Civil Rights - The Unfinished Journey | 6

American History Tellers

Wondery

Society & Culture, Kids & Family, History, Education For Kids

4.7 • 18.3K Ratings

🗓️ 7 November 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Seeking to build upon the gains of the early 1960s, Civil Rights activists pushed forward on a series of ambitious efforts. Voting rights activists returned to Alabama and again faced violent reprisal—this time televised for the country to witness. A shocked nation watched the violence in Selma in horror; Congress took action, passing the Voting Rights Act.

Off of this success, Martin Luther King Jr. began building a coalition of activist groups to turn the nation’s attention to the fight against poverty. Gathering support for a massive march on Washington, Dr. King visited Memphis, hopeful and in high spirits. He did not leave alive.

“America does move forward and the bell of freedom rings out a little louder. We have come some of the way, not near all of it. There is much yet to do.” President Lyndon B. Johnson

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to American History Tellers add free on Amazon music, download the app today.
0:18.0	Imagine it's a cool mid-February evening in 1965.
0:21.0	You're a 60-year-old black woman at the Zion's Chapel Methodist Church in the town of Marion, Alabama, about 80 miles west of Montgomery.
0:30.0	The church is packed tonight with nearly 500 people here well after dark.
0:35.0	The plan is to march to the city jail in support of the activists from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference being held there.
0:41.0	As the pews start to empty and folks file out of the church to begin the march, you spot one of your younger neighbors.
0:47.0	He waves and steps towards you.
1:00.0	You're not sure if you're in a state of emergency, but are you sure you should be out here?
1:05.0	Even if nothing happens tonight, they're liable to throw you a Mr. Davis off your land if they see you.
1:10.0	Young man, I lived in Perry County my whole life.
1:14.0	You point toward the doors of the church.
1:17.0	And I know what's outside there.
1:19.0	Now we have been the majority in this county for as long as I can remember, but the folks outside that door have always been the ones in power.
1:25.0	I'm not a ballot.
1:26.0	40 years I'm supposed to have that right, and I don't know how much more time I've got left.
1:31.0	So I aim to vote even if it's just once.
1:34.0	And do you know why, young man?
1:36.0	Why is that Mr. Davis?
1:38.0	Because I'm going to walk into that polling place and cast my vote.
1:41.0	And know that mine counts just the same as Chief Harris or Governor Wallace or any one of those troopers outside.
1:48.0	And that?
1:49.0	That's going to feel just a little bit like freedom.
	...

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