#40 The Life & Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. w/ Clayborne Carson
The Road to Now
Benjamin Sawyer
4.8 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2017
⏱️ 41 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On August 28th,1963 Clayborne Carson was a 19 year-old attending his first civil rights demonstration. That demonstration was the historic March on Washington, and what he remembers most about that day isn't Dr. King's historic speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial, but the people he met.
Hitchhiking back home to Los Alamos, New Mexico, Carson couldn't have known that 22 years later Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, would ask him to edit her husband's papers.
Today Dr. Clayborne Carson is Martin Luther King, Jr. Centennial Professor of History and Ronnie Lott Founding Director of the Martin Luther King Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, where he has taught since 1975.
As someone whose life and research are intertwined with the work and legacy of Dr. King, Dr. Carson is uniquely qualified to explain the importance of King's leadership and his place within the greater struggle for justice in the US and abroad. We are thus honored to have Dr. Carson as our guest on The Road to Now as we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King.
You can find more information on this episode and The Road to Now at our website: www.theroadtonow.com
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | On August 28, 1963, Claiborne Carson was a naive 19-year-old attending his very first civil rights |
| 0:07.7 | demonstration, what we all know today as the March on Washington. |
| 0:12.6 | But what he remembers most about that day isn't Dr. King's historic speech in front of the Lincoln |
| 0:17.8 | Memorial, but the people he met. Hitchhiking back home to Los Alamos, |
| 0:22.2 | New Mexico, Carson couldn't have known that 22 years later, Dr. King's widow, Corretta Scott King, |
| 0:28.4 | would ask him to edit her late husband's papers. Claybourne Carson is now the director of the Martin |
| 0:33.9 | Luther King Research and Education Institute at Stanford University. |
| 0:37.9 | His memoir, Martin's Dream, My Journey, and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. was published by |
| 0:43.5 | Macmillan in 2013. We are honored to have him here as our guest today as we celebrate the |
| 0:50.0 | life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King. |
| 1:02.6 | I'm Ben Sawyer. |
| 1:03.7 | I'm Bob Crawford. |
| 1:05.4 | And this is the Road to Now. |
| 1:10.4 | Well, Ben, here in North Carolina, we had a snowstorm. |
| 1:11.4 | Uh-huh. |
| 1:16.3 | And the kids were out of school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday this week. |
| 1:19.5 | Which, you know, good for them. |
| 1:26.1 | I'm glad that, you know, after having all that time off for Christmas, they got another little winter break-in, right? |
| 1:26.6 | Right. But it can be hard on the on the parents yes |
| 1:29.9 | no days are a different different bird whenever you are uh the parent that's right and uh so my son |
| 1:37.1 | we were getting him ready for bed and uh i i was telling him he was bummed out he it was Wednesday night |
| 1:43.4 | he had to go back to school finally on Thursday and he was bummed out about going back to school I was telling him he was bummed out. It was Wednesday night. He had to go back to school finally on Thursday. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Benjamin Sawyer, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Benjamin Sawyer and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.