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[Clip starts] NARRATOR: “A young minister named Martin Luther King Jr., who had recently been jailed in Birmingham, Alabama, who the director of the FBI considered a communist sympathizer, and whose life was in constant danger from people who hated the color of his skin and everything he stood for, gave a speech that would be considered a turning point in American history.”
KING: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.” [Clip ends]
Wallace: “The speech, of course, a turning point and a triumph for the civil rights movement. But as the nation would soon learn, progress is almost never a straight line.” [Clip starts]
WILLIAMS: “The March on Washington is a watershed moment in the movement itself. But this is also a turning point in terms of the violence that we associate with the movement and the escalation of opposition. Because the fear is that a civil rights bill is coming. It’s only a month later that you have the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, and killing of four little girls.”
[Clip ends]
Wallace: “A reminder of the victories, the tragedies, the progress, the backsliding that defines our history. Ken is still with us, and we have been joined by distinguished political scholar and professor at Princeton University, Eddie Glaude, and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Maya Wiley, whose book ‘Remember, You Are a Wiley’ actually talks about what that very moment meant to her and her family. Maya, I start with you.”
WILEY: “Well, I was actually — Eddie and I were talking about this off set. You know, the March on Washington was an incredibly important thing for everyone in the civil rights movement. It was a watershed, but it could not have happened just because everyone had a dream. It could only happen because everyone was living activism into the dream and because the local fights that were not nationally organized, taking place in every community, were building the hope that people felt for the possibility that if they fought, they might win. Not that it was a guarantee, but that’s what hope is. It’s a passion for what’s possible. And what was so important about Dr. King’s speech was that he was speaking out what people were already feeling and doing, and the importance of everyone coming together and having that many people saying, yes, this is our dream, incredibly powerful and important. But in this moment, I think we have to remember that it was the on-the-ground organizing that enabled that to happen. And we should also remember one other thing, because King’s speech the night before he was assassinated was a speech that he gave, and when he talked about the mountaintop, and we always talk about that part of the speech, getting to the mountaintop and I might not get there with you. That’s always the part we talk about. But the more important part was the same thing that Kamala Harris said, which is that in our darkest nights, we can see the stars better, the stars are brighter, which means in the darkest hours we have to find that light —“ Wallace: “The premise is clear.”
WILEY: “— and recognize the — yes. And so that even in the hard times we have to find that light. And the organizing helps bring it.”
