The year civil rights caught fire

KERA's Think

KERA

Society & Culture, 071003, Kera, Think, Krysboyd

4.8 • 861 Ratings

🗓️ 13 May 2025

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Malcolm X, John F. Kennedy, James Baldwin —1963 brought great minds together to work on the common goal of Civil Rights. Peniel Joseph is Barbara Jordan Chair in Political Values and Ethics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and professor of history and founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin. He joins host Krys Boyd to discuss how different political perspectives shaped a pivotal year in Civil Rights history and how violence woke the nation up to the urgent need for change. His book is “Freedom Season: How 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution.”

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Transcript

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0:00.0	1963 was a year marked by racialized terrorism, massive protests, oppressive policing,
0:17.0	and the assassinations of Medgar Evers and the President of the United States.
0:21.3	It was an agonizing year for this country and a triumphant one, because the events of 1963
0:27.0	helped clear a path for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
0:31.5	From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.
0:35.8	The transformation didn't just happen. People like James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry,
0:40.3	Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers,
0:43.3	John as president, Bobby as Attorney General,
0:45.3	all influenced what Americans believed could be possible
0:49.3	and what actually happened.
0:51.3	Ponell Joseph is here to tell us more.
0:52.3	He is Barbara Jordan Chair in Political
0:54.8	Values and Ethics at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and Professor of History and Founding
1:00.2	Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the University of Texas at Austin.
1:05.2	His new book is called Freedom Season, how 1963 transformed America's civil rights revolution. Bena, welcome back to think.
1:14.0	Hi, Chris. Thanks for having me. We will start, as you do in the book with James Baldwin, who was
1:19.0	still in his 30s in 1963. You say he was a kind of Rorschach test for the activists and the
1:25.4	intellectuals and political leaders of that year.
1:28.6	Tell us more about that.
1:30.8	Absolutely. So 1963 is really going to be James Baldwin's year. And it's an extraordinary year for
1:39.1	him and the rest of the country. But he really becomes an incubator for folks on the left and the right
1:46.4	and in the middle for how we're defining freedom and dignity and democracy and citizenship.
	...

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