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Xernona Clayton: I came over in the morning to pick Martin up...

to drive him to the airport to go to Memphis.

The children saw him going to the airport all the time.

But this day, the boys blocked the door...

and said, "Daddy, don't leave."

And he said, "Oh, I'll be right back.

"I'm just going down to Memphis!

I'll be back."

Then they ran ahead of him and blocked the stairs,

and said, "Daddy, don't leave us."

And he said, "Listen, I'm coming right back.

"I'm just gonna go down there for a march.

"You know I explained why I'm going.

"These... people have been mistreated in Memphis,

"and I'm going to do something about it.

That's my work, and you know that."

They ran over to my car,

and then they jumped on the hood of the car,

pleading again through the window,

"Daddy, please don't go.

"Daddy, please don't leave us.

Daddy, please!"

Such pleading.

We backed out of the driveway...

and got on the way.

And he said, "What in the world happened to these kids?

"They must be trying to tell me

"that they're missing me more.

"And when I come back, I've gotta change my habits.

I can't go through this."

♪ ♪

Harry Belafonte: I watched the transformation take place

from the man that I met in the first instance

to the man he became in the end.

With all of his experience,

he really was not quite ready

for the human heart

to reveal as much villainy.

What he saw was more hate than he saw resolve.

We were trying to redeem the soul of America

from the triple evils

of racism, war, and poverty.

And Martin had become far more exposed to enemies

by taking on both civil rights

and the war issue.

(indiscernible chatter) Yeah.

Joan Baez: I couldn't imagine the pressure

that was on him-- nobody could.

None of us could imagine that.

It was just too overwhelming.

♪ ♪

(indiscernible chatter)

Clarence Jones: The most difficult time of his life

was the 18 months before his assassination.

Very difficult time.

Ralph Abernathy: The Moses of 1968, Martin Luther King.

(cheers, applause)

Bernard Lafayette: He was disappointed...

and he wondered whether or not

he could do any more than he'd done.

♪ ♪

Clayton: It had bothered him deeply

that the nation had turned against him...

and I always tell people he died of a broken heart.

C.T. Vivian: I think he worried about dying

before he had accomplished enough.

It's as though-- though that he knew that...

he was not gonna be here

for the rest of the struggle.

We've got some difficult days ahead.

The movement ceased to be political for him.

It was spiritual.

But it really doesn't matter with me now.

Young: He said, "We have wandered in the wilderness of 'separate but equal,'

"and we're about to move into the promised land

"of creative integration,

"and I don't know whether I'll get there,

but my people will get to the promised land."

Get to the promise land!

(cheering)

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the Lord!

(cheering, applause)

I'm 86, and you know, there's an African proverb...

that says, "If the surviving lions don't tell their stories,

the hunters will get all the credit."

♪ ♪

Clayton: I tell the story of Martin Luther King as I knew it.

I lived it.

I value all of what they gave me, now that I can remember.

I'm not just telling stories.

I'm not making a speech.

I'm telling you what happened.

♪ ♪

Man: Speed. Man 2: Speed.

Civil Rights, King, Vanocur,

roll 20, sound 36.

Man: Sandy.

Vanocur: Dr. King...

this church is as good a place as any

to go back over your commitment

to the Civil Rights Movement.

When you went to Montgomery, Alabama,

and started the bus boycotts there,

what was the philosophy of the Civil Rights movement

as you saw it then, more than 10 years ago?

♪ ♪

MLK Jr: Well, I would say, then, the philosophy was

that we must go all out

to use legal and nonviolent methods

to gain full citizenship rights

for the Negro people of our country.

And that particular struggle

centered on breaking down

all of the barriers of legal segregation.

That period was a great period of hope for me,

and I'm sure for many others.

Many of the Negroes who had about lost hope

saw a solid decade of progress in the South.

And I think we are in a new era,

a new phase of the struggle,

where we have moved from a struggle for decency,

which characterized our struggle for 10 or 12 years,

to a struggle for genuine equality,

because there are three evils in our nation.

It's not only racism,

but economic exploitation of poverty would be one,

and then militarism.

And I think, in a sense,

and in a very real sense,

these three are tied inextricably together,

and we aren't gonna get rid of one

without getting rid of the other.

When you stood in that August day in 1963

on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial...

(cheering)

and you said, "I had a dream"...

did that dream envision a war in Asia...

and in the ghettos of the North?

MLK Jr: No, I didn't envision that then.

In 1963, to be in the March on Washington,

it meant a great deal. It was a high moment,

a great watershed moment.

(cheers and applause)

But I must confess that that dream that I had that day

has in many points turned into a nightmare.

(crowd shouting)

♪ ♪

Sellers: We were all caught off-guard

when we saw the rebellions begin.

They started in Harlem,

and then Philadelphia in 1964,

and then Watts in 1965, which was the most massive.

Young: Martin called me early in the morning

saying that, "There's a riot in Watts.

We-- we've gotta go to Los Angeles."

(bell clanging)

(people chattering)

Thank you very much my dear friends

of Los Angeles and the Watts area of this city.

(people chattering) Woman: Quiet!

Now I live approximately 2,500 miles from here.

(indistinct chatter) Shh!

I'm not free there,

and our brothers and sisters are not free there...

and you are not free in California

and in the North... (people cheer)

I've said all over America,

and I've come out to Watts to tell ya today...

Man: All right. no matter what color you are,

you are somebody!

(people cheer) Yeah, that's right! Yeah, that's right!

That's right! Yeah!

And all over the United States of America...

the Negro must join hands...

(man 2 speaks)

(laughter) ...and we must work.

(shushing)

And we must work. (cheering)

Dr. King said that, "The riot...

became the language of the unheard."

MLK Jr: You all know my philosophy.

You all know that I believe firmly in nonviolence.

Or maybe some of you don't quite agree with this.

Lewis: Nonviolent is more than a tactic.

It is one of those immutable principles

that you cannot deviate from

if you're going to be able to redeem the soul of America.

(people cheer)

Young: The issues in Watts, and in the North,

were far more complex than black and white,

as they had been in the South.

He was dealing with racism,

but he was dealing with racism that was complicated

by unemployment and unprepared migrants

moving from the South to the North.

And I realized we were in a different movement.

Sellers: What we saw it as...

a lot of people who were suffering

from the same kind of poverty,

the same kind of absence of employment opportunities,

and police brutality were in the urban areas,

and they responded

with whatever weapons they could find.

♪ ♪

Joe Califano: The President, during the riots,

was just... depressed.

About a week before,

Johnson had signed the Voting Rights Act,

tells me, "This is the most important piece of legislation I'll pass.

Even more important than the '64 Civil Rights Act."

He's virtually carried out of the room on shoulders,

and then, we start the massive rioting in Watts.

So he tells me, "Call Dr. King."

(both speaking on phone)

MLK Jr: Yes.

All of this was happening about the same time

that the war in Vietnam heated up...

and the President was in the midst of a very heavy burden

both with war and domestically.

(Johnson speaks on phone)

(MLK Jr. speaking on phone)

Young: Dr. King made the decision in '65

that he had to be against the war.

♪ ♪

We went to meet with Ambassador Goldberg

at the United Nations,

and Goldberg pretty much agreed with us

that the war in Vietnam was not in anybody's interest.

But the press said that he had no business

having an opinion about foreign affairs.

He was a civil rights leader, see.

And... it hurt him.

He said to me-- he said, "Vivian, uh,

you don't think I know what I'm talking about, do you?"

But he knew how he felt about the war.

Also, I think Martin knew that he had to be a part

of the North sooner or later.

MLK Jr: One must understand

that the civil rights legislation

that we have had over the last few years,

even the voting bill-- rights bill--

which came the other day,

didn't do too much to improve the lot

of the thousands and millions of Negroes

in teeming ghettos of the north.

I opposed SCLC moving North...

because we weren't finished in the South.

We needed to continue political education.

And we needed to work

on building an economic base.

♪ ♪

Dorothy Cotton: Martin could sit there for an hour,

listen to us argue about, "No, let's go here.

Let's go there. Let's teach this, let's-- whatever."

♪ ♪

But he would teach a lot by asking questions.

Then a sudden quiet would come over the room,

because he wanted to make people think about what they wanted.

♪ ♪

Martin could be very quiet

and have all the power in the room.

Martin had decided that we had to prove

that nonviolence was relevant in the North.

That we had to find a way

to get into these northern cities

before the riots occurred.

And so, we went North to Chicago.

Belafonte: I do not know that everything that Martin said or did...

he was quite prepared for.

He had felt that in many ways,

dealing with the South was a more predictable outcome,

because in the North,

the racial hypocrisy was very subverted.

It gave the appearance of being not like the South,

the South was the center of all evil,

and the North was a place of the higher experience.

And Dr. King said, "No, that's not the case."

♪ ♪

We moved into an apartment on 16th and Hamlin.

It was a walk-up apartment

with no lights, no heat...

and it took quite an adjustment.

I never got scared in the South.

(people shouting)

Young: I knew the dangers...

and I was prepared

to get killed in the South,

but I wasn't ready to--

you know, to have a junkie stick a knife in me

in the middle of the night, coming into that apartment...

for maybe $15 or $20 that I had in my pocket.

That first night was a very cold night,

and I got really worried

that there weren't gonna be enough blankets.

So we went and got the blankets,

and went over to see Dr. King in his apartment.

And, as we were sitting there,

the doorbell rang,

and there was a young man there.

The first thing he said when he came in the door was,

"Are you really Martin Luther King?"

They had a very lovely conversation,

with Dr. King really saying, "We want you to join the movement."

Pretty soon, later, there was another knock on the door,

and there was like a whole train of them going down the stairs.

And those young men came back a number of times to see Dr. King.

MLK Jr: Yes. (people chattering)

Lafayette: People in the community, they would just hang around,

waiting for him to come downstairs,

you know, so they could see him.

But he would invite them in,

sit down and talk to people.

They didn't think he was the kind of person they could talk to,

and it made them feel...

well, honestly, that they were worthwhile...

as well.

♪ ♪

Vivian: Martin understood

that if you ran with folk,

you could organize folk.

Remember, we've spent all of our lives

being hated in one form or the other.

But when we see somebody who really cares for people--

people, period, right--

that person is worth knowing.

Young: The first week we moved in,

the temperature dropped to about 16 degrees below zero.

And people came to us

to complain that they had no heat.

And to find babies wrapped in newspaper--

we had to start firing the furnaces.

So we got all the money we could

and we got enough coal to get all of the furnaces to work.

We called the movement in Chicago

The Movement to End Slums.

And it plunged us into several issues.

One was the area of poor housing.

The other was the area of quality education,

and also unemployment.

Henry Mitchell: I feel like we know more about our problem

than Dr. King, because we live here.

Man: What would you suggest that he do, Reverend Mitchell?

I would suggest when it comes down to our city,

he should get the hell out of here.

Jesse Jackson: So first we ran into stiff black resistance.

We had never met that in Montgomery,

or Birmingham, or Selma before. That was different.

A lot of the ministers were part of the patronage system.

Mayor Daley's patronage system

was one where people's jobs

were handed out based on the number

of votes that they could produce.

They called it the Daley Machine.

Nash: Martin had anxiety, because, as he put it,

"We don't want to flunk." (laughs)

"We don't want to fail in our projects."

We met regularly with Mayor Daley...

and we disagreed...

because we were challenging the way Chicago was structured.

I think we're beginning to crystallize

some of the problems and understand

what we might do to begin to make some changes.

Does it mean demonstrations, too, possibly?

Yes, it would mean demonstrations,

but I think just when it would mean demonstrations,

we wouldn't be able to say.

♪ ♪

Young: At the same time,

we were still being pulled back to the South,

and James Meredith decided to have a march in Mississippi.

♪ ♪

Newscaster: When James Meredith, a Negro who desegregated

the University of Mississippi, started the march,

only three friends walked with him.

The surest way to power is through the vote.

And it is for this reason that I have decided

to use all of my spare time

trying to encourage Negroes to register and vote,

and that is the purpose of this march today.

Mississippi wanted black folk to leave.

They didn't want them to be there to vote.

They were trying to starve them out.

They were pushing people off the land

and wanted them to go North.

And the violence continued.

James Meredith's march was a march against fear.

We had seen people in Mississippi

getting killed for trying to register to vote,

because they didn't want them to have power.

So he was trying to empower African Americans

to not be fearful of all the threats.

Newscaster: "If I can walk through Mississippi without harm,"

Meredith told reporters,

"other Negroes will see that they can too."

Sellers: At that time,

me and Stokely Carmichael were officers of SNCC,

the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee.

And someone came along and told us

that James Meredith had been shot.

Meredith: I'm hit in the leg and in the head.

(tires screeching) Ain't nobody gonna get me in a car.

Man: Here it comes right now, Jimmy.

The Meredith March wasn't on anybody's agenda.

He didn't consult with anybody.

But with the shooting of Meredith,

Dr. King and civil rights leaders rallied around that.

This march that we are continuing,

started by James Meredith,

I am convinced will have as great an impact,

or probably a greater impact

than the march from Selma to Montgomery.

If a man can still be shot down on the highways in Mississippi,

peacefully walking, that march needs to be big.

Reporter: Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Carmichael: No more questions.

Young: Martin felt we could not ignore

what was happening in Mississippi.

We got the march.

So, we had to divide what we were doing in-- in Chicago...

and so we had a Mississippi March and a Chicago Movement.

(crowd booing) (playing "Dixie")

Boy: Where's Meredith? Go home!

He's a fucking tootsie roll!

Nigger go home! Boy: Where's Meredith?

♪ ♪

Reporter: From the moment that the civil rights leaders

rushed in to continue James Meredith's march,

there has been a struggle to see whose philosophy would guide the steps.

Carmichael: Hey, check this out now!

Reporter: The philosophical struggle deepened

as the march column moved deeper into Mississippi.

The voice of Stokely Carmichael,

young leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,

spoke louder and louder.

At Greenwood, he sounded the march's new rallying call.

Carmichael: It's time we stand up and take over.

We want Black Power! Crowd: Black Power!

We want Black Power! Crowd: Black Power!

We want Black Power! Crowd: Black Power!

We want Black Power!

In SNCC, we saw a changing movement, tactically.

We want Black Power!

Sellers: Our focus was on empowering communities.

Carmichael: We don't have to be ashamed of it.

Sellers: Not only politically,

but in terms of culture and identity.

Carmichael: What do you want? Crowd: Black Power!

Carmichael: That's what we gonna get.

Lafayette: What they were basically saying

is that black people needed to appreciate black.

And it wasn't a color, it was a culture.

Now, when I was growing up,

to call a person of color "black"

was considered derogatory.

Those were fighting words.

But, there was a term that was used as well

during that period, "white power."

Jones: Stokely Carmichael gets control

of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee,

and he purges the organization of all white people.

He said, "You go back and work in your community.

We want to have total control."

It rippled throughout the movement.

Edelman: I will never forget Dr. King's face

when Black Power first began to emerge.

He looked like the most stricken man.

We must never forget...

there are some white people in the United States

just as determined to see us free

as we are to be free ourselves.

(crowd cheering)

Young: We were taught that

there were good people and bad people,

and we never viewed this as black against white.

We're taught that racism was a sickness,

and you don't get mad with sick people.

They just don't know any better.

They'd been taught that they are better than you.

Frank McGee: What do you mean when you shout,

"Black Power," to these people back here?

I mean that they are oppressed

because they are black,

and their rallying cry must be "Black Power,"

so that they can use that

to ensure justice for themselves.

Jones: Martin was very uncomfortable,

but he knows that he has to be there to support

the courage of Stokely Carmichael

without supporting the message...

or the form of the message.

Dr. King was not opposed to power,

but to elevate so-called black power over white power...

would break that which he was seeking to build:

the coalition among white and black people.

I feel that while believing firmly

that power is necessary,

that it would be difficult for me

to use the phrase "Black Power,"

because of the connotative meaning

that it has for many people,

and the feeling that this may represent

our desire to rise from a position

of disadvantage to one of advantage,

thereby subverting justice. On the other hand--

Sellers: Some of the people on the march

were intimidated by the whole effort of Black Power.

They must ask themselves why they are afraid of the word "black"

and why they're afraid of the phrase "Black Power."

Sellers: As long as we were talking about non-violence

and all that kind of thing, everybody felt comfortable.

Do you think they're really afraid of it or just feel that it's not a good--

Anytime when we talk about black people having power,

the assumption is that black people

want to be violent against white people.

Mr. Carmichael, are you as committed

to the nonviolent approach as Dr. King is?

No, I'm not. Why aren't you?

Well, I just don't see it as a way of life. I never have.

I grew up in the slums of New York,

and I learned there that the only way that one survived

was to use his fists. I realized the reality--

Lafayette: When Stokely became chairman of SNCC,

he had a different approach.

For me, it's always been a tactic and never a way of life.

Lafayette: He believed in self-defense.

Could you comment on that, Dr. King?

The Negro has an opportunity to inject morality

in the veins of our civilization,

and for this reason,

I will continue to preach non-violence, I will to continue--

Young: Martin was an amazingly tolerant,

understanding father figure for all of us.

He understood Stokely's frustrations,

and he never took it personally.

I think Dr. King never forgot

that we were all on the same side.

He didn't have any enemies.

Edelman: What I remember was the listening, the patience.

He was always there to say, "I don't go there,

but I want to really understand why you go there."

But that was the first real breach

in the nonviolence commitment

that many of us had grown to accept.

MLK Jr: I'm sick and tired of violence.

I'm tired of shooting! I'm tired of hate!

I'm tired of selfishness! I'm tired of evil!

I'm not gonna use violence, no matter who says it.

(cheers, applause)

I had not, before meeting Dr. King...

ever taken the option of violence off the table.

We are a minority living in the belly of the beast.

When Dr. King stepped in,

he methodically would look at violence

and challenge those who would seek the gun as the solution,

because morally, you cannot defeat the enemy

by becoming the enemy.

But Stokely really believed that in the long run,

the gun was gonna have to be the answer.

And we begged the President.

We begged the federal government.

That's all we've been doing!

Young: I accused Stokely of being...

just an angry, frustrated young man.

Carmichael: It's time we stand up and take over. (crowd cheers)

Every courthouse in Mississippi

oughta be burned down tomorrow to get rid of the--

Young: Anger eats away at your own soul,

and it hurts you.

Everybody has a right to be angry.

Everybody has a right to be frustrated.

But, if you give in to your anger

and your frustrations,

you know, you're gonna lose.

♪ ♪

(applause)

MLK Jr: This day, we must commit ourselves

to make any sacrifice necessary

to change Chicago, this day.

(applause, cheers)

That summer of '66 did feel like a very turbulent time.

We must avoid the error of building

a distrust for all white people.

Finley: There was some question

about whether it was appropriate

for white people to stay working with the movement.

And I remember one of my black friends saying to me

"We need to know we can do this ourselves."

And in the middle of all that,

was the rising of the Vietnam War.

Many of the staff who were very strongly opposed to the war

were trying to get Dr. King to speak out against it.

(crowd cheering)

Young: Martin was now being pulled

back in to the war issue by the student left,

and so you had almost three things

coming together in Chicago,

pulling the same leadership in different directions.

This day, we must decide

that our votes will determine

who will be the Mayor of Chicago next year.

(cheers, applause)

Mayor Daley was very upset about what was going on here,

and he was in touch with Lyndon Johnson

and said, "Get this Martin Luther King off my back."

(both speaking on phone)

Young: The area that the movement

insisted on getting into was open housing.

What-- what is the make-up of the community here?

What would be the reaction of the community

to a Negro family moving in?

Oh, I don't think they'd like it.

They're very clannish in a way.

Chicago is probably the most segregated city I know.

It's not only segregated black and white,

but the Irish, the Italians,

the Polish, the Jewish community.

Almost everybody lives in its own enclave in Chicago.

And so we started marching into those ethnic neighborhoods,

and we were challenging Chicago

simply by marching.

Woman: I've moved out of a neighborhood that was colored.

Everybody that lives with a colored has to move.

Reporter: Why? Because you're not safe walkin' the streets at night.

You cannot leave the house.

Negroes have a right

to move in under the constitution.

The only thing is, what kind of a Negro?

(crowd chattering)

Lafayette: Our marches were to the real estate offices,

because the real estate agents controlled

the movement of people.

They're the ones who were managing this discrimination.

MLK Jr: Every time Negroes went in,

the real estate agents said,

"Oh, I'm sorry. We don't have anything listed."

And then we sent some of our fine white staff members in

to those same real estate offices,

and the minute the white persons got in, they open the book,

"Oh yes, well, we have several things.

Now what exactly do you want?"

(applause)

Something is gonna happen as a result of this...

and I'm not losing faith.

I still have faith in the future.

Men: Communist! Communist! Communist!

Officer: Move it back. Move it back. Move it back!

Young: I remember marching through Gage Park.

(chanting) We want King! We want king!

And the difference in the South...

you had maybe a couple hundred, at most...

of the riffraff of the Klan.

(people chattering)

(loud bang)

Young: But, in Chicago, it was 10,000.

I mean, everybody came out.

Get outta here! What? I live in here!

Get outta here! I live here!

Those fucking niggers don't live here!

(people shouting)

Lafayette: I remember coming on those marches,

prepared for anything.

(people shouting)

(man speaks)

MLK Jr: Oh, I've been hit so many times,

I'm immune to it.

But it was well beyond what we anticipated.

♪ ♪

Reporter: Dr. King, the superintendent of police of Chicago

said that your civil rights tactics have aroused hatred

among Chicago white residents

and are hampering the Negroes' progress.

MLK Jr: There is no doubt about the fact

that there are many latent hostilities existing

within certain white groups in the North.

And these latent hostilities have come out in the open,

and I don't think you can blame

the Civil Rights Movement for that.

Certainly no one would blame a physician... Reporter: Mm-hmm.

or using his instruments and his know-how

to reveal to a patient that he has cancer.

Now we have only revealed in Chicago

that there is a blatant social

hate-filled cancer.

And what we're trying to get rid of is hate.

Jackson: Nonviolence had the power to pull the worst fever

out of them and show our moral strength.

They had the stick. We had the Bible.

Young: I remember this one young lady came up to Dr. King,

just spitting in his face, calling him all kinds of names.

And he said, "You know...

you're much too beautiful to be so mean."

Man: What are we supposed to do, officer?

(on bullhorn) Why don't you go home and act like adult people?

Young: And, when we came back through there,

she came out of the crowd again, and went up to him,

and said, "I'm sorry. (chuckles)

I-I-I-I-- I never should have been so rude."

The nonviolent approach... is radical.

Radical enough to believe

that under the worst conditions, there's hope.

It's radical enough to believe that people who display

some of the most insensitive kind of attitudes...

can be changed.

Its ultimate goal is to win your opponents over.

So, you had to psychologically disarm them.

You confront your opponent,

and you look your opponent in the eyes

so that they will not see you as a target,

but as a human being.

So, you are forcing your humanity on them.

(people shouting)

Finley: Mayor Daley was very distressed,

and he really wanted it to end.

So, one of the religious groups in Chicago

decided to call a meeting

to try to come to some agreement

that would stop the marches.

Man: Through the democratic process of discussion...

around the conference table,

an agreement has been reached unanimously...

and I think all of Chicago will be indebted to them.

Thank you very much.

(applause)

(chattering) Man 2: Would you hold it one second please?

Just hold your questions.

Reporter: Dr. King.

One of the most significant programs ever conceived

to make open housing a reality in a metropolitan area

was agreed upon here today

at the table of reconciliation.

Therefore, the Chicago Freedom Movement hereby agrees

to halt neighborhood marches

and demonstrations in Chicago

on the issue of open housing,

so long as these pledged programs

are being carried out.

Reporter 2: Dr. King, you say you're satisfied, but are you?

You don't sound too happy

about what's happened in there. Are you?

Well, I don't know what you mean.

What do you mean? (laughter)

Reporter 2: You don't seem like you really are happy.

Well, I'm a very honest man,

and I wouldn't say on this paper

something that I don't believe.

I think that this is

a very significant step forward.

I'm not happy

about the total problem

that we face in the United States of America.

I always have to look at the ultimate,

and in terms of the ultimate,

we are still a long, long way from our goals.

Thank you.

Finley: The staff was really disappointed.

We did not get a definitive statement from them

that discrimination in housing will end in Chicago.

But one of the things that Andrew Young said was...

"Sometimes you only win half a loaf,

and then you have to keep pushing for the rest of it."

The extent that there were successes that came later...

Dr. King didn't get to see that.

Belafonte: Up to the moment of his death...

I think that Dr. King referred

to the experiences in Chicago

more regularly than almost any other experience.

I think Chicago was a--

was a huge awakening... for him.

He saw that the movement

now was reflective more of the truth

of what America was about

than just what we'd experienced in the South.

And Martin said to me, "Clarence...

"I've seen some hate-filled eyes and mouths...

in Mississippi and Alabama."

He said, "But the hate I saw...

"in Illinois...

was equal or greatest to any of the hate I've seen in Mississippi."

He was really... shaken.

Young: When we left Chicago,

I remember his battles with conscience.

He was very depressed that he hadn't been more...

forceful in his non-violence.

MLK Jr: I will continue to work against violence

and riots with all my might,

that it is just as important

to work passionately and unrelentingly

to get rid of the conditions that bring violence into being.

Do I sense that it is your feeling

that the Civil Rights Movement,

as a movement,

has entered sort of a different stage?

Young: I said, "Wait a minute.

"You're doing better than anybody else is doing.

There's no reason for you to feel guilty."

But he always felt he was not doing enough.

MLK Jr: It was easier to integrate public facilities,

it was easier to gain the right to vote,

because it didn't cost the nation anything.

And the fact is that we are dealing with issues now

that will call for something of a restructuring

of the architecture of American society.

It's gonna cost the nation something.

Young: As much as he did,

he always blamed himself for not doing enough.

♪ ♪

He was a kind of workaholic where he-- he was never content.

He was driven by a kind of a need for perfection.

And he was always feeling that he wasn't doing his best.

I think because of his feeling

that somehow he wasn't good enough

to be the leader.

Those were periods when...

he was really just physically exhausted.

♪ ♪

Belafonte: Dr. King came to New York with great regularity,

and whenever he was here on quiet time,

he often stayed at our home.

And we also made sure that his space

was filled with the things that brought him pleasure,

including his favorite drink,

Bristol Cream Sherry.

♪ ♪

I think one of the things that attracted him to my environment...

was that...

here I was, a very prominent black American.

And my wife then was a young woman named Julie Robinson,

who was white,

and that she and I were married

and brought children into the world,

and at no point was her presence in my life ever obscured.

And Dr. King watched the environment around me

accept that and treated us

with a lot of kindness and respect.

In Martin's earlier life,

in his youth as a student,

his first real love...

was a white woman.

He adored this young lady

and was deeply pained

when the wrath of Daddy King

and everybody else came down on him...

when he suggested

that he wanted a relationship with this young lady.

It betrayed everything that Daddy King had in mind for his son.

(applause)

Merv Griffin: It's rare, Doctor,

that we get a chance to see you in New York.

You've discovered it's a fun city?

(laughter) Well, I have--

I haven't quite discovered that side of New York.

Really? Being a Baptist clergyman,

they keep me involved in other areas.

Griffin: Ah. Right. (laughter)

Your home is actually in Atlanta?

Atlanta, Georgia. Atlanta. That's right, yeah.

Do you have a church at this time in Atlanta?

Yes, I am the co-pastor

of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta,

and my father is Pastor,

so we are working together there as a team.

Both you and your father?

That's right, they put up the two Kings. Is there any seniority?

(chuckles) Well, he makes it clear, (laughs)

sometimes consciously and sometimes unconsciously,

that he is the pastor, Right.

and I'm the co-pastor. (laughter)

Jesus was the leader in the way.

For he said, "I am the way...

"the truth...

and the light." Now that gets all of it--

Belafonte: When I met Daddy King in Atlanta,

I understood the real meaning of "patriarch."

He was a huge force in the community as a black minister.

Glory to God. Belafonte: Very imposing.

Something wrong with your head.

Belafonte: And when you met him,

you understood that you were dealing with the power.

What was also fascinating for me

was the subservience that Martin reflected

when talking with his father.

Not just parental, but as someone whose view

of where we should be going as a people

held great substance for Martin.

Vivian: Martin really understood his father,

but he understood also

the difference between he and his father.

So in a sense, we look into a future

shrouded with impenetrable uncertainties.

Vivian: There was a great difference

between he and his father's preaching.

♪ ♪

Martin made his points at a different level

and in a different way than most other preachers did.

And the reason for that was his--

because he had this unusual education.

Jackson: Dr. King finished high school at 15.

He finished Morehouse at 19.

He finished seminary at 22, his PHD at 26.

He knew that strong minds break strong chains.

Belafonte: I think his faith in the teachings that he had studied,

his constant references to Thoreau and--

I never knew of these guys,

never heard of these people

until Martin came in one day

and in the midst of some rather casual moment,

he would evoke what Nietzsche said, and what Thoreau had--

and I'm sitting there saying, "Well, who is Nietzsche?"

Daddy King used to say, "Just get in there and talk the gospel.

"stop all with this college stuff

"and all these highfalutin people you keep evoking.

People don't know who they are."

He said, "Yes, they do."

Cotton: You could wake Martin up from a nap,

and he could do a sermon.

I remember saying to him,

"You are due at the church in 20 minutes,"

I mean, like his mother. (laughs)

And when he got to the church,

you would think he'd been studying all night.

He was a natural preacher.

Vivian: Everybody loved Martin as soon as they heard him.

There was a desire for people

to be a part of an educated ministry.

The only thing that we had was Christianity.

The only thing that white America

allowed us to have was our churches.

Belafonte: Martin's moments when the curtain was drawn,

and he was not on public display,

was a man who revealed his deepest concerns

about his right to do what he was doing.

The fact that he was touched

by that calling in history disturbed him,

because he didn't quite understand it.

He referred everything to divine intervention,

to divine power.

"It's what God has called on me to do."

♪ ♪

And in the depth of that belief,

that religious commitment,

those voices that he heard really existed for him.

Daddy King, I don't think, was fully approving

of where the movement was going.

He saw nothing but chaos.

(bangs) (crowd shouting)

Those fucking niggers don't live here! (shouts)

He saw nothing but rage.

He saw these young, young people.

We're gonna pitch the tents!

All: We're gonna pitch the tents!

We're gonna pitch the tents!

Belafonte: With the birth of SNCC, (bangs, hisses)

and the kinds of passion

that poured forth from these young people...

MLK Jr: Come on, everybody follow me.

many of whom were not much younger than his son.

And the fact that his son was the spearhead of it...

was even more threatening for him.

♪ ♪

Sellers: Dr. King asked me and Stokely

to come over and have dinner at his house,

and that he just wanted to talk.

And so, we went over to his house.

He wanted to understand where Black Power came from.

He wanted to know everything we were thinking,

where we were going with it.

The discussion was about three hours long.

And then what we wanted to know was,

as a moral icon of the movement,

when was he going to make a statement

against the war in Vietnam?

(indistinct chatter)

Jones: The leaders of the peace movement were reaching out to Dr. King

and wanted him to get more actively and publicly involved.

But I resisted,

because my initial reaction was

I felt that they were trying appropriate

the legitimacy they didn't have.

(chanting) Hey, hey, LBJ,

how many kids have you killed today?

Hey, hey, LBJ--

Jones: Politically, we had to be very cautious

about whether or not we wanted to publicly criticize

what could be described

as having been the greatest President

for civil rights since Abraham Lincoln.

This is after the Civil Rights Act of 1964,

the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

And here we're going to publicly excoriate and criticize

the man without whose leadership

none of this would have been possible.

(indistinct chatter)

Young: The anti-war movement was a new constituency for us.

♪ ♪

There was a spiritual connectivity

that we were comfortable with,

and we understood their positions.

They wanted to emulate our tactics.

But, there were radical elements

of violence and anti-American discussion,

and we didn't want him taking his moral position

into an extreme-left environment

with kids who were kind of anti-American,

who were communists, who were burning American flags.

(people shouting)

Young: And we could not control that.

♪ ♪

Califano: Johnson was worried...

because communists were on the other side on the war,

and over the years...

the FBI was constantly investigating King

and citing one or two of his associates

who they said were communists.

He was afraid that the FBI would leak it,

that Hoover would really get King branded as a communist,

and it would build up an enormous backlash.

Jones: For a long period of time,

every conversation was wiretapped secretly by the FBI.

And the contents of the conversations,

written down, transcribed verbatim.

And put in files marked "Top Secret."

And a top agent at the FBI said

that Martin Luther King Jr.

is the most dangerous and most powerful Negro ever.

Califano: In 1964, they were bugging Dr. King,

and they also picked up his sexual activity.

Hoover would send these memos out.

The memos would be all about King's life.

I mean, they were obviously designed to destroy this guy.

Lewis: I think J. Edgar Hoover hated...

despised Dr. King.

Alexander: Hoover just was one of these people

with an immense amount of power

who abused that power.

He used information improperly.

He was singularly arrogant about his position.

And underlying it,

had this feeling of superiority to people of color.

And I said, "They should take

that son-of-a-bitch's name off the building."

Because he was the antithesis

of what you want in a democracy.

♪ ♪

Lewis: You know, during those days,

we assumed that we all were being wiretapped or spied on.

But I think the people who made the recordings...

were really sick.

Young: Everything the FBI was doing to hurt us

made us question

whether this country was so sick that it couldn't be saved.

We were never running

a program of personal piety.

We were running a program of social,

and political, and economic justice.

And it's while we are yet sinners

that Christ died for us.

And...

it's one of the things that makes it possible

for us to understand the difficulties

and weaknesses in other people

is that we're aware of them in ourselves.

Baez: I think it's very important for us to see

that you can go on doing the good works

and have slipped and fallen, you know,

or gotten drunk, or womanized, or whatever.

But since we have no idea how his struggle felt,

we don't have any room to criticize it.

Jones: Martin Luther King Jr. was a human being,

and he was imperfect.

He was conflicted by traveling so much

and may not have felt...

that he was being the best father or husband that he could be.

But his love for his family...

was unchallengeable.

Coretta Scott King: When I met Martin,

I had, unfortunately,

a stereotype impression of a minister.

Piety is good,

but I think there's a kind of a false piety,

you know, which I-- I don't like.

And he was a-- just a-- a human being,

very, very warm and-- and very down to earth,

and just different.

Clayton: Coretta believed in his cause so much...

that she was willing to pay the price,

and she tried hard

to have him spend as much time with the children as he could,

'cause he wasn't home that much.

Coretta: You pass your plate this way.

Clayton: When he was home,

she insisted that he have dinner with the children.

(indistinct chatter)

Martin: Daddy, you not talking.

I'm too hungry, Martin.

I'm so hungry. I'm busy with this dinner.

I guess this is one of the most frustrating aspects of my life.

The great demands that come as a result

of my involvement in the struggle for justice and peace.

It's just impossible to carry out

the responsibilities of a father and husband

when you have these kinds of demands,

but fortunately I have a most understanding wife.

Michaelis: Now, alright. This leads me to ask you.

Did you educate Mrs. King to become equal to you

in terms of sharing this burden... (MLK Jr. laughs)

or did you research her before your marriage

to see that she had the potential for this or--

I wish I could say, and satisfy my masculine ego,

that I led her down this path,

but I must say we went down together,

because she was as actively involved and concerned

when we met as she is now.

(chanting) Hey, hey, what do you say?

Mrs. King are you taking part in this demonstration

as an individual or as a wife?

Well, I'm taking part as an individual and a wife.

(both laugh) I'm both.

Lafayette: Martin Luther King wrestled with coming out publicly...

taking a stand against the war in Vietnam.

But, Mrs. King was involved in the anti-war movement long before.

So she had a lot of influence

on Martin Luther King coming to that conclusion.

I come to express my own personal witness

for the cause of peace.

And in the civil rights struggle,

if we win all of the rights and privileges

that we are fighting for

and have no world in which to exercise these,

then there is really no need for our efforts.

MLK Jr: I decided that I would leave it to my wife to...

take the stands and make the meetings on the peace issue,

but I came to the conclusion

that I could no longer be a silent onlooker,

but that in some real way,

I had to be an involved and concerned participant.

Fernandez: Andy Young called me.

I was the executive director of the group

that wanted to stop the war and engage

the religious community to help do that.

So, Andy proposed that Dr. King give a speech in New York,

and Dr. King decided to make a full-blown statement.

So, I said, "Well, what about Riverside Church?

Because I think place makes a big difference."

Belafonte: When he came to the Vietnamese speech,

he struggled with it.

And, I remember very much

because he wrote a big part of it in our home.

I have on my wall in the hallway,

a copy of his writings

and the notes that he made.

He had a habit of using a yellow pad,

constantly making notes,

and he'd crumble up these things

at the end of an evening and toss it away.

And I'd just do a swan dive right into the garbage pail

and retrieve those papers,

'cause he always left some really profound sentence or something

that I thought was worth...

retrieving and saving.

Baez: Dr. King knew where his heart was,

but he also knew the criticism

and the splits that would happen

the moment he said anything

against the war in Vietnam, and, of course, he did.

Lewis: The night of April 4th, 1967,

I believe that Martin Luther King Jr. delivered

probably one of the most powerful speeches I ever heard him deliver.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Lewis: He said, in effect,

that he was not going to butcher his conscience.

I knew that I could never again raise my voice

against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos

without having first spoken clearly

to the greatest purveyor of violence

in the world today-- my own government.

♪ ♪

Lewis: He said as a nation,

we talk about nonviolence here in America,

and then we engage in violence abroad.

He said in effect that the bombs

that we're dropping in Vietnam,

they would be shattered over America.

Young: Dr. King was worried that the government

had gotten us into war where we didn't need to be,

and that we were hurting ourselves.

The returning veterans, the inflation,

the unemployment, the consequences of the war.

Lewis: He literally poured out his heart.

The depth and essence of his soul.

I've heard many sermons.

I was at the March on Washington..

But I think the speech

at Riverside Church was his best.

If America's soul becomes totally poisoned...

part of the autopsy must read, "Vietnam."

When the speech ended...

the place exploded.

And I knew it was electric.

I knew he had hit it out of the park.

But the next morning,

he was blasted in virtually every editorial column in America.

♪ ♪

(indistinct chatter)

Young: Some of us didn't want him to be that hard in the speech,

but he said, "I'm trapped...

by my own, you know, beliefs,"

and I think that that was one of the things

that J. Edgar Hoover used

to try to turn the government completely against him.

Jackson: Dr. King took on our government in a war time.

He was taking on angry people

and misguided people in a war time.

Crowd: ♪ The land of the free ♪

♪ And the home of the brave ♪

(man shouts) Man 2: Commie Jew!

(indistinct chatter) (scattered applause)

(men shouting)

♪ ♪

He said, "Many of my friends are turning on me.

"Many of my Morehouse friends, my classmates.

"Preachers have said I can't come to their pulpits,

'cause we shouldn't be engaged in the war."

Clayton: He said, "You expect your enemies

"to disagree with you.

What I didn't understand is how our friends would leave me."

They stopped giving.

They stopped calling.

They stopped caring...

and he was devastated.

Edelman: Change is painful.

The loneliness,

and what it must have felt like

when he was so abandoned by so many

and told to "stay in your place."

Jones: He really felt betrayed.

And he said over and over...

"They don't know me."

MLK Jr: They applauded me...

when I told Negroes to be nonviolent.

These same people are damning me when I say,

"You ought to be nonviolent

toward little brown children in Vietnam."

Belafonte: The way all of America turned on him

when he stepped into the Vietnam drama...

was perhaps the single most...

challenging moment for Martin.

♪ ♪

Jones: Martin went through very difficult,

emotional times in 1967.

He had a doctor in New York, and I remember...

sitting with Dr. Logan.

And he generally felt that the state

of Martin's emotional health was such that...

that he maybe should seek some kind of...

third-party independent psychiatric counseling.

And I looked at Dr. Logan...

and I said, "That's not gonna happen."

I was very blunt, and I said...

"If not within 24 hours, within 24 days...

"the FBI would find out,

"and everything that Martin King said to that psychiatrist...

"would be immediately in FBI files.

Just can't take that chance."

♪ ♪

Reporter: This year, major Negro riots

have broken out in Detroit and Newark,

and about 80 cities and towns all over the country.

Already it's become the worst crisis in the country

since the Civil War.

MLK Jr: The despair is deep.

The bitterness is wide

in the ghettos of our nation.

And I will continue to raise my voice...

with all of my might against riots

because I know that black rioting

can mean black suicide.

Don't point that gun at me!

Don't you ever put that hand on a gun. Wait a minute.

Wait a minute, don't point that gun at me!

MLK Jr: What must be said

is that our nation's summers of riots

are caused by our nation's winters of delay.

Johnson: Pillage, looting, murder, and arson

have nothing to do with civil rights.

We will not tolerate lawlessness.

Carmichael: You gon' sit in front of your television set

and listen to LBJ tell you that,

"Violence never accomplishes anything, my fellow Americans."

(cheering)

But, you see, the real problem with violence

is that we have never been violent.

We have been too nonviolent.

(cheering) Too nonviolent.

MLK Jr: I've decided to stick with love.

And so, I'm not gonna give you a motto

or preach a philosophy, "Burn, baby, burn."

I'm gonna say, "Build, baby, build!

Organize, baby, organize!"

(applause)

Lafayette: Martin Luther King called me from Atlanta.

And he said to me very directly,

"I need you to come on down here now,

"because this may be my last campaign...

and we're going for broke."

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference

will lead waves of the nation's poor and disinherited

to Washington, D.C., next spring.

Jackson: He said, "Let's go to Washington.

"We're going to Washington.

"If necessary, go to jail...

"civil disobedience...

"and convince this Congress

to shift from war in Vietnam to war on poverty."

Young: It was Marian Edelman...

who came to Martin with the concept

of the Poor People's Campaign.

Edelman: I got called to Washington to testify about poverty

and what was happening in Mississippi.

This is an urgent situation,

which must be looked into and which must be met.

In the middle of it all,

I asked them to come and see for themselves.

And Bobby Kennedy came with them.

Kennedy: There is starvation,

and men and women who can't find jobs.

And it's a reflection on all of us.

The fact that you have young children

in the United States at the present time

with the wealthiest nation in the world

who are hungry, and their parents are hungry

is completely unsatisfactory.

Edelman: Robert Kennedy went back to Washington.

I told him I was gonna stop through Atlanta

and see Martin, and he said,

"Well, tell him to bring the poor to Washington."

I went down to Atlanta...

and went to SCLC,

and he was depressed.

I mean, he was sitting in his office by himself.

And I told him what Robert Kennedy said,

he ought to bring the poor to Washington.

And he lit up. He just lit up.

Young: I think he was realizing

that he was running out of gas.

(coughing)

Young: And the attacks and the criticisms on him

were getting more and more vicious.

(inaudible)

But he was really aware of the fact

that we had not...

hardly raised the issue of poverty.

MLK Jr: We have to do it...

for our own sense of dignity,

our own self-respect,

our own determination.

But we can't do it

if we don't give our all to it.

Lafayette: Martin Luther King embraced

the idea of the Poor People's Campaign,

and he wanted to move ahead with it.

Man: By no means--

Lafayette: But initially, he did not have

the support of his executive staff.

Man: And when we go out there--

Lafayette: People felt already committed to what

they were working on at that time.

From our perspective as organizers, it was--

He was the pilot of the plane,

but we were the ground crew.

Without the ground crew, the plane cannot leave the ground.

Younger Jackson: Give the realities of--

Lafayette: Martin Luther King went on a fast

to reunite people and get them

to think collectively how they could participate.

MLK Jr: As we go into these communities--

And they finally started coming aboard.

And we must remember that we are

the custodians of a philosophy.

Lafayette: But he talked about his frustration.

Clayton: His staff was all concerned.

They said, "You know, we haven't seen him

laugh in a long time."

Now, I don't know whether we gon' win,

or lose, draw, or what we gon' bring back, and I--

but I'm not gon' sit by and--

Clayton: So, they called me and told me,

"Think of something to do to make him laugh."

And this was January 15th, which was his birthday...

which ended up being his last birthday.

Young: Now, some folks celebrate Abraham Lincoln,

but we're gonna celebrate Martin Luther King's day today. Don't let him outta here!

All: ♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

♪ Happy birthday, Dr. King ♪

♪ Happy birthday to you ♪

We know that you-- you really don't need much,

but we thought of some things you ought to have.

Man: Oh yeah. So, we searched around,

and knowing what's coming up for you,

we thought you'd be strung out of shoe string,

so when you go to jail,

here's some shoestring potatoes--

(laughter)

Then, we know how fond you are of our President, Lyndon Johnson...

(laughter)

and we know how you supporting everything,

and I got this little cup for you,

and I want this back, because this is mine.

And it says-- let me read it-- it says,

"We are cooperating with Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

Drop coins and bills in the cup."

(laughter)

And this is a special gift from me, a real one.

(laughter, applause)

Lord, I thank you.

Belafonte: I don't think anyone possessed

the capacity for humor,

both in receiving it and responding joyously...

as Dr. King.

Much of the time, I was the victim.

If he felt somebody was sensitive, he wouldn't pick on 'em.

But he would take something

that somebody else said or did and blame it on me.

He had a good way of imitating people.

He would imitate Andy or he would say,

"Now, Andy, if you do something foolish

and you go out there and get assassinated..."

He said, "I promise

I'm gonna preach the best funeral for you."

Young: And then he would start preaching your funeral.

And he would do a very sadistic caricature

(laughs) of all of your faults and foibles,

and things that you would never want said about you in public.

And he'd weave it into a sermon,

and quite often he'd have a similar demon from the Bible

who had the same problems.

And by the time he got through,

he had everybody laughing

at what was a life-and-death situation.

Mostly his life.

That was the way of externalizing the fact that

(laughing)

he had to somehow talk about...

the elephant in the room...

that we all had to live with.

Martin joked about it.

Because... there wasn't any other way to be.

Dr. King... do you--

do you fear for your life?

Not really.

I face the fact that something can happen

to my life.

Ultimately, it isn't so important

how long you live.

The important thing is how well you live.

Mmm. (audience applauds)

Dr. King's expression of his anxiety

about this whole world in which he found himself,

was not unfounded.

His fears were very real,

because the conditions were very real.

MLK Jr: What is it that America has failed to hear?

Belafonte: I had noticed that he had a tick.

He had occasion to... be--

get caught.

It has failed to hear that the plight of the Negro poor

has worsened over the last few years.

Belafonte: It wasn't consistent,

but it was apparent in enough situations

for us to know that there was a psychological problem here.

♪ ♪

And then one day,

that tick was no longer evident.

I said to him-- I said,

"Now what happened to the tick?"

He said, "It's gone."

And I said, "Well, how'd you get rid of it?"

And he said, "I made my peace with death."

(chattering)

I know all of you are studying hard

and you're just doing fine in school,

and I'm glad to see you.

Kids: We are glad to see you!

MLK Jr: Thank you very much.

Young: I think he always knew that each and every thing he did

could be the last thing that he did.

Thank you.

And he used to say that if you're really gonna be free,

you have to overcome the love of wealth and the fear of death.

You all just took off from school, huh?

Kids: Yeah.

Young: He was prepared to die,

but he was also determined that...

his death and his life would have meaning.

And I think that's what he was wrestling with,

with Vietnam...

(indistinct chattering)

and Chicago...

Tell Hosea and Ralph to rush off.

Young: and the Poor People's Campaign.

Hello, give me some sugar. Woman: Where we stopping?

Where we stopping? Where we stopping? Where we stopping?

♪ ♪

Lafayette: It seemed to me we can begin to build up every Sunday

a big march to, you know, march around the Capitol some place.

Dr. King appointed me as program administrator.

By the time we get to seventh march,

it could really be massive for those people--

Lafayette: And usually our campaign

was related to discrimination and racism,

so we were talking about, you know, black people for the most part.

But I said, "Well, there are Chicanos who are poor.

You want them to be in--"

He said, "Yes, we want them to be involved."

I said, "Okay."

So I said, "What about the Native Americans?"

He said, "Well, yeah, Native Americans."

So, by this time, he...

turned around and looked up at me,

'cause he'd anticipated the next question.

I said, "Well, Dr. King, uh,

what about the poor whites?"

And he said to me... (chuckles) a little disgusted,

he said, "Are they poor?"

I said, "Well, yes."

"Well, we want them involved!"

MLK Jr: We assemble here together today

with common problems,

bringing together ethnic groups

that maybe have not been together

in this type of meeting in the past.

I know I haven't been in a meeting like this,

and it's been one of my dreams

that we would come together

and realize our common problems.

Black people, Mexican Americans,

American Indians, Puerto Ricans,

Appalachian Whites, all working together

to solve the problem

of poverty.

Edelman: That was a very big thing that happened.

Of getting-- finding common ground

among the poor.

MLK Jr: And I do want to--

Edelman: That didn't make things easy...

but it was a big benchmark

into the next stage of the Civil Rights Movement,

which had to do with economic rights.

MLK Jr: Ultimately, we are concerned about

a guaranteed annual income,

and the other thing I think it is very necessary to say

is that everybody's on welfare in this country.

When it's for white people and rich, we call it subsidies.

Suburbia was built by federally- subsidized credits,

and the highways and expressways that take people out there.

So, I think we've gotta see that when it comes to poor people,

we call it welfare, handouts dolled,

but when it comes to rich people, we call it subsidies.

And it's the same thing. It's all welfare.

Lafayette: We were in a staff meeting,

and Martin Luther King got this call from Memphis.

♪ ♪

Reporter: On February 12th, 1300 workers

in the city's sanitation department went on strike.

And what began as a union matter

soon became a civil rights cause.

Lafayette: The sanitation workers were strikin'

because the wage was so low.

And they were concerned about safety.

So they were trying to get some support and protection.

Jones: One of the most powerful things

that you see during that time

is all of the garbage workers had

these sandwich board signs

that said, "I am a man."

That was saying, "We want to be treated with dignity."

Reporter: With the strike deadlocked,

behind the leadership of Negro ministers,

the marches grew larger

and the ministers reveled in the new unity.

Lafayette: When Martin Luther King got the call,

he said he had to go.

He said, "You guys stay and continue working

on the Poor People's Campaign."

Young: We did not want him to go to Memphis at all,

but he got up at 6:00 in the morning...

(indistinct chatter)

and he said, "I'ma catch this flight to Memphis."

♪ ♪

Martin went to a march that we had nothing to do with.

No pre-planning, and...

And it got disrupted.

(shouting) (glass shattering)

♪ ♪

(shouting)

Jones: There were some young men

outside of the garbage workers

who took the wooden sticks that had held

some of the "I am a man" signs together

and used them to smash windows.

(shouting continues)

Henry Loeb: When the march degenerated into a riot,

abandoned by its leaders,

the police, with my full sanction,

took the necessary action to protect the lives

and property of the citizens of Memphis.

Man on bullhorn: We urge you to return

to your homes immediately...

for your own safety.

Reporter: Why didn't you check out the situation in Memphis

with your staff before you came here,

especially since it's in the midst

of a very touchy sanitation strike?

Well, I would be honest enough to say

that I was completely...

caught with a miscalculation.

(glass shatters)

Reporter 2: What steps have you taken

to avert new violence in Memphis?

Well, we're gonna take those steps,

and we're not gonna stop here.

We are gonna have, in Memphis,

a massive nonviolent demonstration,

and we're gonna do it in the next few days.

And we are gonna take the steps

that we've taken in every other situation.

We are gonna take the steps

of uniting this community.

Nonviolence can be as contagious as violence.

♪ ♪

Young: In between the first march

and our going back to Memphis,

Martin gave us a good cussin' out

about not being supportive of him.

And it was the only time

I saw him angry at the whole staff.

♪ ♪

He cussed us out, got up, and walked out.

And we went behind him, trying to reassure him,

but he just-- he just went on off.

Jackson: Dr. King said, "I feel so alone."

He was frustrated, he was full of pain, and...

I understand that pain now.

He said, "I-- I've pondered.

"Maybe I should quit now.

Maybe I've done as much as I can do."

Young: I thought it was wrong to take on another movement

in the state we were in.

We were tired...

and we knew he was tired.

♪ ♪

The thing I think he had dreamed about from childhood

was to be able to pastor a church like Riverside Church.

And they actually offered him the job as interim pastor.

All of us said, "Look,

"you're entitled to a sabbatical.

You've been at this for 12 years nonstop."

He wouldn't even consider it.

♪ ♪

He used to say, "Some of us are not gonna live to be 50,

so you better live good right now."

It was almost as though he saw death as an escape.

And that he could not escape...

the way we wanted him to escape.

Clayton: Before Dr. King left to go to Memphis,

we all had dinner together at their home.

♪ ♪

His mother was there,

and we all had a wonderful, wonderful afternoon.

Playin' the piano,

singin' church songs, tellin' jokes.

He said to me, "You know what?

"I bet you don't really know that I can--

I'm a good singer. Did you know that?"

He said, "I'ma prove it to you. So, give me a B-flat."

I gave him a B-flat, and he starts singin',

and, man, oh, we got the rhythm of a gospel song.

And we just had such fun.

Now, I was to drive him the next morning

to the airport to go to Memphis.

His mother called me and said,

"I know you're takin' ML to the airport tomorrow.

"While you have his ear,

"will you tell him I wish we could have

"more family moments like that?

"Can you tell him to plan it in his schedule

sometime after he comes back?"

♪ ♪

Lafayette: After the march that broke out in violence,

we all went to Memphis, for two reasons:

to support the sanitation workers' march,

so it would be nonviolent,

but also to continue our discussion

of the Poor People's Campaign.

That night, there was a mass meeting

at Mason Temple Church,

and Martin Luther King was scheduled

to go and speak,

but it was pouring-down raining.

♪ ♪

Jackson: Dr. King, he'd sit in the room most of the day.

He said, "I have a headache. I don't feel like going.

But, Jesse, will you go?"

(faint cheering, applause)

Jackson: So, we went over there, and we walked in the door.

Church was about three-quarters full, and people cheering.

You could sense they were expecting him.

Martin Luther King is already in his pajamas in bed...

and we were working on a press statement for Washington, D.C.

Jackson: We went out the side of the church

and called him on the pay telephone,

and said, "Martin, come just for a few minutes.

"You don't have to stay long.

They're-- they're so ready for you."

♪ ♪

Lafayette: I could only hear one side of the call,

but Martin Luther King said,

"Now, are you telling me

"that you want me to get up out of my bed,

"and take off my pajamas, and get dressed,

"and come out in the pouring-down rain...

okay, to speak at this meeting?"

So, obviously, the answer on the other side said, "Yes."

Abernathy: The Moses of 1968, Martin Luther King.

(cheering, applause)

Young: Martin came to that church

thinking that he was just gonna make remarks

and not to give a major speech,

but he got up, and he gave that speech

as though he knew that the end was near.

So, I'm happy tonight.

I'm not worried about anything!

I'm not fearing any man!

Mine eyes have seen the glory

of the coming of the Lord!

(cheering, applause)

♪ ♪

Lafayette: The next morning,

we were workin' on the press statement

for the Poor People's Campaign.

Martin Luther King said to me, "Now, Bernard,

"the next project we're gonna work on

"is to institutionalize

and internationalize nonviolence."

♪ ♪

Young: I was on the witness stand most of that day.

We got permission to march,

and I came back to the Lorraine Motel.

He was childish and giddy and cussed me out.

You know, "Where you been?"

He threw a pillow at me. I threw it back.

But, everybody else picked up pillows, and they were--

it was like a bunch of 10-year-olds.

And just about that time,

Billy Kyles knocked on the door and said,

"You all are due at my house by 6:00.

My wife's got dinner waitin'."

And so, he jumped up, and went upstairs...

to put on a shirt and tie.

♪ ♪

Jackson: I was coming across the courtyard,

and from the balcony, Dr. King said,

"Jesse, you don't even have on a tie!"

So, I said, "Dr. King, a prerequisite for eating is an appetite."

He said, "You crazy." We laughed.

Young: He was just extremely relaxed

and comfortable and playful.

It was the happiest I had seen him in a long time.

We'd been laughing and playing, and... pow!

And he raised up.

The bullet hit him right here.

It severed his tie.

♪ ♪

I got up and went running toward him,

but he was non-responsive.

So, I got up and went and called Mrs. King.

It was a long ten steps

to take from where he was to that phone.

I said, "Mrs. King," I said, "Dr. King been shot.

"I think he's been shot in the shoulder,

but I think you should come."

I really couldn't say what I saw.

It was like too much to say.

It was like I just couldn't say that.

I couldn't say that.

♪ ♪

Reporter: What Dr. Martin Luther King called his beautiful dream,

expressed so dramatically during the 1963 March on Washington,

was shattered tonight in Memphis, Tennessee, by an assassin's bullet.

In Memphis, and in New York,

in Boston, Raleigh, North Carolina,

there are reports of looting

and other angry reactions to the killing of Dr. King.

(indistinct chatter)

It was awful.

My first thought was to go out and tell children

not to loot and not to riot and ruin their lives.

And this little boy about 12...

looked me straight in the eye and said,

"Lady, what future? I ain't got no future.

I ain't got nothing to lose."

(siren approaches)

Fernandez: I was in Sarasota, Florida, with my parents,

and we see this happening on the television,

and the first thing out of my mother's mouth was...

"He deserved it. He was a rabble-rouser."

Carmichael: When white America killed Dr. King last night,

she opened the eyes for every black man in this country.

He was the one man in our race

who was trying to teach our people

to have love, compassion, and mercy

for what white people had done.

When white America killed Dr. King last night...

she declared war on us.

♪ ♪

Reporter: A Day after the death of Dr. Martin Luther King,

there is a countrywide reaction.

Turmoil in at least a dozen more cities today:

Washington, Chicago, Detroit, Boston, New York.

These are just a few of the cities

in which the Negro anguish over Dr. King's murder,

presumably by a white man,

expressed itself in violent destruction.

(siren blaring) (bells clanging)

The assassination and its aftermath

temporarily pushed aside the President's plans

to pursue his new Vietnam peace effort,

as he put in a busy day at the White House.

♪ ♪

Califano: I think of all the ups and downs

and all the turmoil, and the tragedies

that occurred in those years...

I never saw Johnson sadder...

sadder about an event

than he was at the assassination of King.

And he said to me...

"Give me a draft letter to the Speaker.

"You know, we're gonna get one thing out of this awful event.

We're gonna get our Fair Housing bill."

♪ ♪

Reporter: As part of the national day of mourning tomorrow,

hundreds of communities across the nation

have planned memorial services

and peaceful marches in tribute to Dr. King.

It is, in this way,

despite the ugly rioting and looting in many cities,

that thousands of Americans have planned to express their grief

quietly and with dignity.

Nowhere was this more evident

than in Atlanta, Georgia.

Clayton: Before the funeral,

Dr. King's body was to lie in state

at Spelman College.

A security officer at Spelman

called Mrs. King and said,

"There must be thousands here.

What must we do?"

Then I said, "Mrs. King, the public will wait.

You need to see him first."

So, we dashed over to the campus.

I didn't see the body 'til I got up close.

I nearly died.

♪ ♪

He looked awful.

He had a big blob of clay on his face.

Mrs. King was standing there in such pain.

The embalmer loudly said,

"His jaw was blown off!

This is the best I can do."

And, oh, she nearly fainted.

♪ ♪

So I took out some loose powder,

and I dabbed a little on his face.

Toning it down.

And Coretta smiled.

It was working.

And, she said, "Open the door and let 'em in."

♪ ♪

Martin Luther King chose

the best person possible as a wife,

and her stamina gave the country and the world relief,

because everybody were just crashing

over this man's untimely death.

A man who lived for and died for goodness,

now ends up like this.

I would have preferred to be alone

at this time with my children.

We were always willing to share

Martin Luther King with the world...

(cameras clicking)

because he was a symbol

of the finest man is capable of being.

Yet to us, he was a father and a husband.

I am surprised and pleased

at the success of his teaching.

For our children say calmly,

"Daddy is not dead.

"He may be physically dead,

but his spirit will never die."

(cameras clicking)

(Martin Luther King Sr. sobbing) No. No.

(indistinct chatter)

(wailing)

(wails)

(wailing)

(sobbing)

Clayton: Through their tears, Mama King said to me,

"I want you to know that when the tension of the moment,

"you know, tapers a little bit,

"I can tell you fully...

how much I appreciate what you did."

And I said, "What I do?"

She said, "Well, you told Martin what I said,

that I wanted him to spend more time with me."

She said, "He called me."

And she thinks that she was one

of the last persons he talked to.

And she said, "I know I'm gonna feel good

about that one of these days."

Jones: I got a call that Mrs. Kennedy

would like very much to pay her respects to Mrs. King.

It was the day of the funeral...

and Mrs. Kennedy walks over...

to Mrs. King.

The now two widows embrace...

and they hold one another.

♪ ♪

(indistinct chatter)

Lafayette: I was on my way to the funeral,

and I had to pass the office,

and the office door was open, our SCLC office,

and people were bringing things outta there.

Abernathy: We gather here this morning

in one of the darkest hours

for Martin Luther King,

sent forth as a Moses

in the wilderness of this sick nation of ours.

I went across the street over there,

and sure enough, it was a test of my nonviolence.

These people were taking things off the wall,

and off the desk, and everything else.

And I had to calm them down,

'cause they were frantic, and they were wailing,

and moanin' and groanin'.

So, they were not like thieves.

They were people who had felt

they had lost Martin Luther King,

and they were just trying to find something they could hold on to...

that Martin Luther King, perhaps, had touched.

But I missed the funeral.

I got there in time to see Robert Kennedy

and some others come out of the church,

but the wagon had... okay, gone off.

Man: Back. Move back, move back. (indistinct chatter)

All the way to the sidewalk.

All the way. All the way to the sidewalk. Move back.

(indistinct chatter)

Belafonte: There has been a lot of historical tragedies

that give us time to...

reflect on...

much that has been lost to us

and the cruelty of...

the issues of race.

None more profoundly...

robbed me of an important part

of what I thought my life would be

than when Martin was murdered.

His death was not just a great loss historically,

but in a deep personal sense, I lost a friend.

Abernathy: The cemetery is too small for his spirit.

The grave is too narrow for his soul.

We commend his legacy

of courage and love to ourselves.

Our children, and our children's children.

We commend his life...

to the universe.

♪ ♪

My first reaction was... to be mad with him.

"You got us in all this hell,

"now you're going to Heaven, and leaving us in Hell.

(chuckles) Why don't you take us with you?"

But I was panicked...

to know how we followed,

and...

it-- well, we were not able to stay together...

without him.

And the movement began to fragment.

Lafayette: What has happened in the past has been our lives.

As older people,

we've gone through those different periods...

and we have suffered,

and we have also made some progress.

But this is what our lives were about.

The question is the next generation.

'Cause it's not what you've gained,

it's what you can maintain.

Martin Luther King went to the blackboard

and taught us nonviolence.

But nonviolence is not confined

to any historical period.

♪ ♪

Jackson: He speaks to this generation clearly,

as if he's in yesterday's morning paper.

His strategies, his philosophy,

his world-view remain real today.

♪ ♪

Vivian: He wanted a future world

that was changed because of our nonviolent struggles.

He wanted his life to be remembered

by making the nation realize

that nonviolence is what we must, in the end, have.

Alexander: I think people discovered only after his death

that he was more radical than they actually knew.

I don't think he wanted us to take anything

other than all that we deserve,

and that's what radicalism, in the best sense, is about.

Using the power that you have

to help transform this society for the better.

Nash: With Martin Luther King, we have the holiday,

and we talk about how wonderful he was,

but we really should develop his work.

It's our responsibility.

Everybody's responsibility.

There are 300 million of us,

and social change is the job of each of us.

♪ ♪

Lewis: When you see something and it's not right,

not fair, not just,

you have a moral obligation

and a mandate to do something,

to say something, to speak up, to speak out.

Edelman: He is issuing as much of a call to us today

as he was calling to us in 1968...

and I hope we will hear that call

and finish the next phase of his movement.

He talked about the importance of keep going forward.

And he said, "If you can't fly, you drive.

"If you can't drive, you run.

"If you can't run, you walk.

"If you can't walk, you crawl,

but keep moving forward."

Jones: From 1956 until April 4th, 1968,

Martin Luther King, Jr.,

may have done more

to achieve political, social,

economic justice than any other person

in the journey of American history.

Young: The problems we have that Martin lived for

are still with us.

And the complexity of good and evil in this world

is gonna always be with us.

I don't know that anybody struggled with it any more

or did any better than Martin King in my lifetime.

He always said, "We've come a long, long way,

but we still got a long way to go."

And somewhere, wherever Martin is,

he's struggling beyond this place in time and space.

MLK Jr: Well, I never like to discuss

Martin Luther King's influence.

I'm just trying to do a job,

and I think it's a job that has to be done,

and I'm not trying to do it merely for myself,

or merely for my children, or merely for the Negro,

but for America, because I think it's true

that if this problem isn't solved,

the soul of our nation will be lost.

And the only way to redeem the soul of America

is to remove or to eradicate racism

in all of its dimensions.

♪ ♪

Cotton: ♪ I'm-- I'm gonna do what the spirit says do ♪

♪ I'm gonna do what the spirit says do ♪

♪ What the spirit says do, I'm gonna do ♪

♪ Oh Lord, do what the spirit says do ♪

We used to sing...

♪ I'll go to jail ♪

♪ If the spirit says, "Jail" ♪

♪ I'll go to jail ♪

♪ If the spirit says, "Jail" ♪

♪ If the spirit says, "Jail" ♪

♪ I'll go to jail, oh Lord ♪

♪ I'll go to jail ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "Jail" ♪

♪ I'm gonna march ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "March" ♪

♪ I'm gonna march ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "March" ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "March" ♪

♪ I will march, oh Lord ♪

♪ I'm gonna march ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "March" ♪

♪ I'm gonna love ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "Love" ♪

♪ I'm gonna love ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "Love" ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "Love" ♪

♪ I will love, oh Lord ♪

♪ I'm gonna love ♪

♪ If the spirit say, "Love" ♪

♪ I'm gonna do ♪

♪ What the spirit say do ♪

♪ I'm gonna do what the spirit say do ♪

♪ If the spirit say do ♪

♪ I will do, oh Lord ♪

♪ I'm gonna do what the spirit say do ♪

(music fades)