WEBVTT - TURNOUT Episode 2: ‘I’m coming back to Selma to start a movement’ 0:00:06.360 --> 0:00:19.080 Oh jamaatral in California introduce the biz Tape. You're all 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:23.079 Things Music, business and Media podcast. Join me, Joe was 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:27.400 Leski and my co host Colin McKay every Wednesday, where 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:30.600 we've discussed the breaking news changing the music industry and 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.080 what your favorite artists and creatives are up to. Listen 0:00:34.120 --> 0:00:37.360 to new episodes of the Biz Tape every Wednesday on 0:00:37.400 --> 0:00:40.960 the Nashville Podcast Network, Available on I heart radio app, 0:00:41.080 --> 0:00:45.960 Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. He's Chuck 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:48.600 Wigs from Love Country Talk to Chuck, where we bring 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.440 you what's really happening in the country music family. We 0:00:51.479 --> 0:00:53.319 also if you love country, here's the deal. You love 0:00:53.360 --> 0:00:55.240 country music, you can be on the podcast. So if 0:00:55.240 --> 0:00:57.720 you're a fan country music, what you call in anytime 0:00:57.760 --> 0:00:59.480 you like, Oh, I want to talk about this? Haul 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:03.080 Cogan called in. He's like Chuckster. I love your podcast. 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:07.240 Jason al Dean, Jimmy Allen, Carley, Pierce, Ringa, Lena. Listen 0:01:07.280 --> 0:01:09.600 to new episodes of Love Country Talk to Chuck every 0:01:09.600 --> 0:01:12.680 Monday and Thursday on the Nashville Podcast Network, Available on 0:01:12.720 --> 0:01:15.280 the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:18.520 listen to podcast It was when I was eight years 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:22.680 old growing up in Selma, when my life was changing 0:01:22.760 --> 0:01:30.319 without me even Norman. My name is Cheyenne Webb christ Burd. 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:33.520 I was a little eight year old girl growing up 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:39.720 in George, Washington, Carbo projects. It was rough. Both my 0:01:39.920 --> 0:01:44.120 parents worked in the factories to feed us, to take 0:01:44.160 --> 0:01:46.520 care of us the best way that they knew allowed. 0:01:47.400 --> 0:01:51.640 But I'll never forget the day that I met Dr 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:55.800 Martin the King Jr. As I would know him to do, 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.400 I would always have to walk past now the historic 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:05.000 browns Appolaamily Church. In nineteen sixty four, Martin Luther King, Jr. 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:09.000 And his civil rights organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Council, 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:13.480 came to Selma, Alabama to start a voter registration campaign, 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:17.960 and little eight year old Cheyenne was immediately swept up. 0:02:18.320 --> 0:02:21.120 He told us, I want to see you children before 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:24.639 I leave, because I'm coming back to sell to start 0:02:24.639 --> 0:02:31.760 a movement. But I became very disobedient as that little girl. 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:35.480 My parents just couldn't do anything with me. They didn't 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:39.480 want me to be a part of anything that reflected 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:44.079 being a part of that movement. Despite her parents misgivings, 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:47.480 Cheyenne began sneaking out of the house to attend community 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:51.400 organization meetings that were being held at the church. It 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:54.200 was at those meetings that she was exposed to the 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:58.760 ministry and principles of Martin Luther King. Dr King would 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:02.119 talk about the Afican Americans who didn't have the right 0:03:02.200 --> 0:03:07.280 to vote, and he started talking about a march that 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.640 would be taking place and sell my Alabama for African 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:15.840 Americans to gain their right to vote. I'm Katie Couric 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.560 and this is Turnout this week. We're exploring how America's 0:03:19.639 --> 0:03:23.240 fight for voting rights is wrapped up in the ongoing 0:03:23.400 --> 0:03:28.359 struggle for racial justice. And all I remember is trying 0:03:28.400 --> 0:03:32.200 to explain to my parents about what Dr King was 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.360 talking about. And I asked them that they have the 0:03:36.520 --> 0:03:39.480 right to vote, And of course my dad didn't even 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:43.920 want to talk about it. He told me, no, black 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:48.760 folks couldn't vote. But why not? After all, when the 0:03:48.800 --> 0:03:53.040 Fifteenth Amendment was ratified in eighteen seventy, it guaranteed that 0:03:53.120 --> 0:03:56.320 the right to vote could no longer be denied based 0:03:56.320 --> 0:04:01.160 on race, color, or previous condition of servitude. So why 0:04:01.200 --> 0:04:05.120 did so many black people not vote before the nineteen sixties. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:08.920 You may remember from our last episode that author Gilded 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:12.920 Daniels asked her grandmother that very same question, why didn't 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:16.240 she vote before the nineteen sixties, and got the same answer. 0:04:16.600 --> 0:04:20.440 Black people didn't vote because they could lose their land, 0:04:20.480 --> 0:04:22.640 they could lose their lives. It was not because they 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:24.839 did not want to vote. It's because of all these 0:04:25.040 --> 0:04:27.440 mechanisms they were put in place to certainly prevent them 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.240 from doing so. To understand why black people couldn't vote, 0:04:31.600 --> 0:04:35.920 we have to go back about one hundred years to Reconstruction, 0:04:36.320 --> 0:04:39.039 when the country was trying to knit itself back together, 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:44.200 reintegrating the Confederate States as well as four million formally 0:04:44.360 --> 0:04:49.360 enslaved people into the United States. It was a turbulent time, 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:53.359 to say the least. After the Civil War, there was 0:04:53.440 --> 0:04:58.480 a period where the violence was so intense against African Americans. 0:04:58.560 --> 0:05:02.719 I mean just this unmitigated rage that they had the 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:07.520 audacity now to not be property. Dr Carol Anderson is 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:11.840 an African American studies professor at Emory University an author 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.360 of One Person, No Vote, How voter suppression is destroying 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:20.880 our democracy? And we had a president Andrew Johnson, and 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:26.000 he was horrifically racist and shortsighted. And he was fine 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:30.120 with what Harvard law professor Annette Gordon Reid called the 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:34.560 slow motion genocide that was happening to black people in 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:38.719 the South. Well, the radical Republicans, and I love that term. 0:05:38.760 --> 0:05:44.239 We had radical Republicans. The radical Republicans in Congress looked 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:49.520 up at what Johnson had done and just said not today. 0:05:49.880 --> 0:05:53.200 It may seem a little strange given today's politics, but 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:58.000 Andrew Johnson was a Democrat. Radical Republicans believed blacks were 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:02.760 entitled to the same political and opportunities as whites. What 0:06:03.000 --> 0:06:06.000 also made them radical was that they wanted the federal 0:06:06.080 --> 0:06:09.880 government to do something about it, to directly intervene in 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:13.560 the state's affairs to help get the country and all 0:06:13.600 --> 0:06:18.080 of its people to a more perfect union. There was 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:21.719 the Civil Rights Act of eighteen sixty six that dealt 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:26.360 with citizenship to make it clear that black people were citizens. 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:30.440 Then there was the Reconstruction Act of eighteen sixty seven. 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:35.520 All men twenty one years and over will be registered 0:06:35.520 --> 0:06:39.680 to vote. That meant that black men would be registered 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:45.960 to vote. Oh. Then the radical Republicans were concerned that 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:50.000 if they just had these laws at some point there 0:06:50.040 --> 0:06:53.320 may be a shift in the balance in Congress, and 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.520 they wanted to make sure that the rights of all 0:06:56.600 --> 0:06:59.840 American citizens were protected. And that wasn't going to have 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:02.360 and with just a law that could be easily overridden. 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:07.120 So they embedded it in the US Constitution. The fourteenth 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:11.840 Amendment dealt with birthright citizenship. If you're born here, you're 0:07:11.840 --> 0:07:20.120 a citizen. Wow. Then came the Fifteenth Amendment in eighteen seventy. 0:07:20.280 --> 0:07:25.640 The fifteenth Amendment said the United States nor the States 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:31.560 shall abridge the right to vote on account of race, color, 0:07:31.800 --> 0:07:35.120 or previous condition of servitude. One of the other things 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:37.600 that they did is they passed the Enforcement Act. It 0:07:37.640 --> 0:07:41.440 was the third Enforcement Act of eighteen seventy one. Because 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:46.720 the ku Klux Klan was reigning down massive domestic terrorism 0:07:46.760 --> 0:07:49.480 on black people who were trying to vote, and the 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:53.360 federal government did not have the full authority it felt 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.360 to go in there and stop them. The Enforcement Act 0:07:56.800 --> 0:08:00.840 was to in domestic terrorism and to pretend heck, African 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:05.560 Americans right to vote. So this is just I mean, 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:10.920 it's like boo bool bool. The radical Republicans were building 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:15.880 the House of Democracy. What happened next was a period, 0:08:16.200 --> 0:08:20.240 a very brief period in the eighteen seventies of political 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.320 prosperity for blacks in America. In the South, more than 0:08:24.360 --> 0:08:27.920 half a million black men became voters in several states, 0:08:28.040 --> 0:08:32.160 including Mississippi. Black people were the majority of the population, 0:08:32.840 --> 0:08:37.400 and during that decade, Mississippi actually sent two black senators 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:43.040 to Washington. But then came the backlash. The white state 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.400 legislators looked up in Mississippi said oh, well, we can't 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:49.360 have this, and so they come up with the Mississippi Plan. 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:54.200 And what the Mississippi Plan does is it says, how 0:08:54.200 --> 0:08:57.599 do we stop black people from voting without writing a 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:03.080 law that explicitly says, we don't want black people devunt ah, 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:05.720 We're going to couch it in the language of democracy, 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:09.560 protecting the integrity of the ballot box, ensuring that there's 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:13.600 no corruption in our elections. But what it does is 0:09:13.679 --> 0:09:20.000 it uses the society imposed conditions on African Americans and 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:25.839 makes those conditions the access to the ballot box. And so, 0:09:25.960 --> 0:09:30.720 for instance, the poll tax, the poll tax couched in 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:35.120 this language says democracy is expensive, and so if you 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:38.679 really believed in democracy, you would be willing to pay 0:09:38.679 --> 0:09:42.079 a small fee in order to ensure that this democracy 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:46.439 runs smoothly. So what you see there is this language 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:51.560 that flips the responsibility of free and fair elections off 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:56.200 of the state and onto the individual. So it's a 0:09:56.440 --> 0:10:04.480 wickedly evil rhetorical device and also very effective. And what 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.160 it does is it makes it seem like the poll 0:10:07.240 --> 0:10:10.640 tax is nominal. How hard is it to pay just 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:15.760 this little fee. Well, after you have had centuries of 0:10:16.000 --> 0:10:22.520 unpaid labor because of slavery centuries, and then you have 0:10:22.600 --> 0:10:26.040 had the Black codes coming out of the Civil War, 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:30.760 which reimposed slavery by another name, and then after that 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:37.920 you have share cropping, systemic endemic, societally imposed poverty rained 0:10:38.000 --> 0:10:41.960 down on that black community, so that the poll tax 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:48.680 actually required between two to six percent of a Mississippi 0:10:48.720 --> 0:10:54.760 farm famili's annual income. Imagine paying two to six percent 0:10:55.320 --> 0:11:02.120 of your annual income to vote. Then there's the literacy test, 0:11:02.880 --> 0:11:06.560 when you have killed the enslaved who dare learn how 0:11:06.679 --> 0:11:11.240 to read to then require the reading of a complicated 0:11:11.360 --> 0:11:17.840 legal text in order to be able to vote. In 0:11:19.160 --> 0:11:21.960 the U. S. Supreme Court ruled that the poll tax 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:27.040 and the literacy test did not violate the Fifteenth Amendment 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:35.120 because everybody had to pay the poll tax and everybody 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:40.000 had to read, so how could this be racially discriminatory. 0:11:41.280 --> 0:11:44.880 After that, you saw a number of states revised their 0:11:44.920 --> 0:11:52.320 state constitutions to include the Mississippi Plans disfranchisement policies in there. 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:57.360 And the result was that by the time we get 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:04.240 to nineteen forty, only three percent of age eligible African 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:09.319 Americans in the South are registered to vote three percent. 0:12:10.320 --> 0:12:14.880 The Second World War has already started, and we're looking 0:12:14.880 --> 0:12:18.360 at a democracy that is so warped, is so gnarrowed 0:12:18.720 --> 0:12:23.960 in the United States, where of black eligible voters have 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:28.480 been blocked from the ballot box in the South, and 0:12:28.920 --> 0:12:33.640 the majority of African Americans lived in the South. By 0:12:33.679 --> 0:12:42.760 the time we get to Selma in Dallas County, where 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:49.520 Selma is only point nine percent of African Americans age 0:12:49.520 --> 0:12:55.680 eligible African Americans were registered to vote point nine percent. 0:12:57.080 --> 0:13:08.040 We'll return to Selma right after this short phrame. Conquer 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.960 your New Year's resolution to be more productive with the 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:15.240 Before Breakfast podcast. In each bite sized daily episode, time 0:13:15.280 --> 0:13:19.280 management and productivity expert Laura Vanderkam teaches you how to 0:13:19.360 --> 0:13:21.760 make the most of your time both at work and 0:13:21.920 --> 0:13:25.000 at home. These are the practical suggestions you need to 0:13:25.080 --> 0:13:28.000 get more done with your day. Just as lifting weights 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.079 keeps our body strong as we age, learning new skills 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:34.679 is the mental equivalent of pumping iron. Listen to before 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:38.960 Breakfast wherever you get your podcasts. Raffi is the voice 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:42.880 of some of the happiest songs of our generation. Baby 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:48.560 So who is the man behind Baby Bluga? Every human 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:53.040 being wants to feel respected. When we start with young, 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.760 all good things can grow from there. I'm Chris Garcia, comedian, 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.880 new Dad and host of Finding Raffie, a new podcast 0:14:00.920 --> 0:14:04.200 from My Heart Radio and Fatherly. Listen every Tuesday on 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:07.199 the I Heart Radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.520 When P. T. Barnum's Great American Museum burned to the 0:14:10.559 --> 0:14:13.600 ground in eighteen sixty five, what rose from its ashes 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:17.440 would change the world? Welcome to Grim and Mild presents 0:14:17.720 --> 0:14:21.800 an ongoing journey into the strange, the unusual, and the fascinating. 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.040 For our inaugural season, we'll be giving you a backstage 0:14:25.080 --> 0:14:29.280 tour of the always complex and often misunderstood cultural artifact 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:32.640 that is the American Side Show. So come along as 0:14:32.680 --> 0:14:35.480 we visit the shadowy corners of the stage and learn 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:37.480 about the people who were at the center of it 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.640 all in a place where spectacle was king. We will 0:14:40.680 --> 0:14:44.000 soon discover there's always more to the story than meets 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:46.880 the eye. So step right up and get in line. 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:50.120 Listen to Grim and Mild Presents now on the I 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:54.280 Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 0:14:54.880 --> 0:14:58.600 Learn more over at Grim and Mild dot com slash Presents. 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:10.800 Congress passes the most sweeping civil rights bill ever to 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:13.960 be written into the law unless we affirms the conception 0:15:14.000 --> 0:15:17.480 of equal In nineteen sixty four, President Lyndon B. Johnson 0:15:17.640 --> 0:15:20.720 signed the Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act is 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.960 a challenge to all of us to go to work 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.800 in our communities and our states, in our harms and 0:15:26.840 --> 0:15:33.560 in our hearts, to eliminate the last vestiges of injustice 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:38.840 in our beloved country. It was a landmark piece of legislation. 0:15:39.360 --> 0:15:43.520 It banned segregation in public places and discrimination in the workplace, 0:15:44.120 --> 0:15:47.600 but with racism running deep. Just listen to Alabama Governor 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:57.320 George Wallace in nineteen sixty three, there was so much 0:15:57.520 --> 0:16:00.640 it didn't do to ensure blacks had the to vote 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:05.200 which brings us back to Selma and Cheyenne. I'm Shyenne 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:10.480 web christ Burg. Dr Martin Luther King's smallest freedom fighter 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:15.480 and Dr King's voter registration campaign. Beginning in January nine, 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:21.720 freedom fighters staged non violent demonstrations in Selma to push 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:27.200 for another piece of legislation guaranteeing all Black Americans the 0:16:27.320 --> 0:16:33.880 right to vote. As I continue to participate in the movement, 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:38.760 where many other freedom fighters would come from other places 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:42.680 of the states to join that movement to change things 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:47.160 into helping fighting for the right to vote, and I 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.400 started bringing them to my home and asking my parents 0:16:50.440 --> 0:16:53.320 could they live with us and stay with us, and 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:59.920 soon they would be living in our homes. But I 0:17:00.240 --> 0:17:06.560 level forget what was the most traumatic experience of my life, 0:17:08.400 --> 0:17:12.720 and that was the Bloody Sun to March. The march 0:17:12.880 --> 0:17:15.480 was meant to be a big push by organizers to 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:21.640 register black voters across Alabama and to attract national press coverage. 0:17:22.880 --> 0:17:25.879 The plan was to walk peacefully from Selma to the 0:17:25.920 --> 0:17:30.760 state capital of Montgomery, fifty four miles. Many threats have 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:35.080 been made about the possibilities of what would happen to 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:41.040 anyone who would participate on that particular march, and I'll 0:17:41.080 --> 0:17:46.000 never forget my parents talking to me the night before 0:17:46.080 --> 0:17:50.320 and telling me that something could possibly happen to me 0:17:51.280 --> 0:17:56.520 if I participated in that march. Governor Wallace ordered the 0:17:56.600 --> 0:18:01.280 Highway Patrol chief to use quote whatever measure necessary to 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.960 prevent the march from happening. Organizers, including the late Congressman 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:10.200 John Lewis and jose A Williams, decided to proceed anyway. 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:16.879 On Sunday, March seven, at around noon, six hundred protesters, 0:18:17.200 --> 0:18:20.800 walking in two lines, left the Brown Chapel Amy Church 0:18:21.320 --> 0:18:24.879 and headed for the Edmund Pettis Bridge. Tucked into that 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:29.280 group of freedom fighters I'll never forget was young Cheyenne. 0:18:29.480 --> 0:18:33.680 The special instructions that were given by Congressman John Lewis. 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:41.280 He asked that all marches walk quietly, keep their heads 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:47.120 straight and forward, and regardless of what happened, everyone would 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:53.040 be none wound. At the base of the bridge, the 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.400 marchers were met by one hundred and fifty Alabama State 0:18:56.440 --> 0:19:01.240 troopers and sheriff deputies. A state trooper made this announcement 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:11.840 over a bullhorn, I'll go you. The marchers did not disperse, 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:15.200 They did not go home or back to their church. 0:19:16.119 --> 0:19:21.080 They stood still, and I remember vividly as I looked down, 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:28.119 it was like a seal. I saw hundreds of police 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:34.359 were with tear gas, masks, billy clothes to say, troops 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:40.000 on horses. I saw the dogs, and my heart had 0:19:40.080 --> 0:19:44.879 begun to rumble and beat fast. I just knew, as 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:51.560 that little girl, that something was gonna happen for there. 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.439 The troopers advanced slowly at first, but then picking up 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:02.560 speed until they plowed right through the merchers, knocking them down. 0:20:04.920 --> 0:20:11.479 Racism unleashed its brutality of policy. Tear gas have begun 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:16.800 to burst in the air, and tear gas is a strong, 0:20:17.040 --> 0:20:23.800 burning sensation where you can't hardly see your way, And 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:29.800 as people have begun to run, people were being beaten 0:20:29.840 --> 0:20:36.360 down with billy clubs. The dogs and the horses were 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:40.280 pushing their way into the crowd and trampling people over 0:20:40.359 --> 0:20:53.640 as if they weren't human leadings. You can see people crawling, falling, crying, bleeding, 0:20:56.080 --> 0:21:01.359 and of course my eyes were burning and I was running, 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:05.640 like many others, trying to make my way home. I 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:11.840 was very frightened, trembling and really not knowing what to 0:21:11.960 --> 0:21:18.160 do except to get home. And as I was running out. 0:21:18.240 --> 0:21:24.919 I could still see the horses, the dogs still trampling 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:28.840 over people as they were trying to make their way 0:21:28.880 --> 0:21:33.680 back to Brown's Chapter church. And as I was running, 0:21:35.280 --> 0:21:39.960 I'll never forget the late Josean Williams picking me up, 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:43.919 and my little legs were still galloping in his arms. 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:50.879 My eyes were burning. I couldn't hardly see. And I 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:54.359 turned to him and I said to him, in my 0:21:54.520 --> 0:22:00.280 own childish voice, put me down, because you I'm not 0:22:00.520 --> 0:22:10.119 running fast. And that picture of bloody Sunday has never 0:22:10.400 --> 0:22:16.600 left my heart. By my man. The events of that 0:22:16.680 --> 0:22:21.400 Sunday afternoon were captured by newscasters and journalists, and that night, 0:22:21.760 --> 0:22:25.359 Sunday Night Movie Will present Stanley Kramer's Academy Award winning 0:22:25.359 --> 0:22:33.640 Motion Picture Judgment at Nuremberg. Forty eight million people were 0:22:33.640 --> 0:22:38.600 watching ABC's broadcast of the star studded movie Judgment at Nuremberg, 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:42.960 about the trials that took place in Germany following the Holocaust. 0:22:43.280 --> 0:22:48.440 And here in our decision, this is what we stand for, justice, 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:56.480 true and the value of a single human being. But 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:00.520 the network interrupted the movie to report on what happened 0:23:00.520 --> 0:23:05.359 in some of that day. We interrupt this program to 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:09.240 bring you a special report from ABC News. In the 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:13.520 days and weeks that followed, public support for the protesters surged, 0:23:13.880 --> 0:23:16.879 and a federal judge ruled in favor of the marchers. 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:21.520 They told us we wouldn't get here. Fourteen days after 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:25.160 bloody Sunday, olds who said that we would get here 0:23:25.160 --> 0:23:30.160 only over that dead body, Martin Luther King Jr. Successfully 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:35.119 Led thousands of demonstrators across the Edmund Pettis Bridge and 0:23:35.320 --> 0:23:40.560 onto Montgomery. All the world today knows that we are here, 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:44.359 and we are standing before the forces of power in 0:23:44.480 --> 0:23:47.640 the state of Alabama saying we ain't gonna let nobody 0:23:47.760 --> 0:23:56.320 turn us arid. And because America could not unsee the 0:23:56.400 --> 0:24:02.000 horrors of that bloody Sunday last March, with the outrage 0:24:02.280 --> 0:24:07.119 of Solomon still Fration, legislators were motivated to do something 0:24:07.160 --> 0:24:11.560 about it and asked the Congress and the people for 0:24:11.840 --> 0:24:18.400 swift and for sweeping action to guarantee to every man 0:24:18.640 --> 0:24:27.159 and woman the right to vote. The bill passed the 0:24:27.200 --> 0:24:34.600 Senate by an overwhelming majority, seven to nineteen. Thus, this 0:24:34.920 --> 0:24:37.760 is a victory for the freedom of the American and 0:24:37.880 --> 0:24:40.399 my parents, but it is also a victory for the 0:24:40.480 --> 0:24:44.680 freedom of the American nation became registered votes and every 0:24:44.920 --> 0:24:49.360 family across this great, entire searching land, and when they 0:24:49.400 --> 0:24:52.520 went to vote, they lived stronger in liberty. They took 0:24:52.560 --> 0:24:56.600 me with That was one of the most prouder to 0:24:56.680 --> 0:25:02.879 be American, happiest momentous feeling and laws for me that 0:25:03.000 --> 0:25:07.240 I've ever had, the Act that you have passed that 0:25:07.440 --> 0:25:14.680 I will sign today. On August six nine, President Lyndon B. 0:25:14.880 --> 0:25:22.960 Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. To understand 0:25:22.960 --> 0:25:25.359 how important that law has become in the history of 0:25:25.400 --> 0:25:29.680 this country, author Gilda Daniel says, you can simply look 0:25:29.760 --> 0:25:33.640 to how presidents have described it. President Ronald Reagan called 0:25:33.640 --> 0:25:36.919 it a crown jewel. Lyndon Baines Johnson said that it 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:40.880 was monumental, and it was monumental. Indeed, when you think 0:25:40.920 --> 0:25:43.480 about the power of the Voting Rights Act, you do 0:25:43.600 --> 0:25:47.240 think about the ability to elect representatives right for people 0:25:47.280 --> 0:25:50.879 who can represent you and represent your viewpoints. And and 0:25:51.320 --> 0:25:56.000 even President Barack Obama attributed the Voting Rights Act to 0:25:56.040 --> 0:25:59.240 his success because of campaigns like this, essentially said that 0:25:59.280 --> 0:26:01.400 he would not have been possible the Voting Rights Act 0:26:01.480 --> 0:26:05.159 was passed. There was that a Voting Rights Act of 0:26:06.240 --> 0:26:10.359 political and economic and social barriers came down, and the 0:26:10.440 --> 0:26:13.280 change these men and women wrought is visible here today 0:26:13.359 --> 0:26:17.240 in the presence of African Americans who run boardrooms, who 0:26:17.280 --> 0:26:20.360 sit on the bench, who serve in elected office, from 0:26:20.400 --> 0:26:25.119 small towns to big cities, from the Congressional Black Caucus, 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:30.520 all the way to the old Office because of what 0:26:30.560 --> 0:26:33.639 they did. But in two thousand and thirteen, the Voting 0:26:33.720 --> 0:26:37.000 Rights Act of nineteen sixty five faced a major setback 0:26:37.400 --> 0:26:40.160 when the Supreme Court ruled that the Voting Rights Act 0:26:40.240 --> 0:26:45.920 had essentially served its purpose and significantly weakened it. That 0:26:46.000 --> 0:26:49.840 led states to implement their own laws. For example, within 0:26:49.920 --> 0:26:54.040 twenty four hours of the Supreme Court decision, Texas announced 0:26:54.080 --> 0:26:57.080 it would put in place a strict voter I D law. 0:26:57.960 --> 0:27:03.360 In oral arguments, we space voting discrimination still exists. No 0:27:03.400 --> 0:27:06.840 one doubts that the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg led 0:27:06.840 --> 0:27:09.800 the descent the great man who led the march from 0:27:09.800 --> 0:27:13.560 Selma to Montgomery. In her argument, she echoed the words 0:27:13.720 --> 0:27:18.520 of Martin Luther King Jr. Who in nineteen seven presciently 0:27:18.640 --> 0:27:22.720 said the road ahead would not always be smooth. The 0:27:22.840 --> 0:27:26.639 ak of the moral universe is long, he said, But 0:27:26.760 --> 0:27:31.639 it bends towards justice. If there is a steadfast commitment 0:27:32.680 --> 0:27:39.240 to see the task through two completion. That commitment has 0:27:39.320 --> 0:27:53.439 been disserved by today's decision. We'll be right back. What 0:27:53.600 --> 0:27:57.399 grows in the forest trees, Sure, no one else girls 0:27:57.400 --> 0:28:01.080 in the forest, Our imagination I sent of wonder, and 0:28:01.160 --> 0:28:04.440 our family bonds grow too, because when we disconnect from 0:28:04.480 --> 0:28:10.920 this and connect with this, we reconnect with each other. 0:28:11.640 --> 0:28:14.520 The forest is closer than you think. Find a forest 0:28:14.640 --> 0:28:18.160 near you and start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org. 0:28:18.480 --> 0:28:21.040 Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and 0:28:21.119 --> 0:28:27.000 the AD Council. The Gangster Chronicles podcast is a weekly 0:28:27.040 --> 0:28:31.000 conversation that revolves around the underworld, the criminals and entertainers 0:28:31.040 --> 0:28:34.360 to victims, crime and law enforcement. We cover all facets 0:28:34.359 --> 0:28:37.760 of the game. Gainst the Chronicles podcast doesn't glorify from 0:28:37.760 --> 0:28:41.760 motilicit activities. We just discussed the ramifications and repercussions of 0:28:41.800 --> 0:28:44.360 these activities because at the wall, if you played gainst 0:28:44.360 --> 0:28:47.640 the games, you are ultimately rewarded with Gangster prizes. Our 0:28:47.720 --> 0:28:50.640 Heart radios number one for podcasts, but don't take our 0:28:50.680 --> 0:28:53.560 award for it. Find Against the Chronicles podcast and my 0:28:53.720 --> 0:28:59.000 Heart radio app or wherever you get your podcast. Hey guys, 0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:02.760 it is Bobby Bones from The Bobby Cast, Nashville's most 0:29:02.880 --> 0:29:06.080 listen to music podcast. In depth interviews with your favorite 0:29:06.080 --> 0:29:09.200 country artists. They tell stories behind the biggest songs in 0:29:09.240 --> 0:29:12.040 country music and share personal stories that you won't hear 0:29:12.040 --> 0:29:16.440 anywhere else. Reba Christapleton, Luke Combs, Dan and Shake, Kelsey 0:29:16.480 --> 0:29:20.320 Ballerini and more. Long form and all from the comfort 0:29:20.400 --> 0:29:22.920 of my own home, so it gets a little more 0:29:23.000 --> 0:29:25.680 laid back. I also talked with the biggest songwriters and 0:29:25.720 --> 0:29:29.240 producers in Nashville. Find out about the process and how 0:29:29.240 --> 0:29:31.400 it goes from being an idea in a writing room 0:29:31.400 --> 0:29:33.480 to a song that you hear on the radio. And 0:29:33.520 --> 0:29:35.800 if you're looking for new music, I share my top 0:29:35.840 --> 0:29:39.360 five new music releases on every week's episode. So if 0:29:39.360 --> 0:29:42.120 you love country music, I think you'll really enjoy this podcast. 0:29:42.480 --> 0:29:45.640 And there are so many episodes to binge. Literally hundreds 0:29:46.160 --> 0:29:49.640 listen to new episodes of The Bobby Cast every Friday 0:29:49.720 --> 0:29:53.120 on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on the I Heart 0:29:53.200 --> 0:29:57.120 Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. 0:30:00.600 --> 0:30:04.320 When you look at all of these issues together, you 0:30:04.480 --> 0:30:10.080 see the system. This is a system of discrimination. Again, 0:30:10.280 --> 0:30:13.680 author and law professor Gilded Daniels. It takes a lot 0:30:13.800 --> 0:30:18.440 different names. In the nineteen hundreds we called it a 0:30:18.560 --> 0:30:20.680 poll tax, and the day we called it voter I 0:30:20.760 --> 0:30:22.800 d or it would used to be a literacy test. 0:30:22.880 --> 0:30:25.520 Now it's proof of citizenship. So you might have called 0:30:25.520 --> 0:30:27.720 the different things, but it still has the same impact. 0:30:27.720 --> 0:30:30.320 It still has the same effect, and that is that 0:30:30.440 --> 0:30:34.640 it disproportionately disenfranchises people of color. A big part of 0:30:34.680 --> 0:30:39.760