Martin Luther King Jr.Rosa Parks.
Here are their stories.
Dorothy Cotton lived on the first floor.
[Cotton is known as a pillar of theCivil Rights Movement.]
One day she asked if I was looking for work.
I had never worked in an office.
Dorothy gave me an address and said, You should go here and apply.
That is how I got hired at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
I had never heard of civil rights before.
I realized that this was the man in the brochures!
We visited towns all over the state, and this is how the Birmingham movement got started.
This was to be nonviolent protest in the heart of Jim Crow.
The FBI told Dr. King, There are credible threats against your life.
We cannot guarantee your safety.
Well, Dr. King called us together.
Because we could be killed.
I looked around, thinking it would be canceled.
But no one else said no.
I went off and did my crying, then came back and said, Im going.
On Good Friday in 1962, after the protests in Birmingham began, Dr. King was arrested.
Dr. King decided that he was going to write an answer.
He was in jail, and he asked the jailers for pen and paper.
They said, Youre not in a library!
You dont get anything to write with.
He wrote on the edges of newspaper, on toilet paper, on sandwich bags.
His attorney Clarence Jones hid the scraps under his suit jacket and slipped them out of the jail.
We had to put together this jigsaw puzzle.
We were on the floor, trying to figure it out, Scotch-taping things together.
Dr. Kings handwriting was not the best.
The lighting was terrible in his jail cell.
I was not allowed to leave the office for three days and two nights.
I typed this document on an IBM Selectric typewriter, not a computer where you could cut and paste.
If I made a mistake, I had to redo everything.
That is how we developed the Letter from Birmingham Jail.
When we released it, no one paid attention at first.
I could not mimeograph enough copies.
[The letter became one of the most important documents of the civil rights era.]
In my opinion, none of his speeches or writings will give you a clearer vision of his mission.
My whole career was helping people.
That was instilled in me by Dr. King and others that I worked with so closely.
I cant think of a better way to spend a life, than helping people.
He was optimistic that change would come for Black people.
This is our country too.
Thats what my dad preached.
When I got to campus in 1960, the sit-in movement was beginning.
I was there every day.
We would sit there and do our studies.
Ultimately, I was arrested with others.
In 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality organized the first Freedom Ride.
I submitted an utility and they chose me.
The Southern states were ignoring these decisions.
Our goal was to simply ride the bus south and sit where they said we couldnt.
This was not an act of civil disobedience.
The law was on our side.
I was 18 and needed a parents signature.
The first Freedom Ride bus left Washington, D.C., on May 4, 1961.
Aboard was a mix of Black and white activists, including future Congressman John Lewis.
I was the youngest Freedom Rider on that first trip.
We were well-groomed, because how we presented ourselves was important.
Each night, we stayed with members of congregations who fed us.
We switched buses each day for safety.
Media rode with us.
We were ordinary people, trying to do things to make our lives extraordinary.
People taunted us all the way to Alabama.
That is when the beatings started.
In Birmingham, the next stop, a mob was waiting when we exited the bus.
My fellow Freedom Rider James Peck went down almost immediately.
I maintained my balance but had my scalp opened.
I got away from the crowds and, as luck would have it, a city bus came by.
I got on, and the driver had sympathy; he took me to a safe place.
He said, If you go across the tracks, there will be someone there to help you.
[The beatings made national news as a pivotal event in the civil rights struggle.]
Using photographs, the FBI identified the men who beat us.
I thought it was a slam-dunk case.
I was very disappointed.
Like my father before me, I chose to serve.
I entered the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam.
I was exposed to Agent Orange and have cancer today.
God just seems to keep me here.
Whenever I have the chance to speak to young people, I tell them they can change the world.
