi before there was a voting rights act. when registering to vote or trying to vote meant risking your life and it particularly meant risking your life if you were trying to persuade others that they should register, that they should...

Answer the question. he wouldn't say if he thought businesses should be able to discriminate based on race. >> these are important philosophical debates but not a practical discussion. >> it's pretty practical to those who had their life beaten out of them trying to desegregate walgreens lunch counters. this is not a hypothetical, dr. paul. >> it is a hypothetical. the day after that interview, paul said that he wanted to be clear, saying he would have voted for the civil rights act and wouldn't support efforts to repeal it but the night before on live tv he was anything but clear. >> so just ...

>> but it's different in father conroy's house. he has a law degree, but he thinks god put him in congress to cure him of politics. >> i have asked for serenity in the area of politics because, it controlled me, i didn't control it. i could get as angry as angry could be about politics. so, as i was praying that serenity prayer in the area of politics, well, how did god answer this prayer for me? he put me in the house of representatives. where my job is not to have an opinion and not to express my opinion. >> he is happy in his job, as is chaplain black. >> i was in alabama in the '60s in col...