 It puts us back to the midst of the 1960s and reminds us of both then, certainly, and our hopes for the future. So I truly thank them. Welcome everyone. I'm Arnold Lehman, director of the Brooklyn Museum, and I couldn't be prouder being up here than I am today. We are so delighted to welcome all of you, and particularly, I'm honored to welcome our great member of Congress, Yvette Clark, who is right here with us. This congressional district could not have a better representative, and so we're really pleased to have her here. It is truly to have Congressman John Lewis. What am I going to say? Civil rights pioneer and great hero of the Civil Rights Movement with us today. I'm also truly delighted to have a friend, Dr. Khalil Jee Mohamed, the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, here with us both to celebrate our exhibition Witness Art and Civil Rights in the 1960s. I know this will be a very spirited conversation, and one that we are truly, truly looking forward to and have been looking forward to. As I'm sure many of you know, Congressman Lewis, who represents the great city of Atlanta, Georgia, was the youngest person to speak, and now the last living speaker from the march on Washington. He's also the co-author of the New York Times' best-selling graphic novel memoir, March, Book One. And Dr. Mohamed, former associate professor of history at Indiana University, is also an award-winning author of the condemnation of blackness, race, crime, and the making of modern urban America. So we couldn't have two better speakers here with us today. Their subject, sort of broadly defined, is how history animates and empowers the social movements changing the world today, and putting the civil rights movement into historical perspective, and perhaps most importantly, connecting it to a new generation of social media activism. So they're both here not only to touch the past, but to look to the future. My deepest gratitude goes to all of our great friends at the Ford Foundation, particularly Darren Walker, their terrific new president, for their exceptional support over the years, but especially for their wholehearted embrace of this exhibition and our programs that accompany it. I'm also truly grateful to American Express for their specific support of the programmatic activities that relate to this exhibition and to Barney's. You know these days you need a lot of friends to do something that's really important. So I'm really grateful to them, and none of this would have happened without the wonderful engagement of our Department of Education and Public Programs, Radia Harper, who is the Vice Director for Education and Public Programs, and Elizabeth Callahan, who's both worked really hard. The exhibition would not have happened, and I have to extend my great thanks to Terry Carbone and Kelly Jones, Wave at least, Terry, who is Andrew W. Mellon, Curator of American Art here at the Museum, and Kelly, who is Associate Professor of Art and Archaeology at Columbia University, that worked tirelessly for a very long time to give us this new, deeper, and richer understanding and vision of the art and the meaning of this period. One other thing, I believe you've all gotten a little note card, I hope many of you've gotten a note card, which is for you to fill out with a question about the subject matter that's going to be discussed here today in the midst of the discussion. I guess we'll ask you to pass it down to the ends of the aisles, we'll pick them up and then we'll use those as the basis as sort of question and answer during the program, at the end of the program. I think that is all of the administrative issues, though I hope if anyone has a cell phone, do I have to follow that, just dot dot dot, please do what comes naturally to a cell phone in the midst of an important discussion like this. So I thank you all, I truly thank our speakers today. This is a very important moment for the museum, for Brooklyn, and for our ongoing commitment to civil rights throughout this country. Thank you. The wonderfully talented boys and girls choir of Harlem, not that I'm biased, began singing the Black National Anthem, and we all sat first in wonder and in awestruck. It reminded me of a kind of metaphor of thinking about the role of the artist to lead a movement, to be ahead of the curve, to use that creativity and that imagination in ways that actually helped to spark change. So in that brief moment when they began singing, before we actually recognized what was happening to us, it made me think about the importance of the arts to helping to transform the world. Were you yourself a fan of the arts, Congressman Lewis, were you influenced in very significant ways by either visual arts, performing arts as a young person? I was greatly influenced by the arts, the paintings, the drawing, music, I've said on many occasions, without music, the civil rights movement would have been like a bird without wings. And he's a poet. To see a painting, to see a drawing, it tells us about maybe the past, the present, but also where we could go, what we can become. You know, I had an opportunity, as you did, just a brief moment, to walk through and see some of the works of great artists. I was deeply moved and touched by the work of these men and women. Art is really a reflection of our hearts, our souls. And to pick up on this point, so first we want to give another shout out to this terrific exhibition, to our two curators, Terry Carbone, and to Kelly Jones. Because Congressman Lewis and I did have a chance to see the show, we will both be back to see more of it before actually starting this program, I'm going to hold your feet to the fire a little bit because you knew some of these artists who are in the show. So Benny Andrews, whose work is the opening piece in the show, inspires the title of the show. Tell us a little bit about the relationships you actually had with people who were on the ground at various waypoints during the movement itself. Well, I got to know Benny Andrews, a wonderful man. Benny was born and grew up in Georgia, in Madison, Georgia, I met his brother, his mother. As a matter of fact, he did an illustration of a little book called John Lewis and Elite. And what was it about published? It was published about five years ago, and one of the illustrations, he had me as a little boy talking and preaching to the chickens on a farm. We'll talk about the chickens. But he was wonderful. He went into the military, he came back, he studied art and became one of the great artists. And Danny Lyons, I remember you telling us a great story. Danny Lyons, born here in New York, a photographer, a tenet at the university. I believe he was born in Forest Hill, and tenet at the university of Chicago. He became a wonderful photographer. As a matter of fact, on the height of the movement, that sort of 62, 63, 64 period. He moved to Atlanta, came south in 1962 with a camera and said, I want to help to move that. He said, I'm a pretty good photographer. And the executive secretary of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the organization that I was the chair of, said, use your camera. Why don't make pictures? Take pictures. And this young man went all over the place. We had an apartment in Southwest Atlanta. He became a roommate. And he used the bathroom as the dark room. And sometimes when you wanted to take a shower, be able to wash your face or brush your teeth, you had to move these chemicals around. It was a hazmat. And I was really afraid that one night I would go into the bathroom and use mouth washing to take the room. But as I travel around America and other parts of the world, I've seen the great work of Danny Lyon. This young man risked his life in Alabama, in Mississippi, in Southwest Georgia. He was able to go into a stockade where a group of young black women, young, they were really girls, mill and high school girls. They were mill students and high school students. All girls were locked up and put in a stockade. And Danny, somehow, diverted the attention of the jailer. And he was able to get in. I've seen the photo. It's wonderful. Most amazing. And tell the story. There's a kind of electricity in their body language that defies the fact that they are, in fact, temporarily incarcerated. Just because they ain't afraid of no jails, no more. The sort of spirit that are taking hold by that moment. People would sing a song. Paul in style was bound in jail, had no money to go on their bail. And then you have the caption for people in jail during their freedom rides and during their sit-ins. And these photographs will go all around our country and around the world. Some wonderful artists will come along with paint and a brush and tell the story. And it inspired us. So it's easy for us sitting here 50 years later and hear this music that, of course, helped to spur the movement and to sustain it. But I'm wondering what was the music like when it was being heard for the first time? See, it's canonical now. It's part of our collective memory. But I'm curious, was there more of the traditional gospel and spiritual song in those spaces where people were not quite ready for the latest rendition of the Civil Rights Anthem? Something that Bernice Johnson Reagan had just put together and said, well, you know, we're not so keen on that one. Let's hear what we... I'm just curious how music evolved within the movement itself. So some of the songs that people gave new meanings and sometimes they changed the words around, take We Shall Overcome, was a hymn of the church. And we started singing it as part of the movement. Some were for different beat, We Shall Overcome. And it became uplifting. And you knew somehow deep down in your being that we would succeed, that we would overcome, and ain't gonna let nobody turn me around. People were singing the song like, I woke up this morning with my mind set on freedom. In the church it was said, I woke up this morning with my mind set on Jesus. On that point, because we are sort of interested in this relationship between the past and the present, between this moment of youthful activism and the contemporary question about where young people might fit today, essentially what you're describing is a remix, right? This is in fact a tradition where young people take the received conventional traditions and the standards and say, Not working for right now. What's their resistance? Were there moments amongst the parents and the grandparents that maybe playing around with these songs at certain times seemed irreverent or against the sacraments of the church? Well, I think some people had some problems, had some concerns. But people were singing these songs in the church to a different beat. And so people started singing in the church, it must be alright. If they're speaking about freedom in the church, it's okay, it's alright, and people accepted it. So there was a Kirk Franklin in your moments. Oh yes. But I remember when we were watching from Salmon to Montgomery, people just sort of improvised back in 1965, 49 years ago, people would just make a song up. Young children would just put words there, saying things like, Oh, Wallace, you never can jail them all. Circumstances are about to fall. And you know, in the sort of Negro spiritual single song, Airman, Airman. And they started singing more in Luther King, Juniors, Airman, Airman. Someone else, they were called the names of the individuals. Right. And people just make up and improvise. A little bit like calling out the ancestors. Yes. So you mentioned these chickens. So I know that some are familiar with your biography, and some may even know this story from March. But for those who don't, tell us all a little bit about your special affinity for our feathered friends. And particularly the way in which they gave you a sense of community that in some ways helped to prepare you for the larger, beloved community that you helped. Well, a much larger flock. Yeah, much larger flock. They've prepared me. Well, you know, Dr. Mohamed, I grew up in rural Alabama, 50 miles from Montgomery, outside of a little place called Troy. My father was a shrap-wrapper, a tenant farmer. But back in 1944, when I was four years old, he had saved $300. And with the $300, he bought 110 acres of land that my family's still on today. So, well, on this farm, we raised a lot of cows and hogs of cotton and peanuts and corn. But we also raised a lot of chickens. It was my responsibility to care for the chickens. And I've fallen in love with raising chickens like no one else can raise chickens. I became very good at it. I became very, very good. And from time to time, most of the people who don't know anything about raising chickens, they may know something about Popeyes, Kentucky Fry, or Bojingo. But they wouldn't know anything about raising chickens. I'm going to give a shout out to Weeksville. Weeksville is teaching community gardening, so there might be a few people learning about chicken raising. Okay. Well, let's compare notes here. When a setting hen was set, I would have to take the fresh eggs, mark them with a pencil, place them under the setting hen, and wait for three long weeks for the little chicks to hatch. Because from time to time, another hen would get on that same nest. And there would be some more eggs. They would be fresh. You have to be able to tell the fresh eggs from the eggs that were already under the setting hen. So when they looked chicks were hatched, I would take the little chicks and put them in a box with a lantern and raise them on their own. I'd just give them to another hen, get some more fresh eggs, mark them with a pencil, place them under the setting hen, carry the setting hen and stay with that nest. But another three weeks, I kept on fooling and cheating on these setting hens. And when I look back when it was not the right thing to do, it was not the moral thing to do, it was not the most loving thing to do, it was not the most nonviolent thing to do. It sounds like Congress. Yeah, yeah, yeah, somewhere. Congress from a clock when I understand this. But as a little boy, I just couldn't save enough money to buy an incubator or a hatchet. We used to get the Scissor and Buck store, go to the Scissor and Buck store, get the Scissor and Buck catalog, that ordering book. It's a catalog of young people. It is a really big book. It's a big book. If I have a book. And some people call it the wish book. I wish I had this. I wish I had that. And some people call it the ordering book. Well, I just kept on wishing. But as a little boy, I wanted to be a minister. I wanted to preach the gospel. So from time to time, with the help of my brothers and sisters and my cousins, we've got all of our chickens together in the chicken yard, like this unbelievable audience that's gathered here in this hall. And my brothers and sisters and cousins were lined outside of the chicken yard, but they would help make up the audience, the congregation. And I was sort of speaking or preaching. And when I observed that some of the chickens were by their heads, some of the chickens were shaking their heads, they never quite said amen. But I'm convinced that some of those chickens, that I preached to them in the 40s and the 50s, tended to listen to me much better than some of my colleagues listened to me that day in the Congress. And some of those chickens were just a little more productive. But then you have this unbelievable audience, Benny Andrews, coming along, painting and drawing beautiful work, depicting me preaching to those chickens. And he has a rooster on top of the chicken house with me holding the Bible, trying to convince or convert this rooster. So there's a moment when chicken farming isn't enough. And this is a terrific story about the arts as well. So at some point the world is changing around you. Just 50 miles away, a 25-year-old Baptist minister shows up in Montgomery just a little bit before what becomes the fire that likes the powder peg of the movement. And you come across a comic book published by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, published in 1958. Tell us the relationship of this comic book done by a graphic artist. And your coming of age, or at least your introduction to the movement itself. Well, in 1955, at the age of 15, in the 10th grade, I heard about Rosa Parks. I heard the words of Martin Luther King Jr. on the old radio. And I followed the drama of Montgomery. And I felt like Dr. King. This man was speaking directly to me. Saying, John Robert Lewis, you too can do something. You too can make a contribution. Years later, in 1958, I came across a copy of this comic book. 14 pages, sold for 10 cents. And Dr. King was one of the editors. He had edited the book. And it was talking about the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence, how people use the way of peace, the way of love, to bring about change. And at the same time, a group of students in Nashville, at Fisk University, Tennessee State, the Heron Medical College, Vanderbilt University, American Baptist Peabody College, and some high school students started attending nonviolent workshops. And we went through a period of what we call social drama, preparing ourselves. We studied the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolent. We studied what Gandhi attempted to do in South Africa for the accomplished in India. We studied the role in civil disobedience. And we were ready. We were prepared. We were prepared to engage in nonviolent direct action. This is one of a couple of plugs that I'll make for the book for March as we move along. But I want to take you back just to a moment of consciousness raising, because it's an important thread that I want to explore for the rest of our conversation. So you're 15 and 55, right? Yes. So you're 17 when you meet Rosa Parks, and you're 18 when you meet Dr. King. In fact, my understanding of the story, but correct me if I'm wrong, you are inspired by the movement and that this comic book reinforces sort of your calling and you make it your business to get to Montgomery, to meet Dr. King as an 18-year-old. Just tell us exactly what that was like leaving home just to go meet Dr. King, the conversation with Mom and Dad, the conversation with Dr. King and the return conversation with them because things are going to be different now. Well, when I finished high school in May of 1957, at the age of 17, I applied to go to a little college called Troy State College, only 10 miles from my home. I submitted an application, my high school transcript. I never heard a word from the college. So I wrote a letter to Dr. King and told him I needed his help. He wrote me back and sent me a round-trip very home bus ticket and invited me to come to Montgomery to meet with him. So you could answer those letters anybody out there if you get. In the meantime, I've been accepted at a little Baptist college in Nashville. It was during those days that I met Rosa Parks. But in order to get there, an uncle of mine gave me a $100 bill that Momani didn't ever have. Gave me a foot locker when these big upright trunks. I put everything that I had, everything that I owned, my few books, my clothing, everything except those chickens in that foot locker. And I took a greenhouse bus to Nashville and now, being there for about two weeks, one of my teachers was a friend of Dr. King. And I told his teachers that I had been in contact with one of the King's juniors. They both had attended Morehouse College together in Atlanta. So he informed Dr. King that I was there so Dr. King got back in church and suggested when I was home for spring break to come and see him. So on a Saturday morning in March 1958, I boarded the bus and traveled to Montgomery. And a young African American lawyer by the name of Fred Gray, who had been the lawyer for Rosa Parks and for Dr. King during the bus walk-on, became our lawyer during the Freedom Ride and during the Morehouse from Selmont to Montgomery, met me and drove me to the First Baptist Church in downtown Montgomery, passed by the Reverend Ralph Abernathy, and ushered me into the waters of the church. And I saw more than the King's junior and Ralph Abernathy standing behind the desk. I was so scared. I didn't know what to say or what to do. And Dr. King spoke up and said, are you the boy from Troy? Are you John Lewis? And I said, Dr. King, I am John Robert Lewis. I gave him a whole name. And that was the beginning. And he started calling me the boy from Troy. And it changed my life. I went back home and had a discussion with my mother and my father. It was so afraid. I told them that Dr. King said we would have to take legal action, have to file a suit, a lawsuit. This was to desegregate Troy State. Right. And so, let's say, we'll lose the land, our home will be bombed or burned. They didn't want to have anything to do with it. So I continued to study in Nashville. And it worked out. But it was there that I saw Dr. King over and over again. I met Rosa Parks over and over again. I met Thurgood Mosher there. I met W. B. Du Bois there. And... Diane Nance. Diane Nance, C.T. Vivian. And Jim Lawson, who was a teacher and so many wonderful people. And... it was time. Dr. King... just being on Fish University campus, all the great audience. So Aaron Douglas, he has this great story. Aaron Douglas? Let me tell this because this is Schaumburg plug. Okay. Yeah. So the Schaumburg Center has the aspects of Negro life murals. They're four murals. And they are on permanent display. Congressman Lewis visited the Schaumburg just about two months ago and saw them. And all he could talk about was how he had missed the opportunity to really take full advantage of the fact that Aaron Douglas had spent the rest of his career at Fish University right there. His amazing artist. Well, Aaron Douglas was one of my teachers. He taught me art appreciation and beautiful work. Wonderful work. You know, you've had to have been a little more sensitive and a little more aware. I could have said, Professor Douglas, I was loaded by one of your old works. I would say maybe my mother can pick enough kind and maybe I can do a little work. But I miss an opportunity. Yeah. You could have, I'm sure, been a student who worked out some arrangement and you might have gotten something at the end of the term. But this youthful moment I want to play with because I think it's important when we think about the relationship of youth to activism today, you have to constantly remind people that it was the 18-year-olds the 19-year-olds, the 25-year-olds who were on the leading edge. And we've talked about this before, but I want you to put it in very clear terms what it meant to defy your parents' expectations and for those, for the parents and grandparents of so many others who led the movement at that moment. Well, we grew up at a time when we saw segregation and racial discrimination. We were told over and over again you cannot go there in a sustainable place. And my mother and my father and my grandparents told me over and over again when I saw those signs that said white waiting, colored waiting, white men, colored men, white women, colored women. I kept saying, why? Why? They kept saying, that's the way it is. Don't get in the way. Don't get in trouble. I remember in 1956, when I was 16 years old, so inspired by Dr. King and Rosa Paul, going down to the public library, trying to check out some books with my brothers and sisters and cousins. And we were told by the librarian, the library was for whites only and not for colors. So I never went back to the Pact County Public Library in Troy, Alabama. And to July 5th, 1998, a book signing of my book, Walking with the Wind. And it gave me a library card. That's the least they could do. They should have given you a wing. So in Nashville, I had an opportunity. I didn't tell my mother that I was attending these nonviolent workshops. I didn't tell her that I was involved and tested in in a fall of 1959 when I was 19 years old. I didn't tell her that I was sitting in a room that I had been arrested. I don't know if I read it 27, 1960. It was my first arrest. But the day I got arrested, I felt free. I felt liberated. I felt like I crossed over. And one of my staff he didn't have staff back then. No, no. But one of my staff people just a few days ago had located a photograph of being arrested the first time. And I looked like I looked like somebody just proud. Almost smiling. I had on a nice suit as you do today. No, no. A boy from the country had a vest. I went to a huge store and bought this suit. It was a Y-10 500. And you know how much it cost? Five dollars. And I probably didn't have five dollars in my pocket if they had served or something that day. But I wanted to look good. I was sitting in. I was sitting down. And most of the students did. And we were arrested and went to jail. We went with a sense of pride and a sense of dignity. And hundreds of people here in the city of New York walk picket lines in front of Woolworth in support of the students in Nashville and other places. On that day, 89 of us became the first mass arrest. 89 of us were the rest of the city. So, I want to talk not just about young people in actually pushing the movement forward but also want to talk a little bit about your own sense of history. So, today it is hard to imagine a conversation about contemporary challenges which we'll name in just a moment. But let's just say things aren't where we thought they might be 50 years later across the board. And it seems the history that motivates young activists today. So there's the Dream Defenders out of Florida and Philip Agnew and others is of course this moment. It is the civil rights movement for them not just because of what it meant for transforming race in this country but also because it was the catalyst that transformed so many other social movements that unfolded in the 1960s and 70s. But what was your sense of history? What were the stories being told about African-American triumph and achievement or struggle and the need for learning something about the past? Do you remember what those stories were? I remember very well in the school that I attended this overcrowded college staff segregated school. I remember boarding the school bus and passing by the white school that we've been in riding a broken down bus they had new buses we had to use books I didn't like it but I remember during the month of February each year we called it Negro History Week we had to make scrapbooks you're too young to know about making those books stop there we had to cut pictures of our standing African-American it could be John Washington Carver Mugatiel Washington Debbie Readable Jackie Robinson Ralph Bunch we had to know something about the struggle the leaders of the NAACP the early black members of congress the struggle African-American from the days of slavery to that period so all of that and as a young child I had an opportunity when I was in about the third or fourth grade to travel to Tuskegee on a field trip and that changed me also but I used to argue with my parents a great deal about how hard they would be working and they were getting switched a little for their hard work and I would be out in the field sometimes picking kind of gathered peanuts and I would say to my mother this was hard work and she's a boy you've fallen behind and she's a hard work never killing about it so well it's about to kill me and from time to time I have a son who says something like that as a little boy I would get up early in the morning and I would get my book bag and put my book in the book bag and I would hide under the porch and wait for the school bus to come up the hill then I would run out and no one would know that I skip going to the field until they found out that I'm gone I'm on that bus on the way to school and I had a teacher who told me over and over again read my child read my child you were a bit of a troublemaker you weren't exactly following the rules well I think I was born to get in the way I had a calling to get in trouble but I call good trouble, necessary trouble Charles Payne has written he's a historian of the movement as well as a sociologist of education and he's written about or at least called what Congressman Lewis is describing a sharecropper education much of the rhythm of the calendar school calendar was around sea time and harvest time and school was secondary to that so what Congressman Lewis is describing is of course that his parents really needed him out in the field and he was insistent upon going to school we talked a little bit about young people but I want to just there's another kind of mythology around the movement so we're talking about you remember the movement we're talking about a sense of history well one sense of history I think is worth having you explore with us is the actual scale of people involved in the movement I've heard you talk about how many NFL stadiums might be filled for everybody who was a classmate of Dr. King or who had participated in the Freedom Rides did you young people actually feel oftentimes that you weren't supported enough by the local communities where you came and actually tried to make a difference well I think at time we knew and understood that so many people lived in fear they were afraid so we were free we didn't have jobs we didn't have any responsibilities we didn't have to pay a mortgage but we wanted to be free and we wanted to bring down those signs and we brought them down they're gone the only places people would see those signs today would be in a museum in a book on a video they're gone and they would not return we grew up in a society where teachers high school teachers elementary school teachers principals college professors lawyers and doctors could not register to vote they were told over and over again that they could not pass a so called literacy test on occasion in my native state of Alabama a guy a man a woman would be asked to count the number of bubbles on a bar so the number of jelly beans in a jar and the time came I think something was happening to us yes but we saw the wind the change blowing in Africa and other places and I remember being on Fish University campus in 1961 and 62 and 63 talking to African students studying there and they kept on teas and then joking with us and the whole of Africa would be free and liberated before we were able to get a soft drink hot dog and then the NAACP had this slogan free by 63 so other thing I was 15 years old and then Matilda was murdered and lynched he was 14 he was 14 I had first cousins who lived in Buffalo and they would come home each summer my mother my brother's children and I thought it could happen to them and then Rosa Parks come along a few months later Dr. King and Mary so we had to do something and you had all these young African-American men returning from the war they went abroad to fight for democracy fight for America and we had to be buried together had to be buried in a segregated cemetery they had to sit at the back of the bus they couldn't drink out of some water fountain take a seat at a lunch counter in Alabama especially in a place like Montgomery black people and white people could even ride a taxicab together stay in the same hotel it's hard to ride a taxicab but we're working on it so 50 years later so we're in this period of commemoration looking back Dr. King is the first non-president and of course the first African-American on the Mall is there a lesson that we've forgotten in passing on to our young people are we teaching to our young people today that they ought to be grateful for what happened rather than say to be inspired to take on the challenges of their generation is it fair in your opinion for example to say to a young person that maybe what happened to Trayvon Martin is a fair comparison indicative of what happened to Emmett Hill how do you talk to young people about 2014 about what their particular challenges are and what lessons they should know or learn from the movement? I think we have to set to young people and don't try to hide anything sugar coated chair like it is I think sometime in our own communities we try to shield our children but they need to live in the real world in spite of all of the changes in spite of all of the progress they must be told the truth the scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society and we're not there yet we're not there I disagree with people saying the post-racial society it's not there you look at president Barack Obama today he's the president of the United States but this man been called everything but a child of God I don't think deep down deep down within I don't think a president of another color will be treated the way he's been treated for a member of congress any member a member of congress and this particular member from the State of South Carolina to say to the president you lie for a governor of a state to meet the president and put her finger in his face if you don't respect the man respect the walkers so about that finger my mother's here someone puts a finger in your face they better pull back enough well my mother used to tell us from time to time when we were growing up there were some places in a little town of Troy and there was a city in Alabama called Phena City my mother would say to her sometimes if I ever hear that you went there if you own a street she said I will kill you myself I brought you into this world and I will take you out what about the new challenge of voting rights in America that that you would suggest a certain kind of organizing what lesson again would you prescribe to those young people today whose voting rights are ostensibly under attack well I think young people today and not just young people I think all of us those of us not so young and not just African-American but all Americans whether they are black or white or Latino or Asian-American or Native American we all should stand up speak up and speak out and find a way to get in the way when it comes to voting rights I have said it in the past the vote is the most powerful nonviolent instrument or tool we have in a democratic society and we should use it it is powerful it is precious it is almost sacred and this year we are going to commemorate not necessarily celebrate but commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Mississippi summer project with more than a thousand young people many of them came from this city came from New York all over they were white they were blind but from this city alone two young men that I knew Annette Goodman, Mika Scherner and then the young they were white young African-American men by the name of James Shaney went out on the summer night of June 21st, 1964 and in the exhibit in the exhibit right downstairs in exhibit an artist I joined this unbelievable piece and when I walked by that piece I was deeply moved I knew these three young men I only met Annette Goodman for a brief moment but Mika Scherner and James Shaney were blind these three young men were part of more than a thousand young people who came to the state to encourage people to register to vote the state of Mississippi in 1964, 50 years ago had a black voting age population of more than 450,000 in only about 16,000 blacks to register to vote they were stopped by the sheriff they were only way to investigate the burning of an African-American church they were stopped by the sheriff arrested taken to jail later taken out of the jail turned over to the clan but they were beaten, shot and killed I still cannot believe high in America that people would kill their fellow citizens it's simple because they're trying to encourage people to register to vote and I tell children and young people all the time these three young men they didn't die in the Middle East they didn't die in Vietnam or Eastern Europe or in Africa or Central South America they die right here in our own country and they must be looked upon as they found their fathers of the new America and today the state of Mississippi has the highest number of black elected officials in any state but people gave their blood to bring that about so how can a principle like love and connection invigorate this new generation given that particular history not for nothing this is also a history that sees what happened in 64 sort of whitewashed the memory of it desecrated when then candidate Ronald Reagan shows up in Philadelphia and Mississippi to become president in 1988 I mean we actually live in the moment of the politics of the retrenchment of the civil rights era a recalibrating of what the civil rights movement stood for which was not about the expansion of democracy for everyone but somehow this sort of polite moment to change a few laws and yet to get back to business as usual that may not be the best characterization of it because it's hard to find a few words to describe what has happened over the past 30 years but to think about 1968 as a kind of turning point from the end of the legislative achievements of the movement to the moment where we essentially mark the beginning of the war on drugs is there even a context sufficient to capture this principle of love and action and I'm assuming you're going to give us hope here well I think in spite of all of the difficulties in spite of some of the disappointments and setbacks we have to be hopeful we have to be optimistic it is in keeping with the philosophy and the discipline of non-violence to be hopeful, to be optimistic I like to think of even the opposition even the people who beat us, who jealous who assassinated some of our leaders and killed our friends last Saturday I was in Mississippi I went to the home of Omega Evers I was still in the driveway where he was assassinated and I cried this young man was a veteran came home to Mississippi and became the field secretary for the NACP he was assassinated the same evening that President Kennedy had delivered an unbelievable speech to the nation June 11, 1963 and to see what happened to this man to his family you could get lost in a sea of despair you could become bitter and hostile but we cannot afford to become bitter or hostile we have to pick up and keep going people ask me from time to time why you're not bitter you got arrested 40 times you've beaten and left bloody in Rocky and Sacre Lionel at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery during the Freedom Ride you had a concussion at the bridge in Selma in 1965 but you have to look up on the opposition even a person that would beat you you know we're not born bitter when we come into this world like we're little babies like baby check we're innocent we're innocent we're innocent and something happened we're not born hating people we're not born putting someone down because of the color of their skin and I think art if you walk through this exhibit it says something about then maybe now and where we can go there's a piece there saying something about the beloved community that Dr. King spoke about those of us in the student non-violent that we can create a beloved community that respect the dignity and the worth of every human being and that's where we must go and we all live in the same house and it's not just the American house it's the world house and it doesn't matter whether you're black Asian American Native American straight or gay a Democrat or Republican we may have some argument there but we're one people we're one family we're one house we all live in the same house the world house and as Dr. King would say we got to learn to live together as brothers and sisters we're parents as fools I'll start with this one was there ever a time where you felt like giving up on your fight for freedom there's never been a time when I felt like giving up or turning back I think Bernice Regan and some of the other artists were saying we shall not and we shall not, we cannot turn back we come too far to turn around to our ancestors and we cannot portray future generation so it cannot, I never felt like giving up never felt like giving up there are this is a question about sort of the responsibility of people in power so how have policies on civil rights changed from 63 to 2014 and why don't people in power act and the second part of that question might be the one that we're most interested in hearing so people in power what responsibility do they have for justice in this world? I think it's a different climate it's a different environment even today we look at Washington to make up what the Congress is different to make up the Supreme Court is different at one time another period we looked at Washington especially members of Congress Supreme Court as a sympathetic referee in the struggle for civil rights I don't know where we we got to create a different climate a different environment but also I think the American people just too quiet that's too quiet that's just too quiet they need to make some noise you hear that folks? the chickens are ready to fly the coup now if the people fail to speak up and speak out then we're going to have to organize the chickens to do something that's right women like Claudette Colvin's story have been removed from discussions when discussing the movement which speaks to how respectability politics played a role in the 1960s, 1970s how do we remove those respectability politics from civil rights conversations today I think people should just be yourself just go for it when we do something we should try to be respectful of the views and arguments of others when something is not right when something is not fair unjust you have an obligation to disturb the order of things you have an obligation to get in the way and make some noise and that's what I've been doing for more than 50 years and that's what I will continue to do I got arrested 40 times during the 60s and since I've been in Congress I've been arrested 5 times and I may get arrested some more before I leave but when it's right one thing that disturbed me so much so and my colleague and sister congresswoman been on this issue with so much passion and it's good to be in a district today we've been trying to get companies that immigration would fall it doesn't make sense it doesn't make sense they have millions of people living in this country that own this little piece of real estate and not setting them on a pair to a citizenship we all come from some place as a sub-native American it's long overdue seems to me by the standards of respectability you are the exception to the rule because you were raised in hell at the march in washington well I'm just trying to say a few words what do you think what do you think is lacking with the current crop of young activists and what would you like to see in terms of collective action going forward I would suggest to recommend to all young activists don't necessarily repeat what we did but try to do but read the literature watch the film footage come to this exhibit really inspire you I'm telling you it would inspire you being on the campus at fish university going to museum and seeing how another generation of people stood just looking at a photograph listening to music a song sometimes we left for a protest getting out of jail we were saying music seeing a wonderful painting and inspire you a photograph I remember when the children in brimmingham were being chased by dogs been picked up and dropped by houses knocking them down we would take those photographs in place on the bulletin board at fish university at tennessee state and tell people to show up in a poll for rally let's complete the job in nassar this is a great response to the next question historically black colleges and universities and their students led the way in the civil rights movement we overlook this fact what is the role of the hdcu today in the ongoing struggle for civil rights there is a powerful role for these colleges and universities faculty administrators and students last saturday i visited tukulu college outside of jackson mississippi and they have some great work of art there the exhibit the these institutions were innocent free they were not state supported the student body the teacher was free to teach and these schools and the student body can still lead the way they have educated so many of our leaders and especially the first generation that have gone off to college do you see this is a spin on this question so i'm editorializing here but we know that one of the consequences of desegregation is that more young people today can choose from a broader swap of higher ed and we know for example that some hdcu's are struggling with enrollments are you talking about this hdc given howard university's particular role as one of the leading hdcu's at the forefront of training some of the most important civil rights activists of the 20th century members of the congress and other members of congress we spent a great deal of time talking about the role of these colleges and universities and their students in the industry seeing that they get the necessary support scholarship money it's very expensive to go to college and a lot of these colleges and universities and these students need help they need support and rather than spending more money on bombs and guns we need to spend it on seeing that all of our children all of our young people this is a question about different kinds of art and we may have touched on it but if you want to add to it the question is are there different kinds of art that inspire people to fight for freedom and different kinds of art that kept people fighting for freedom art is you bring something you bring something to a work of art whether it's music a play a person you bring something sometime when I am on life see something I'm ready to go out there I'm ready to go there and try to make it real try to when I was like 18, 19 years old talking to Diane Nash a James Belville a Bernard Lafayette a C.T. Vivian with Dr. King and some of them so what do you think John what should we do and I would say we need to find a way to dramatize I think they thought that's the only word I knew what we said we need to find a way to dramatize the issue put a face on it so when you had people marching from Selma to Montgomery they were picking them up laying them down marching and Dr. King came along saying there's nothing more powerful than the marching feet of a determined people but just people walking in a line just in a some of the photographs in this exhibit showing people not saying a word just presenting their body as a witness to truth but to see the photograph on it with it not just standing in line but others there others to see chores white and others of Jacob Lawrence of Jacob Lawrence piece confrontation at the bridge depicting what happened in Selma you move I am moved I don't like seeing dogs I like dogs but I don't like seeing dogs running inviting young kids involving peaceful nonviolent protest we have a right in this country we have a right in America to petition our government in an orderly peaceful nonviolent fashion and no one but no one no state no city government should be able to tell people you don't have a right to stand up and speak up for right so we are at the time I want to just say something I think that should have been said earlier is it fair to say that in this moment of social media Facebook, Twitter, Instagram Snapchat, a few other things that who sweet at some point you gonna say I don't even know what you're talking about because I just learned a few of these terms myself that this was the social media of your generation in other words a way to mass produce a story to get it in the hands of young people so that they could either be inspired to tell their own story or to write the first draft of history or to be involved in it itself that little book 14 pages 10 cents have changed history the four students in Greensboro North Carolina on February the first 1960 they had seen that book and they started sitting in and we those of us in Nashville read the book and Jim Lawson our teacher told us to digest the essence of that book and followed the teacher Congressman John Lewis March a new moment for reintroducing this story to young people to help inspire their own movements I suppose Andrew Aiden who's here will be tweeting about it so that they know that it's on sale in bookstores around America thank you very much for being such a terrific audience our final comment of the day comes to us from Congresswoman Yvette D. Clark to Dr. Khalil Gabron and his family Dr. Khalil Gabron Muhammad and his family to Counselwoman Lori Combo to Arnold Lehman the distinguished director of this outstanding institution and our curators Ms. Jones and Ms. Caban to Mr. Lehman's team and to all who are gathered to my dear colleague the distinguished gentlemen from Atlanta, Georgia the living legend the Mandela of our time the honorable John Lewis on behalf of the people of the 9th congressional district myself and the honorable Congressman Hakeem Jeffries who regrets his absence during this afternoon due to a family obligation his son's 10th birthday he sends his fondest regards but we want to take this opportunity to express our gratitude for what you have shared with us today aren't we just blessed to have been witness to this conversation today marks a historic day here in Brooklyn here at the Brooklyn Museum and for all of us individually and collectively to have witnessed this outstanding conversation to put us all in a place where we can sort of catch our bearings on not only what has happened in our past but what we are facing currently and what we can use as inspiration for our future certainly the exhibition is a reminder of our history but as our congressman has said to us today should be an inspiration for us to make some noise for us to get in the way to stand up as we deal with the 21st century's version of a struggle amongst humanity so I wanted to take this opportunity John to say to you as a beneficiary of your work during the civil rights movement and as a colleague who reveres all that you continue to do you know congressman John Lewis is co-sponsor of the new Voting Rights Act of 2013 and while we clap we should all feel a bit nervous that we are relitigating all of these issues that we thought all the blood that had already settled but we want to thank you for your courage of conviction for your philosophy of non-violence and for the caring and passion that you have for all of humanity you are a living legend and an example to all who have encountered you and who will encounter you throughout all of your life's work you are a blessing to all of us and we are just grateful for all of you enjoy the rest of the evening