 rights that was stopped by Alabama State Troopers. Congressman Lewis is also chairman of the host committee formed by the foundation of the National Archives to assist us in promoting our celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation this year during more than 9,000 visitors to our Rotunda over the New Year's holiday this year. The host committee is a distinguished group of former presidents and first ladies, civic and community leaders, historians, authors, journalists and celebrities. He also contributed the introduction to a commemorative National Archives Emancipation Proclamation book and tonight there are copies of the book signed by the congressman available for purchase in the lobby and the congressman has graciously agreed to remain in the McGowan Theater Lobby for a brief period after the program. Described as a lawmaker whose fingerprints are on some of the nation's most significant tributes and monuments to the contributions of African Americans to American culture. The son of share croppers was inspired by the accounts of the Montgomery bus boycott in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that he heard on radio broadcasts. The inspiration led to action and as a student at Fiske University in Nashville he organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters. Later he joined the Freedom Riders and helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee which he later led. At the age of 23 he was the youngest speaker at the march on Washington in 1963 and the sole surviving speaker. And he helped organize the Bloody Sunday March in 1965 across Edmund Pettus Bridge and Selma. And he has made his mark as a public servant. In 1981 he was elected to the Atlanta City Council then to Congress as a representative from Georgia in 1986. In the house he has served in the Democratic leadership and today is a senior member of the important House Ways and Means Committee. Joining Congressman Lewis in conversation tonight is Scott Simon. Mr. Simon is the host of Weekend Edition Saturday on National Public Radio. He joined NPR in 1977 as Chief of the Chicago Bureau. Since then he has reported from all 50 states covered presidential campaigns in eight wars reported from Central America, Africa, India, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. He's received numerous honors for his reporting including the Alfred I. DuPont Columbia University Award, George Foster Peabody Award, the Presidential End Hunger Award, a Unity Award in media in a 1982 Emmy. When he was awarded the 2010 Medal of Freedom Congressman Lewis said, I think it's important for people to know the whole story and the full story of American for generations yet unborn. It's important to leave these museums, these little pieces of history to inspire, inform, and educate unborn generations. I can't think of a better place to be having this conversation tonight than here at the National Archives. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Scott Simon and Congressman John Lewis. I'm going to open in a way that might be slightly redundant, but the Congressman, I am fortunate enough to have two young children. So I'm learning history all over again. And one of the things you learn is of course that we all stand on the shoulders of the great men and women who've gone before us. And I think no pair of shoulders in the history of America are wider and stronger than those on this man here, John Lewis. I'm sure he's going to be great. He's going to be enlightening. He's going to be funny. He's going to be warm. He's going to be pointed. He's going to be moving. He's going to be inspiring. But before we ask him to utter a word, could we stand and on behalf of America give him an ovation for what he's done for us? So how many times have you been arrested? Well, during the 60s, I was arrested and jailed 40 times. And since I've been in Congress, I got arrested about four times. For all for matters of principle, we should explain. When you're talking about a member of Congress, that's not always the case. But there was protesting around problems in South Africa. And it's the day end. Members of Congress went to jail. Mr. Lewis, what was it like to be in a prison in the segregated south of the United States in the 1960s when even the prisons were segregated? Well, I must tell you, it was not simple, not easy. You get arrested with your fellow sisters and brothers who happened to be white, Asian American, Native American, Latino. But when you were put in a jail, you were segregated. You didn't only feel segregation in the outside world, but to be arrested in Nashville, but to be arrested in Birmingham, or Montgomery, or Selma, Atlanta. You saw segregation. You saw racial discrimination. Segregation was real. When I was growing up in rural Alabama, I saw those signs that said white men, colored men, white women, colored women, white, waiting, colored waiting. And I asked my mother, my father, my grandparents, why? And they said, that's the way it is. Don't get in the way. Don't get in trouble. But I was inspired to get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble. So going to jail became a place whether it was in Mississippi, or in Tennessee, Alabama, where we learned, we studied, we studied the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence in jail. We conducted nonviolent workshop, made us stronger, made us more determined to fight in that fight. About and I realize you've got to be approximate about this about how many times were you assaulted, beaten for your beliefs? Oh, a few times here and there. But I didn't try to keep up with the number of times that someone punched me, pulled cold water, hot water on me, hit me in the face of someone with spit on us. I guess the worst incident occurred in a city and when someone, the owner locked us up in a little restaurant, this is Nashville in Nashville, and tried to fumigate the place with us in it. And the local fire officials from the fire department came up and broke the one windows in order the man to open the doors and let us out. What were those first freedom rides like? Well, I must tell you, I came to Washington DC the first time in 1961. At all in my hand, a few pounds lighter. And it was 16 of us. Seven whites and six African American back in 1961, blank people and white people couldn't board a Graham bus and be seated together or trailway bus and leave the city of Washington and travel through the rest of the South. I hadn't been to Washington but on that night on one night, we came here May 1, training and orientation. You know, the night of May 3, we went to a Chinese restaurant. I've grown up in rural Alabama, tennis school in Nashville, Tennessee. I've never been to a Chinese restaurant before. Never had Chinese food. We had a wonderful meal. Unbelievable meal. They had the lazy Susan you're calling lazy Susan, right? And cover dishes. And you turn and turn. The food was wonderful. Wonderful meal. But someone said that night eat well. This may be like the last supper. The next morning, May 4, a group of us boarded a trailway bus and others boarded a Greyhound bus. Now we'll never forget it. We arrived in Charlotte, North Carolina, and a young man, young African American man in a so-called white waiting room and tried to get a shoe shine in a so-called white barbershop that had a shoe shine stand, was arrested and taken to jail. And later, the next morning, he went to trial and the jury dismissed the charges against him. My seatmate, a young white gentleman, the two of us tried to enter a white waiting remark, white waiting in Rock Hill, South Carolina, about 35 miles from Charlotte. The moment we walked through the door, a group of young men attacked us and left us lying in a pool of blood. And the local officials came up and wanted to know whether we wanted to press charges. We said, no, we come with peace, with love, we believe in nonviolence. But many years later, one of the individuals that had attacked me and my seatmate came to my Washington office, February 2009, about a month after President Obama had been inaugurated. And with his son, his son had been encouraged in his father to seek out the people that he had grown. And this man said to me, you said, Mr. Lewis, I'm one of the people that beat you. Will you forgive me? I want to apologize. Your young son started crying, he started crying, I started crying. The two of them hugged me, I hugged them back. They called me brother. I called him brother. And I saw them four different times after that day. That's what the movement was all about, to be reconciled, to lay down the brutal race. What are you, let me ask you to use your, your fine sense of human intelligence and character to, to tell us what went on in those folks over the years. What, what, what turned their hearts, do you think? I think many people grew to believe that, you know, it's not a vast difference in, in humankind. They saw many of us living by the teaching of Gandhi, the teaching of the great teacher, the teaching of Martin Luther King, Jr. And they didn't see hate in us. They saw us as peaceful participants that wanted to bring people together. And all across the American South, I run into people every day, to thank you. Thank you for freeing me. Thank you for making me a little more human. And we hug, we laugh, and sometimes we cry. Dr. King used to speak about the ability of the movement to transform people, to redeem the soul of America. We wanted to create a beloved community. And I think people saw that. That we didn't hate, we didn't become bitter or hostile. We wanted to become one community, one family, but I like to call one house, not just American house, but the world house. Let me, by the way, I think you and I are probably playing a little bit to the C-span cameras. I think everybody wants to get a good look at you, Mr. Lewis. Okay. Addressing. Could I get you to take us back to that day, March 7, 1965, the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. This is, this is like Beacon Hill in America. Well, you must remember that Selma was located in the heart of the Black Belt of Alabama. In Selma in 1965, only 2.1% of Blacks of voting age were registered to vote. People have been standing in unmovable lines. My old organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, better known as SNCC, have been working there off and on since 1962. After the March on Washington in 1963, many of us went into Selma work, we went into Mississippi and other places. In order to become a registered voter in Selma, in Dallas County, you had to pass a so-called literacy test. People were asked to interpret the section of the Constitution of the state of Alabama. On one occasion, a man was asked to count the number above us on a bar soap. On another occasion, a man was asked to count the number of jello beans in a jar. That was a sheriff in Selma in Dallas County, Alabama, by the name of Jim Clark. He was a big man, tall. He wore a gun on one side, a night stick on the other side, and he carried an electric cap rod in his hand, and he didn't use it on cows. He wore a button on his left lapel that said never. And sometime I felt a sheriff clock would just mean that he went to bed mean, he dreamed mean, and got up mean. And he just made it hard and difficult for many of the citizens to make it up those steps to attempt to get registered. So in the hometown of Mrs. Coretta Scott King, a little town called Marin, Alabama, about 35 miles from Selma. There was a demonstration in mid February, and a young man tried to protect his mother. There was a confrontation. He was shot in the stomach and died a few days later at the Good Samaritan Hospital in Selma. And because of what happened to him, we made a decision that we were marched from Selma to Montgomery to dramatize to the nation into the world that people of color wanted to register to vote. One of the counties that we had to pass through, Lowns County, the county was more than 80% African American, but didn't have a single registered African American voter in the county. So on Sunday, March 7, 1965, after church, we conducted a nonviolent workshop and more than 600 people lined up to walk from Selma to Montgomery. We came to the edge of the Emmett Petters Bridge crossing the Alabama River down below we saw all of this water. And a young man by the name of Jose William from Dr. King's organization, walking with me, said, John, can you swim? I said, no. I said, Jose, can you swim? He said, yes, a little. And I said something like, well, there's too much water down there. We're not going to jump. We're going straight ahead. Now, Scott, I was wearing a backpack before it became fashionable to wear a backpack. And in this backpack, I had two books, I thought we were going to be in jail and I wanted to have something to read. I wanted to have something to eat. I had one apple and one orange that wouldn't last long. And since I was going to be in jail with my friends, my colleagues, my neighbors, I wanted to be able to brush my teeth. So I had toothpaste and a toothbrush. We continued to walk, no one said a word. We come to the highest point on the Emmett Petters Bridge down below, we saw a sea of blue Alabama state troopers. And behind the state troopers, we saw members of Sheriff Clark Posse, he had requested that all white men over the age of 21 to come down to the county courthouse on the Saturday night, March 6th, to be deputized to stop the march. We came within here in distance of the state troopers. A man spoke up and said, our Major John Cloud of the Alabama state troopers, this is an unlawful march, it would not be allowed to continue. You should go back to your homes or return to your church. And Jose Williams said, Major, give us a moment to kneel and pray. And the Major said, troopers advance. You saw these men putting on their gas masks. They came toward us, beating us with nightsticks, tramping us with horses and releasing the tick gas. I was hit in the head by a state trooper with a night stick. I was the first one to take a blow. I thought I saw death. I thought I was going to die. I thought that was my last nonviolent protest. And somehow, in some way, I guess I lost consciousness. And I don't remember, I don't recall, 48 years later, I made it back across that road to the church. I guess someone just carried me back. But I do recall being back at this little church, Brown Chaffer Amy Church. The church is full to capacity, more than 2000 people outside trying to get in. And someone said, John said something to the audience, said something. And I stood up and said something like, I don't understand it. How President Johnson can send troops to Vietnam. But can I send troops to Selma, Alabama, to protect people who only desire to register to vote? And the next thing I knew had been admitted to the Get Some Marriage and House Bill in Selma. It was a little Catholic House Bill, operated by group of nuns. They were brave. They took care of us. 17 of us were hospitalized. Early the next morning, that Monday morning, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Reverend Ralph Abernathy came to Selma, they came to my bedside. Dr. King said, John, don't worry. We will make it from Selma to Montgomery. And the voting rights act will be passed. And he told me that he had sent out a request for ministers and priests and rabbis and nuns and religious leaders to come to Selma. And on that Tuesday, Moish Knight, more than 1000 religious leaders came to Selma. And later that night, that evening, three young ministers, one by the name of Reverend James Reed from Boston, went out to get something to eat at a little restaurant. On their return to Brown Chapel Amy Church in the heart of the African American community, they were attacked by members of the Klan. And Reverend Reed was so severely beaten, he had to be transferred to a hospital in Birmingham. And the next day, he died. And because of what happened in Selma, President Johnson called Governor Wallace to Washington to try to get assurance from him that he would be able to protect us. We went into the federal court. There was a wonderful jury, the late Frank M. Johnson, wonderful man, that testified what happened, that testified in this court during the Freedom Rising 61. He ordered Governor Wallace and others not in to fear what to watch. Governor Wallace could not have shared the president that he would be able to protect us. So President Lyndon Johnson came to Congress on March 15, eight days after blood Sunday. And in my estimation, may one of the most meaningful speeches any American president have made in modern time. And the whole question of voting rights or civil rights. He started that speech over the night by saying I speak tonight for the dignity of man and for the destiny of democracy. The prayer phrase here means something like, at time, history and fate, meet in a single place in man, unending search for freedom. So what was more than a century ago at Lexington and at Concord? So it was. And I've been at it. So this place week in Selma, Alabama, he introduced a vote on right side. And before he concluded that speech, he said, and we shall overcome. So today in the movement, we call it the reshell overcome speech. The Congress gave him a standing ovation. I was sitting next to Martin Luther King, Jr. in the home of a local family as we watched and listened to President Johnson. And I looked at Dr. King tears came down his face. I started crying. And he said, we will make it from Selma to Montgomery. And the voting rights I will be passed. President Johnson called for the military to protect us all the way through those five days of walking from Selma to Montgomery. And when we arrived in Montgomery, not just 600 people. There were more than 25,000 people from all over America. Some members of Congress, elected officials came to religious community to change America. So but only thing I did, I just gave a little blood. Some people gave a very long. How do you love your country? After what happened to you? How do I? Yeah, how? How did you maintain or grow to love the United States after what happened? Well, continue to to love America. I wanted to make America better. I wanted to make America live up to those principles. That we're one people, we're one family, we're one house. And it doesn't matter if we're black or white, a Latino, Asian American, Native American, that we're one 1963 the March on Washington. This is one of the anniversaries that that we're observing. I have read that you are the only speaker at the March in Washington who's still with us. But so far as you know, that's the case. Well, I have a list. I remember the speakers. I spoke number six. Dr. King spoke number 10. It was a wonderful, it was a wonderful coalition, a coalition of conscience, we called it. But you know, before the march itself, President Kennedy had invited us to the White House. We met with him in June in 1963. And we told him that we were going to have a march, at least Mr. Randolph, April Randolph, was considered the Dean of African American leadership. He had threatened Roosevelt with the march. He was always wanting to have a march on Washington. So he convinced us that it was time for us to march. And a few days later after meeting with President Kennedy, we met in New York City at the old Roosevelt Hotel on 42nd. Right, 42nd. I walk by there sometime. Sometimes I just want to go in and find that room where we met. We met there, the six of us. And in that meeting, we invited four major white religious and labor leaders to join us. And we issued the call for the march. We thought maybe we'd get 50 or 60 or 70,000 people. But we went all around the country. Mr. Randolph was the chair. And Bear Reston was his deputy. And we had a young lady who worked in the march office in New York. You can call up any time of night, any time of morning, and say, Rochelle, how many people coming from New York? How many buses are coming from Philadelphia? How many people coming from Boston? How many people going to be on that train coming from the south? How many people coming from the west coast? And she could give us a number. And I remember so well, that morning, August 28, 1963, the ten of us, the six plus the four, came up on Capitol Hill. We met with the leadership of the House, both Democrats and Republicans. We went on the Senate side, Constitution Avenue. And we met with the Republican leadership, the Democratic leadership. And we came out of those buildings. And we can see a sea of humanity coming from Union Station. And we knew it was going to be big. We were supposed to be leaving the march, that people were already marching. It was like saying, there go my people, let me catch up with them. And this sea of humanity just pushed us, pushed us. So we just locked on and started moving toward the Washington Monument, on toward the Lincoln Memorial. It was a wonderful period, I think, in American history. Now, I have read a few accounts that suggest that you had some remarks that you were prepared to make. And people wanted to change. Well, that is true. My original speech was pretty strong. Some people in the administration took the position that if a person had a sixth grade education, he should be considered literate, and should be able to register to vote. My old organization, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, we took the position that only qualification for being able to register and vote should be at an age in residence. I was working on my speech for the help and encouragement of my colleagues. I saw people like women in Southern Africa, carrying signs and saying, one man, one vote. So in my March on Washington speech, I said something like, one man, one vote is the African cry. It is ours too. It must be ours. Then down further in the speech, I said something like, we involve in a serious revolution. Some people didn't like me using the word revolution. And another part of the speech, I talked about the black masses, the black masses as Afila Randolph was there. They said, why are you using that? And Afila Randolph came to my rescue. So that's nothing wrong with the use of the word revolution. There's nothing wrong with black masses. I use it myself sometime. So that part stayed in a speech. But in the beginning, I said, in a proposed speech, today we march for jobs and freedom. But we don't have anything to be proud of. For many of our brothers and sisters cannot be here. They're receiving starvation wages or no wages at all. And then further in the speech, I talked about the party of Kennedy is the party of Eastland. The party of Javis, the Rockefeller is the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? And you're the end of the speech. That's what got to some people. You're the end of the speech down in the body and the other year. And so you tell us to wait. You tell us to be patient. We cannot be patient. We cannot wait. We want our freedom and we want it now. And by Rustin said, John, you cannot say we cannot be patient. I think you've just been facetious. You said the Catholic Church believe in being patient. You cannot say that. So we sort of slip over there. But then at the end of the speech, they had a line in there said, if we do not see meaningful progress here today, that they will come when we will not confine our marching on Washington. We may be forced to march to the south. That way Sherman did nonviolent there is Oh, no. So so the negotiation started. And so by the time we got to Mr. Lincoln, we had a little conference or consultation with Mr. Wolken, Roy Wolken of the NACP, and a Phil Randolph and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. And Dr. King said to me, John didn't sound like you. And a Phil Randolph said, John, we come this father together. Can we stay together? And I can send no to a Phil Randolph, man that I love. And I can send no to Martin Luther King, Jr. He was my hero, my inspiration. I first heard of him in 1955 when I was 15 years old. I met him in 1958 when I was 18. And, you know, was playing words, a little redder. He in there. And so we changed it. And I suggested that we will march through certain cities, certain towns, certain villages, certain hamlets. And that's, and that's a wake up America, wake up America. Restless history. I did want to ask you about some of the, the noted people that you've known over the years. Let's begin with Dr. King. This is a man who's his birthday, whose life we now celebrate every year as a national holiday. You, you knew him well before he was a national holiday. What was he Well, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a wonderful, just a wonderful man. Wonderful human being. I try to make this short. But when I was growing up, I started Troy, Alabama, finishing high school in 1957. I wrote Dr. King a letter and told him I needed his help. I needed his support. I wanted to attend a little state college called Troy State, only 15 miles from my home. Didn't admit black students. He wrote me back, sitting around trip around bus ticket. He knew I was very, very poor. Didn't have any money. I didn't tell my mother, my father, any of my teachers, any of my sisters or brother. In the meantime, I've been accepted at a little college in Nashville, Tennessee. An uncle of mine gave me a hundred dollar bill. More money than they ever had. He gave me a footlocker as a little boy. I used to raise chickens. And I used to preach to the chickens. So I put everything in that footlocker that I own, except those chickens. And went off to school to Nashville. And after being there for about two weeks, I told one of my teachers that I've been in touch with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This teacher knew Dr. King very well. They both had attended Morehouse College together in Atlanta. So he informed Dr. King that I was in school in Nashville. So Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. got back in church with me and suggested when I was home for spring break to come and see him. So in March of 1958, by this time I'm 18 years old, I boarded a Greyhound bus, traveled from Troy to Montgomery, and a young lawyer by the name of Fred Gray, who was a lawyer for Rosa Parks and Dr. King. He became our lawyer during the sit-ins, or during the Freedom Rides in the March from Selmonton, Montgomery. Met me at the Greyhound bus station and drove me to the first Baptist Church, pastor by Reverend Rath Abernathy, a colleague of Dr. King, and ushered me in to the pastor study of the office of the church. And so Dr. King stood behind a desk with Reverend Rath Abernathy. I was so scared. And you know what to say, 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 my whole name. And that was the beginning. This man, I admired him. I love this man. He inspired me. He lifted me. He induced me with a philosophy and a discipline of non-violent, along with a man by the name of Jim Lawson. He, in a sense, he was a funny man. He could tell jokes, make you laugh. Dr. King told jokes. Oh yeah, he would tell jokes. He would say, John, do you try to preach now? I said, yes, sometime Dr. King. When I'm taking a shower. And he would just laugh. And he would mock some of the ministers that he knew. Or some of the deacons in the church. And he was live at his own joke. He thought it was so funny. It was wonderful. I remember one time we were traveling in Alabama someplace. There was some hole in the wall restaurant. He said, let's stop and get something to eat. If we get a restaurant and go to jail, we're going to full stomach. He thought it was funny. At the other end of the spectrum, I think it's safe to say, what was Bull Connor like? Oh, Bull Connor. He was something, yeah. On one hand, he could be very mean. On the other hand, when we were taken out of jail during the Freedom Ride in Birmingham, taken out of jail, seven of us, he had already arrested two young people at the city limit of Birmingham. A young black man and a young white man, because they were sitting on the front seat of the bus and they refused to move. Because segregation was strictly enforced in Birmingham. He, one night, about four o'clock on a Friday morning, he came up to our jail cells and said he was taking us back to Nashville. Now he, we were traveling on a regular, very high bus and he asked to see all of our tickets. And our tickets read from Nashville to Birmingham, Birmingham to Montgomery, Montgomery to Jackson, Jackson to New Orleans. So he let the regular passenger get off the bus, kept us on the bus. Then he ordered the police officials to place newspaper and cardboard over the windows, the windshield, the back of the bus to keep the photographers and the reporters for seeing us inside of the bus. He placed us in jail, placed us in protected custody. And then, had several cars, he was in the car, riding in the same car with me. And he said, he kept telling us he was taking us back to Nashville, to our college campuses. And one of the young ladies in the group said, Mr. Connor, Mr. Commissioner. That's right, he was the Safety Commissioner. He was the Safety Director of Public Safety, Commissioner of Public Safety. So you can have lunch or you can have breakfast with us in the Student Union, at Fifths University, Tennessee State University at Vanderbilt. So he was talking, he was engaging. And we arrived at the Tennessee, Alabama State Line. He said, I'm letting you all off here. It was clan territory. He said, you can make it back the best way. A bus will be coming along. A train will be coming along. But you cannot come back to Alabama. So we start walking. And one of the young African American students said, there must be some black people here. There must be some color folks here someplace. And we kept walking. We came up on an old shotgun house and knocked on the door. Kept knocking. And the elderly black man came to the door. We said, we're the Freedom Riders. We're in trouble. Please let us in. He closed the door. And his wife heard us knocking again and knocking. She came and said to her husband, baby, please let me amen. Let them in. Took the seven of us, placed us in the back room. We gave this week. See, we had been, we went on a hunger strike. We hadn't had anything to eat. Since Tuesday night, May 16th, we left Nashville Wednesday morning, May 17th. This is early Friday morning now. So we gave this man, this gentleman from Daylight came, some money to go to a shop and get us some cold cuts of what we call simmer-rows. Anything, cheese, milk, juice, anything. And this man, blessed his soul, so smart. He went to several different places, trying not to long or anybody, or make people aware, aware that he was buying all this food for us. And he brought the food back. We made a call back to Nashville. And a young lady by the name of Diane Nash, who have coordinated their freedom rise. She was the leader in the national movement. She wanted to know whether we wanted to come back to Nashville, or if we wanted to go back to Bremenham. And she said to us, 11 other packages, this was a code, have been shipped by other means that meant that 11 other students had left by train to continue the freedom ride. And we told her that we wanted to return to Bremenham. So she sent a car, a young 18-year-old student at Tennessee State University, jumped in this car, drove to the spot where we were, and drove us back to Bremenham. And the two young men that had been arrested, that were released from jail, they joined us. One young lady, it was a student at Peabody College in Nashville. Her father flew down from Buffalo, got her, and took her back to Nashville. We arrived back from Shuttleworth in Bremenham, for Shuttleworth. One of the leaders and 11 students met us. At 5 p.m. we went down to the Greyhound bus station to board the bus. And this bus driver made a classic statement. He said, I have only one life to give. I'm not going to give it to Corps or the NAACP and refuse to drive. And each time we would go out and try to board a bus. Now a bus driver would board a bus and drive us. So we were kept in the so-called white waiting room. The clans started marching around the station. They called out the dogs to try to protect us on the inside. And apparently Attorney General Robert Kennedy became so involved and so engaged. He thought it was very dangerous for us to be in Bremenham. At one point he said, let me speak to Mr. Greyhound. He wanted to know whether the Greyhound company had any black bus drivers that would be willing to drive us out of Bremenham and make it to Montgomery. They discussed our problem, our situation with the Fishers of Greyhound and with the Fishers of the State of Alabama. And they made a decision that we would leave at 8 30 a.m. on that Saturday morning. We boarded the bus. I was a spokesperson for the bus group. A private plane would fly over the bus. In every 15 miles, that was a patrol car. You could see the patrol car in every software you see the plane. And most of the freedom riders went to sleep. Could have been up all night in that station. We arrived in downtown Montgomery. The patrol car disappeared. There's like any sign of police present. And the moment we stood it down the steps of the bus, members of the media surrounded us. An angry mob just came out of nowhere. So beating members of the press, destroying their cameras, that pad. During those days, the TV people had those big cameras on their shoulder that were destroying the people. Destroying the photographers, pads, pens. And then they turned on us. My seatmate, you know, gentleman from Connecticut, from Wisconsin rather, was beating. The two of us were beating. I was hit in the head with a wind crate. It was transferred to a doctor's office. And they put a patch on my head. It looked like the Red Cross symbol. And my seatmate were hospitalized for several days. A young man, can think of his name right now. The public safety director of Alabama came with his gun and held it in the ass. There'd be no killing here today. There'd be no killing here today. And the mob dispersed. All of the young women got on the cab, both black and white. But the cab driver said, can I drive you? Can I take you? In Montgomery in 1961, black people and white people could ride in the same taxicab. And one of the young black women told the cab driver to get out. She would drive the cab. So three of the young white women got out and started walking, trying to get away. And John Singlethaler, who was there representing President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. He was like assistant attorney general. The assistant attorney general. A Nashville from Nashville too. Been in the newspaper business. He saw these three young ladies and he suggested to them to jump in the car and get away from the mob. They said to him, don't get hurt sir, this is not your business. And while he was trying to communicate with them, someone in the mob walked up and hit him in the head with a lead pack and left him playing in unconscious. But because of what happened in Montgomery, President Kennedy federalized Alabama, National Guard, called out United State Marshals, put the city of Montgomery on the martial law. The next day on that Sunday, a group of us as freedom writers was in a church for mass meeting, mass rally. The church was full. They hadn't been for the National Guard. The U.S. Marshals, probably a lot of people would have been killed that night. The church could have been bombed or burned down. We'll add, variantetically, of course, John Siegantaler. John Siegantaler became the publisher of the National Tennessee number of years later. Great success story. Wonderful man. Yeah, wonderful guy. Wonderful friend. Are there people that, when these conversations occur when you are alone or with friends and you have your memories, are there names that we wouldn't find as familiar but are very important to you? Many young people, so smart and so gifted. I think, in a sense, we were maladjusted. Dr. King said we were maladjusted to be willing to go in some of these places and get in trouble. Good trouble, necessary trouble. And one young guy named James Balfour, who was a classmate of mine, was born in Ilevena, Mississippi. His family moved to Cleveland, Ohio. I believe that's the hometown of Marion Berry. That's right, that's right. And Marion was, Marion Berry was very much in the national movement. He was the first chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and I became the third chair. But as a student, as a graduate student at Fisher University, Marion was very, very involved and there was just plenty, unbelievable group of committed, dedicated young people. James Bevels. James Bevels was a great character. He organized the children crusade in Birmingham. When you had waves, the hundreds and thousands of young people that were willing to march, to face bull kind of dogs, their fire hoses, and you can go during that period to Birmingham and see that the water hoses, the fire hoses, was so powerful. They picked people up and dropped them. They took bark off of trees. You go there and you walk through the 16th Street Baptist Church. It was some very brave young men and women. Even in Selma, the children, Jim Clark, one day, this man, this mean man, the brave, shaft Jim Clark, he took a group of young people that was marching and sent them on a force march. So if you want to march, you took them out on a highway and then chased them with men on horseback. Many of us went to jail and slept on floors in Selma. That raises, and by the way we're inviting, I'm going to check my watch, we're going to invite your questions in just a few minutes. But I I thank you so beautifully set up the question that I just, when I first found out I was be honored enough to be with you here tonight. This is just about the first question that occurred. But I'm honored to be with you. And thank you. I have two young children. I'm very glad that they're growing up in a country in which they and their friends for the moment seem enormously casual about ethnicity, race, religion, skin color, all of that. Doesn't seem to count for much. I'm glad for that. I consider it a blessing in which you and many others and you a little more or more than a little more than millions of others are responsible for bringing that blessing to this country. So I want them to be to have the blessing of that harder and casualness in their life. On the other hand, what you did for this country and what others did for this country is part of their heritage too. And I want them, I want them to know what some brave people did to make this a better country. So how do we how do we teach those lessons to our children without scaring them, without introducing them to ideas that are well to be antiqued and banished from our midst? Well, you just have to make it plain and make it simple. I spent a lot of time talking to children. They come to my office from all over America, young children, school groups. There's a group of what I call the KIPP students and every year the fifth graders from all over America not come the same day, not the same time, but they come. And I see hundreds and thousands of students on the steps of the Capitol and we show photographs, very large photographs. They come to my office, the offices, they all can fit in. We show a 14-minute film about what it was like growing up in the American South during the 40s and the 50s. We try to tell the story, try to make it very simple. Let them see the signs that said white waiting, colored waiting, white man, colored men, white women, colored women. In my office, there's a photograph of a water fountain taken in a courthouse in Albany, Georgia, taken in 1962. Beautiful, shining fountain, marked white. Then just nearby, same room, only a step or two apart, is a spigot marked color. And I tell these young people, I said, these signs are gone. They were not returned. We brought down those signs. I said, the only things you see, those signs will be in a book, in a museum, or maybe on a video. We live in a better country and we are a better people. And sometime I tell them the wind story for my book, Walking with the Wind. That one day growing up in rural Alabama, when I was only about four and a half or five years old, and I remember it like it was yesterday, I had an aunt by the name of Seneva and she lived in an old shotgun house. She didn't have a green manicured lawn, but a simple plain, dead yard. And sometime at night, you can look up through the holes in the ceiling, through the holes in the tin roof and come to stars. And whenever it rained, she would get a pail, a bucket, a tub, and catch the rainwater. From time to time she'd walk out into the woods and cut branches from a darkwood tree and make a broom and she'd call that broom the breast broom. And she would sweep this dirt yard very clean, sometime two and three times a week, but especially on a Friday or Saturday, because she wanted that dirt yard to look good during the weekend. And I could only tell these little children that one day, one Saturday afternoon, a group of my brothers and sisters and a few of my first cousins, about 12 or 15 of us young children, while playing in my aunt Seneva's dirt yard, and this unbelievable storm came up. The wind started blowing, the thunder started rolling, the lightness started flashing, and the rain just kept beating on the tin roof at the social house. And we cried, and we cried. My aunt cried. We thought this whole house was going to blow away. Then one corner of this whole house appeared to be lifted. My aunt had us to walk to that corner to try to hold the house down with our little bodies. But the other corner appeared to be lifted. She had us to walk to that side. We were little children walking with the wind, but we never left the house. And I said to them, we're all little children. And it doesn't matter whether we're black, or white, Latino, Asian American, or Native American, we all live in the same house. We're one family. And it's not just an American house. Not just a house in Washington, D.C., but a house in Georgia. It's the world house. You must learn to live together. As Dr. King said, if we fail to learn to live together as brothers and sisters, we will perish as fools. Let us invite your questions, if we could, now. I think, yes. Yes, sir. Do we have, we have two microphones? Yes, sir. What are two? Yes. Congressman Lewis, first thank you for it again. And I think you were right to call it a revolution. It was not a peaceful revolution. Some people took the blows and you were one of them, and I want to thank you for that. And I think I'm asking a question about the maladjusted issue. I don't think I've ever heard you or anybody else address the question of fear. You put yourself in harm's way, and we heard about that again tonight. Significant harm's way. Surely as you entered the bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, or in other places, you knew what was about to happen to you when you saw the men come up to you, or you knew what was happening when the news people were pulled off the bus and were beaten and left for dead, you knew what would surely happen to you. Or on the bridge, the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when did fear play a role in what you were doing? When did it test your resolve? Well, I must tell you, going through the nonviolent training, the nonviolent workshops, following the teaching of Gandhi, the teaching of the great teacher, following the teaching of Martin Luther King, Jr., studying thorough and civil disobedience, you come to that point where you say you're not a threat, and you will not let fear conquer you, and you're going to stand up, you're going to speak up, and speak out. And sometimes you can speak without uttering a word or opening your mouth, just through your action. Many of us grew to accept nonviolence, not simply as a technique or as a tactic, but as a way of life, as a way of living, a loss of all sense of fear. So you arrest me, you throw me in jail, you beat me, what else can you do? Dr. King will say on occasion, it is better, it may be better, to die a physical death than to die a psychological death. So when I said being mal-adjusted, you have to be mal-adjusted to the wrongs, to the evil, to the injustice around you. And maybe some people call it being a little crazy, that you know it's a possibility that you're going to be beaten, that you can down that bridge, but you have to go on and be not afraid. And sometimes you have to have what I call an executive session with yourself, and just don't talk back to yourself, and say I'm going on? Daddy King used to say, I'm going all the way to see what the end is going to be. And I often think during the movement, we didn't have a R&R, we didn't have a VA, we didn't go someplace, maybe every now and then we went to a doctor's office or hospital and got a little patch here and a little patch there, and we got back out on the front line, we had to do it. If we didn't do it, what would happen? We would commit it. Yes, I have a question for John. In SNCC, you were succeeded by Stokely Carmichael, and later in life, obviously your ideological positions diverged. Stokely later became the proponent for black political power and economic development, and to some extent his position was vindicated by the election of Obama for the second term. I'm just curious, but later in life he just took, some of his positions became somewhat outrageous, but how do you think history will treat him in terms of his legacy? And the other question is what led, I mean, I don't know how well you knew him, but what contributed to his ideological position, diverging ideological position from yours as he progressed in life? Well, I first met Stokely, he had been a student, he had Howard University, and he was from New York. He came south during the early 60s. I think he came from a different environment. The young people that came out of the city and went on a freedom ride, they came out of the south. They took the position, and I did also, that our struggle is not a struggle that lasts for one day, one week, one month, or one year, or one lifetime. It is an ongoing struggle, and you have to pace yourself. And we said to many of the young people that came from the north, black and white, that we will not start a problem one summer, or one semester. They had to take the long hard look. I used to say to members of my family, I said to my staff now, I said to people in the movement, you have to pace yourself. You cannot be like a firecracker, just pop off. You have to be like a pilot light, and burn, and burn, and burn. I'm not so sure, and Stokely is not here to speak for himself, but there are some people, and I think, will they ever accept the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence? I heard people say, yes, I love practice the philosophy just for this protest, but I'm not going to let it control me as a way of life, as a way of living. One of the ways I grew to accept non, to wear nonviolence, the way of peace, the way of love, to try to see every little child, every little baby, and someone that is innocent without any problems, without any hang ups, and so something happened. Is it the environment? So even a chef clock, even a Governor Wallace, even the people that beat us, left us bloody, left us unconscious, if you come from where I come from, you will say in the bosom of every human being, there is a spark of the divine, and you must respect that and not abuse it. Let me go further. As you heard me say earlier, in 1961, when we arrived at the Greyhound bus station in Montgomery, the Polish department in the city of Montgomery made a decision that they would not be there to protect us. They wanted to give the mob an opportunity. This came out in the courts, hearings and everything to beat us, to leave us bloody, to hurt us, to attempt to stop the freedom ride. But many years later, this past March 2nd, we arrived in Montgomery and went to the First Baptist Church with several members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, members of the House and the Senate, staffers, all type of people, church floor. A young police chief came to the church to speak on behalf of the city, on behalf of the mayor. This young man was not even born during the freedom rides back in 1961. It was not even a dream, but he came up and he spoke and gave an unbelievable speech. And at one point he said to me, Congressman Lewis, I want to apologize for what happened on May the 20th, 1961. What the police department in Montgomery did was wrong. I want you to forgive us. And as a means of way of showing that we want to repent, he said, I want to take my badge off and give it to you. And I said, chief, I said, you can't do that. You're the chief. You need your badge. I'm not worthy of accepting your badge. He said, I want you to have my badge. He took it off. He gave it to me. His deputy started crying and all the members of that congregation, children, spouses, members of Congress started crying. That was a moment of reconciliation. I held a badge and get a frame. I received a great letter from him a few days ago. I wrote him one sometime ago. I'm probably going to give it to some museum here in Washington or in Alabama or Atlanta or someplace. I see these pockets of changes all over the place. The same school that denied me a mission in 1957. I think I elected the congregation. The same library that wouldn't give us library cards in 1956. I went back there on July 5th, 1989 for a book signing on my book, Walking with the Wind. They gave me a library card. And Troy, not Troy State University, but Troy University, a few years ago, gave me an honorary degree and Senator Helfner was the commencement speaker. So change, you just hang in there. You keep the faith. You never give up. You never become bitter or hostile. And it all will work out. You know, it's none of my business, but it occurs to me you should hold on to that badge a little while longer because you'll never get a speeding ticket in my camera. Just keep that nearby and, you know, I miss the way. Congressman Lewis, you're one of my heroes and President Obama is another one of my heroes. And I'd like to ask you, in your heart of hearts, what would you most like to see the President do with the rest of his term to continue the work that you started 50 years ago? And I'll take my answer off the air, Scott. Well, I would love to see the President and the Congress working with the President, pass comprehensive immigration reform and do it and do it now. Too many of our brothers and sisters living in the shadow. It's not right. It's not fair. And it's not just for hundreds and thousands of people in many parts of our country to be living in fear. That's not the American way. We must do it. I'd like to see more resources spent to educate all of our children. And much less, I would like to see the President, and it's not the President alone, working with Congress, spend more resources on saving this little piece of real estate, this little piece of our planet for generation yet unborn. We have a right to know what is in the food we eat. We have a right to know what in the water we drink, what is in the air we breathe, saved environment, not just for ourselves, but for those that are coming after us. And we got to put people back to work and create jobs and do what we can to President and those working with him to create a world community at peace with himself. We don't need more bombs and missiles and guns. We just don't. War is obsolete as a tool of our foreign policy. Let me put you in a tricky position as a follow-up as someone who's been a student of nonviolence and Gandhian principles. Drone warfare. Well, let me tell you, as a member of Congress, I don't vote for preparation for war. So I don't support that. I do not support it. It would be a butcher of my conscience. So if you notice when a vote come up, I support our troops. When I see a young man or a young woman in uniform, I say, thank you for your service. When I see a police officer on the Capitol steps, walking down the way, and they all said to me from time to time, they think I should be probably better at a hospital. They say you're the best member of Congress. I wish there were more people like you because I speak to them. I call them brother, sister. How you doing? But in good conscience, I do not want to be a party to violence and to war. We got to end it. Yes. I've heard bits and pieces of your story, and I must tell you that I'm still laughing and I'm still crying. We have friends on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota to whom the poverty level is an aspiration. But when they gather together, they march behind the veterans and with the American flag. Your story and their story coincide in that you both love this country for the idea and the process of becoming. Are you worried that there are some forces among us who shall remain nameless, perhaps, who are obstructing progress and are gathering steam, or do you think they're just a bit of a speed bump? No, I'm concerned. I just think that good forces, good people, we've been too quiet. We need to make a little noise and get in some good trouble. And we just got to continue to push, get to create a coalition of conscience again, and not be afraid, be daring, be courageous, and build a strong movement. But no one, but no one is left out or left behind. During the 70s, I had an opportunity during the court administration to get out and visit some of the Native American sites and spend some time. About two years ago, I went and visited, in Oklahoma, visited the Cherokee. More of us need to get out there and see how other people are living and try to walk in their shoes. Yes, ma'am. Congressman Lewis, thank you very much. I want to know if during the Civil Rights Movement, did any of the nonviolent civil rights leaders have interaction or have any type of, I guess, discourse with those in the Civil Rights Movement who were not as patient and not as nonviolent? And if so, what kind of interactions were they, were they basically, were you trying to convert them, bring them over to your side, or were you just aware that they were there and just kind of went your separate ways? No, during the 60s, late 60s, early 60s, we did talk. We did meet, trying to convince, and I wouldn't say convert, but saying the way of peace, the way of love, the way of nonviolence is a better way. It's the most excellent way. And the nonviolent movement, everybody can participate, just believe in love, peace. Dr. King was there in a very funny way. He said, John, what we need to do, just love the hell out of everybody. Just love everybody. I remember the night before the March on Washington, Mackam was in, I guess we called it the Capitol Hilton Hotel, at 16th and K. was in, most of the March participants, leaders, stayed in that hotel, and he was in their lobby. And another time after the March, he would argue with us. He said, why are you all going and going to jail, getting the rest of them beaten? Well, after he went to Mecca and came back, he was a changed man. He was trying to identify with the movement. And I believe it was March 14th, 1965, he came to Selma, and we all went in jail. And the local official went and lie him to visit us. And he spoke at the Brown Chapel Army Church. No, it was February 14th. It was February 14th. The same church that we watched from, to a group of high school students, with Dr. Martin Luther King, with Coretta Sky King, Dr. King was in jail. Seven days later, he was assassinated. It's my belief that as Mackam had lived, he would have been marching with us, believing in the philosophy and the discipline of nonviolence. He would begin to change. I've taken a position some years ago, that if I'm the last person who believed in the possibility, in the reality of a truly multiracial, democratic society, living by the way of peace, love, and nonviolent, then I would be that person. The philosophy of nonviolence, for me, is one of those immutable principles that you cannot deviate from or turn away from. If you want to create the beloved community, if that is the end, if that is the goal, then the way must be one of love, one of peace, one of nonviolence. A community that respects the dignity and the worth of every human being. That's the good society. It's a better society. A society at peace with itself. Hi. I wanted to thank you so much for being with us tonight, and thanks to you and the giants you have and have not mentioned tonight. We've come a long way, but I wonder where we still have to go. With that, I was wondering if you could share some of your thoughts about the cases before the Supreme Court right now concerning the Voter Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act and how the constitutionality of portions of those are in question. I was wondering what you think about that and where we still have to go with voting equality. Well, you're going to get me in trouble. I'm sorry? No, that's okay. It's all right. Well, it is my hope that when the court make the decision within the next few days that it would uphold section five of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. That is the heart. That is the heart and soul for the Voter Rights Act. My view is that the vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful, nonviolent tool or instrument that we have in a democratic society. It doesn't matter whether you're rich, milk-wise, low-income. We all have one vote, and it should be easy. It should be simple. I think President Carter said on one occasion, being able to vote should be as simple as getting a glass of water. I take it personally. I really do. My own mother and father, my own grandparents when I was grown up, could not register to vote. The after the Voting Rights Act was passed and signed into law on March 7, 1965. My great, great grandfather, who had been a slave after the emancipation proclamation, when the first thing he did, he married the woman that he loved. And the second thing he did, he registered to vote. So I said to someone some time ago, it must be in my DNA to fight for the right to register, the right to vote. If the Supreme Court make a decision and go the other way, it would be a major setback to open up America. President Obama said about the long lines, let's fix it. It doesn't make sense. In this day and age with all of the new technology, for people to have to stand in the long line, for people to say you've got to have an ID, we can do better, and we must do it. It's the right thing to do. Congressman Lewis, thank you so much for everything. You spoke about the way of nonviolence, that it's a way of life, that the way of nonviolence was of no fear. Could you speak about in those times where you were being asked by the police whether or not you wanted to prosecute in times of moments of your truth, where your strength came out? Were there ever any thoughts of turning to violence, of turning to those ways? And if not, where did that strength come from? I never, never contemplated, I never considered to lay down the way of peace, love, and nonviolence. It is for me a way of life. Now, you know, violence is not just tracking someone. Words can be very valid. Even if you contemplate and are thinking, it may set you off in a different way. Our thoughts, the way we live. See, sometimes in America, I think we are afraid to say, I'm sorry, excuse me, pardon me, can we be just a little more human and just treat everybody the right way? Respect people. Why do we have to be so mean to each other? Sometimes I think in the Congress, we need to conduct a nonviolent workshop. Sir, I think we can take another question. Earlier this evening, there was a brief mention of your protest against apartheid in South Africa. What parallels do you see between what happened in this country in the 50s and 60s and what happened in South Africa a few decades later? Well, I made, I've been to South Africa a few times, but I remember going there, I guess in 94? Was it 94? Or was it? I don't know. We weren't together. No, no, no, no. That's right. Well, just before the election, before the election, a group of us, members of Congress, men and women, Democrats and Republicans, we were in the, in Johannesburg, and we were supposed to go and meet with a group of young people. And some violence broke out in the streets, and the Secretary of State was in the process of leaving and coming back, and they suggested that we go to a hotel in downtown Johannesburg to meet with a group of activists, a group of young people. And they started telling their story of protest through music, through drama. And some of the words, phrases, was so similar to the protests and words, music that we had in this country during the 60s. In the talk to these young people, the students, they were greatly influenced by what we were doing. And I remember back in Nashville as a student, some of the African students were saying the whole of Africa would be free before we were able to get a hamburger and a soda at a lunch counter. And then the NACP had a slogan, free by 63. You remember that? The 100th anniversary of the emancipation process, free by 63. And when these young people finished their presentation, they asked the Americans, these members of Congress, Democrats, Republicans, men, women to respond, we couldn't respond. We were so moved, we were so overcome, and a young African playwright, poet, got up and cited a poem by a slave woman from Georgia. We couldn't say anything. We all stood together and started singing, we shall overcome. And we cried together, and that was the end of that meeting. I remember going meeting Nelson Mandela, he knew everything about me. Meeting Bishop Tutor knew everything. Other leaders, we hugged, we cried. The protest there was very similar to the protest here. But we had a creed. We had something to look toward. We had certain principles. What happened in South Africa, what happened in this country, I think we were moving together to create a new South Africa and to create a new America. I'm afraid I've reached the end of our scheduled time here. I know there will be an opportunity, I think, for people to be able to say hello to you. Yes. I think this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to say hello. Thank you again. Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you. How are you doing?