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>> it's unbelievable. he witnessed so much. the death of malcolm x. the death of martin luther king jr. and medger evers. he was alive during the civil rights movement, got to witness and write about that. when i say witness, i mean in his writing. he was ahead of his time in explaining race, took a lot of risks. even his own life. >> absolutely. and he was prescient. he felt all the fundamentals of this -- of those issues. and imagine he wrote all those words 50 years ago. and you feel that as if he sat down this morning and wrote about them. it's incredible that you can use any type of image...

Why did it take a tragedy like this to make this happen? >> well, i think it's really a combination of things. i think the tragedy, it was that by any standard i think it was a trigger. i think there were underlying things before that. we saw over the last year some movement on the part of some we're talking about some that are pushing for a lot of the issues education, health care criminal justice reform and by the way, not just democrats but also some republicans, too, that actually were beginning to kind of get it. beginning to understand that this is a time -- america's changing. the demog...

Back now with our breaking news coverage and live pictures from here in philadelphia of them removing the train cars from the track there at the scene of this horrendous accident that happened last night. we toldia just iayou just a little while ago, another person has been identified. griffith who is survived by his son. i want to talk on the phone, the president of medger evers and a former chancellor of the new york schools. tell us about derrick griffith. >> thank you very much. it's a pleasure to have a chance to speak. he was an absolute stand out in every dimension. he was a scholar, a ...

They will owe me two and a half years back pay. >> don't shop for anything on capitol street. these are stores that helped to support the white citizens counsel. >> he is operating in and around jackson, mississippi, the heart of resistance to desegregation. the nbc network affiliate was notorious for features segregation speeches and become such a problem that medger evers demanded equal time. >> when the jackson, mississippi television station found themselves on the threat from the fcc, they agreed to allow evers to go on television and make a statement about the goals of the movement. >> y...

Speech. >> and this nation for all its hopes will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. >> there is a kind of bitter irony in that within hours afterwards, medgar evers comes home and his wife and children are up because they want to tell him about the president's wonderful speech. >> shortly after midnight, medgar evers steps in his car in this driveway. then evers was murdered. the fatal bullet was fired from a vacant lot across the street from his home, crashing through his body and the window of his home. he was 37. >> i was appalled at the cowardly ambush of him at his home i...