This is the Brian Lairr Show on WNYC. I'm Tiffany Hanson, for Brian on this Martin Luther King Jr. day.

But since this is a special one for Brian, we wanted to include

him, and we're going to end the show today with an interview he did with Peneal Joseph on MLK Day in

2023. We were taking oral history calls from people who participated in the civil rights movement

inspired by Dr. King. Professor Penile Joseph is the founding director

of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is

the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values and a professor of history. He's authored

several books, including his most recent Freedom Season,

how 1963 transformed America's Civil Rights Revolution,

the third reconstruction, and most relevant to this discussion,

his book The Sword and the Shield,

The Revolutionary Lives of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr.

Brian and the professor start with a

discussion of a CNN commentary that he wrote called why Martin Luther King Jr.'s sharpest questions

remain unanswered, which of course will link to on the show page. Here's Brian.

Peneo, always good to have you on. Welcome back to WNYC.

Hey, great to be on, Brian. And you recall in your article, King's Political Activism,

from 60 years ago, 1963, and say he reimagined American democracy on both an intimate and

expansive scale introducing a new lexicon for citizenship.

That goes way beyond conceptually what people might think of, oh, 60 years ago, he gave

the I have a dream speech. So what did you mean a new lexicon for citizenship?

Well, King is the person who really provides us a context to think about

...