This is Democracy — Episode 302: Freedom Season 1963

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[00:00:20] Zachary Suri: Welcome to our latest episode of This Is Democracy.

I’m Zachary Suri I’m hosting this week. We’re mixing things up a little bit. Um, we often, uh, think about history in terms of pivotal years, 17 76, 18 48, 19 89, um, and 1968 is often an entry in this list. Identified by many historians as the key turning point in our democracy and democracies around the world in the 1960s.

But our next guest, uh, his new book, makes the case for a different year, 1963. Uh, Dr. Pen Joseph is the Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political values, and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin. Uh, and he joins us now.

Thank you for joining us Pen. Thank you for having me, Zachary and Jeremy in Freedom Season. How 1963 transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution? Professor Joseph argues that 1963 marked the first critical successes and several important but tragic losses of the Civil Rights movement. I. That would transform American democracy.

1963 was he writes in the book, quote, the defining year of the Black Freedom Struggle. Um, and because of the importance, uh, of this year and, uh, one of the documents, it produced a letter from Birmingham Jail by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Um, instead of a poem this week, we will be hearing Dr. King read a section of that speech, uh, and he will read what, what is perhaps one of the most famous, uh, sections.

[00:01:50] Martin Luther King Jr.: More. I’m cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham injustice anywhere. Is a threat to justice everywhere we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny.

Whatever it affects, one directly affects all indirectly.

[00:02:27] Zachary Suri: So Professor Joseph Birmingham, uh, and this letter play a central role in the story that you tell. It’s the site of some of the most brutal televised police crackdowns on peaceful protestors in 1963. It’s where MLK is arrested and writes this letter, of course.

Uh, why Birmingham? Why were the events there in the spring of 1963 so critical to the cause of civil rights and to the history of our democracy?

[00:02:51] Peniel Joseph: Well, Birmingham is very interesting because. As I show in Freedom Season, there were other hot spots and sites, uh, that might have become Birmingham, including Greenwood, Mississippi and Jackson, Mississippi.

Um, but Birmingham becomes, uh, such a huge global site. Of struggle for dignity and citizenship in 1963, primarily because of the brutality that is experienced by, uh, peaceful demonstrators and over time by really thousands of young black students who were called Negro students in the context of 1963 unless Malcolm X was speaking about them.

And, um. What’s so interesting, Zachary, um, and Jeremy about Birmingham is that, so Birmingham is a dying steel town. Uh, it’s the citadel of the old Confederacy. And what’s interesting about 63 with Birmingham, there’s two. Competing governments by May of 63 in Birmingham. Birmingham is shifting to a mayoral system from a three person, um, uh, uh, uh, commissioner system.

And one of those commissioners is Eugene Bull Connor, who’s the rabid. Not only racist, but anti-communist who’s a former, uh, radio sports broadcaster who gets his nickname for his expertise at shooting the bull Eugene Bull Connor. And what’s so interesting about I. Bull Connor’s Birmingham is that there’s gonna be an election, there’s gonna be a new mayor, Albert Boutwell, who’s really a sort of an elegant segregationist.

But for a while, like during the first reconstruction period, there’s gonna be two competing governments in the city of Birmingham who are both claiming that they are the official government, but what Bull Connor does. As city commissioner, not police commissioner, but city commissioner who has. Authority over law enforcement is that he unleashes, um, fire hoses through the fire department that are powerful enough to strip the bark off of trees and they also unleash canine units and German shepherds, uh, that route, uh, peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham.

In April and and May of 1963. So really Birmingham, even more so than the Freedom Rides in 1961, attracts global attention and even more so than the Freedom Rides in 1961 and even more so than the Meredith admission to Ole Miss University of Mississippi in September of 1962. Because that’s a concentrated episode.

It’s over three, four days. There’s gonna be a couple of people who are dead. Meredith is gonna be, uh, uh, escorted by over 500 federal marshals. But there’s also gonna be, uh, national Guard and others deployed. I. In the spring of 1963. It’s a slow rolling crisis that continues to build and build. We start to get hundreds of reporters in Birmingham, including reporters from as far away as Sweden and France and other places, uh, who are reporting.

And we start to see Birmingham become front page news in the New York Times, especially when children as young as seven, eight, and nine years old are arrested in Birmingham.

[00:06:27] Jeremi Suri: And in your book, uh, pail, you have a really wonderful chapter. It’s the beginning of your spring section where you talk about a lot of, uh, these events, uh, in Birmingham.

Um, and, and two of the main characters of your book really come out in this chapter, I think beautifully, uh, John F. Kennedy, and in particular his brother Robert Kennedy. And, and James Baldwin, Jimmy Baldwin, as you call him. Um, why is this such an important moment for the Kennedys and for Baldwin? For, for

[00:06:57] Peniel Joseph: the Kennedys.

One of the things I wanted to show in the book Jeremy, was the evolution of Bobby and Jack Kennedy on race matters. And it’s not always a complete evolution, it’s not always a linear evolution, but both of them really have their finest moments. Uh. Vis-a-vis civil rights in 63 during, during that, the course of that year.

And so for the Kennedys who are very reticent about not allowing civil rights to upend. The administration and especially the administration’s legislative agenda, which at the State of the Union as I show early, uh, they want a tax cut. They want a big tax cut so that they can get portions of what become the great society passed, including Medicare.

That’s what they want, and they don’t want. The, the coalition that they need, which includes southern segregationists or dixiecrats to be so concerned about civil rights that they block the President’s agenda. Um, and Bobby Kennedy, who really serves as a kind of, uh, domestic and international prime minister.

Um, certainly the, the second most powerful politician in the country, uh, to President Kennedy is very wary. Of anything that might taint his brother’s presidency. Um, and what we’re gonna see over the course of the spring is the Kennedy Brothers. Collectively, almost symbiotically coming to the conclusion that they, they, they have to lead, uh, in the context of this crisis and not just lead from behind, but to take some risks.

And Jim, Jimmy Baldwin, James Baldwin, the writer is a big part of this, uh, Jimmy Baldwin. Is, uh, an extraordinary figure in the book, but also just in American history. Born in Harlem in 1924. Uh, one of nine children, um, young, gay, black, uh, writer born in, in poverty, who flees to France in November of 1948.

And, uh, really unleashes his literary genius in a series of novels and books. Um, go Tell It On The Mountain is his first novel and then Giovanni’s Room and another country, and his nonfiction is, is really regarded, uh, now in the 21st century. As, as you know, he’s the best essayist that I think America has ever produced.

Uh, irrespective of race notes of a Native Son and what we get published in. On January 31st, 1963 is a book called The Fire Next Time, which is, which is really this extraordinary, um, book that is comprised of two essays. Uh, the shorter essay is called My Dungeon Shook, which was a letter to his nephew. In commemoration of the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, which comes out in the December issue of the Progressive, which is coming out of Wisconsin and Madison and, and, and fighting Bob LaFollette, uh, uh, founded in 1909 and the second longer essay, which is the really even more well-known essay.

Is an essay called Down at the Cross, which was published in the November, 1962 issue of The New Yorker, as under the title, A letter from a Region in my Mind. And that’s a 21,000 word essay about race, democracy, slavery, memory, um, love, citizenship, dignity, really the, the, the best essay ever written about, about race in many ways.

I, I think, and, um. The fire next time becomes an immediate bestseller, and it really catapults Jimmy, who’s already famous. Uh, for another country, another country is a massive bestseller. Uh, it’s a novel about interracial, uh, relationships and romance, um, suicide, uh, queerness. Uh, it’s really his, his blockbuster novel in terms of its popularity sells more than a million copies.

Um, it is, it is. It is major and, and sometimes we forget about that. And, and, and so when we think about Jimmy Baldwin in 1963, he is, he is, um, the most well known. A writer irrespective of race in, in the United States and, and globally. His books are selling in London, in France. He’s in Istanbul, Paris, uh, and the Kennedys, um, come to know Jimmy Baldwin.

Uh, Bobby Kennedy had met him in 1962 already at a White House function. And throughout 1963, Jimmy is on tour, not just for his, uh. New books, but also for the Congress of Racial Equality. Uh, and he’s, he’s going to historically white colleges and black colleges speaking about the need for civil rights.

And he’s really calling for a, a reckoning. A confrontation over America’s original sin of racial slavery. But Baldwin also wants us to. Really wrestle with the lies and the coverup. He talks about a crime has been committed, but what’s worse for him is the coverup, uh, the lies vis-a-vis American exceptionalism and the lies that everything is fine.

We’re all good. You know, there’s, there’s nothing for us to, um, um, uh, wrestle with around racial segregation around. Violence and terror and inequality and injustice in the United States. And so Baldwin really hammers at the Kennedys. You know, he says he admires the Kennedys, but he’s deeply disappointed in the Kennedys.

And what’s interesting, you know, Jeremy, about Jim Baldwin, is that what Jimmy is? He’s the incubator and a conduit. Everyone is talking and, and. Approaching his ideas and debating. That’s William F. Buckley. That’s Norman Potter. That’s, that’s, you know, it’s the Kennedys, it’s, it’s black leaders like Malcolm X and, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Gloria Richardson, Lorraine Hansberry. So he becomes the key figure and the key thought leader that politicians and literary salons. The New York Times and Madden Elle Magazine and the New Yorker and the Progressive. Um, but Black Nationalist and Pan-Africanist and Marxist and Republicans and Democrats, they’re all wrestling with Jimmy Baldwin.

Mm-hmm. Which is extraordinary. And, and. Th th that’s gonna inspire Bobby Kennedy as the spring progresses to actually wanna meet Jimmy Baldwin and to hear him and listen to him. So you’re seeing these, these writers become political figures who are connecting high politics with the quotidian. I.

[00:13:58] Zachary Suri: I think that that’s a very helpful overview and, and obviously so much of your book focuses on these literary circles and literary figures.

Um, it, it’s very much in sort of intellectual history as well. Um, I I wanted to ask the, the, the moment that I think at least for most Americans we remember most from 1963 is probably the march on Washington. That moment, uh. We all know the images from the Lincoln Memorial of people gathered, um, linked listening to speeches from sort of great leaders of the Civil Rights Movement.

Um, what made that moment on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial so impactful and how do you see that moment fitting into the larger story of 1963? I.

[00:14:38] Peniel Joseph: Well, the March on Washington is an unbelievable high point, and I think the longest chapter in Freedom Season is, is the chapter 11 called The Language of Human Joy, which, which really does an in-depth, uh, examination of the March on Washington.

I. But it tries to look at it from different perspectives of people like Byard Rustin, Malcolm X, the Kennedys, um, Howard Zinn. Uh, very, very famous, um, professor and author of a People’s History of the United States. But one of the key. Um, adult advisors, young adult, 41 years old to SNCC activists, student nonviolent coordinating committee, a mentor to somebody like Marian Wright, Edelman Spelman college professor.

Really extraordinary figure. Um, I would say the March on Washington is a high point because of the. The previous seven months, seven and a half months, almost eight months of activism and debates and conflicts and deaths, but also triumphs that occur. So the start of the year, Jimmy Baldwin flies to Mississippi to meet with James Meredith, who’s the first black student to enroll at Ole Miss, the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi, and he meets with Medgar Evers.

And really through the first half of the book, Medgar Evers is alive. He’s the field representative, field secretary of the Jackson, Mississippi naacp, a former military veteran with the Red Ball Express, uh uh, and providing supplies to our American soldiers in Normandy during the invasion. Um, a football hero, a married father of three to Merley Evers.

He’s got three children, a 9-year-old son, an 8-year-old daughter, and then a, a a 3-year-old son, uh, Jack Van Dyke. And, um, I. Rena Denise is his daughter, and Daryl Kenyata is his oldest born, uh, middle name Kenyata, uh, named after Jomo Kenyata, who becomes the first leader of Kenya December 12th, 13th, that year in 1963.

So Medgar Evers is this extraordinarily courageous and heroic and upright figure who I think we all know. Uh, in popular culture because of hiss assassination, and I wanted us to see Medgar Evers in Mississippi to hear him deliver speeches, to see the organizing that he’s doing in Jackson, Mississippi, and also the constraints he’s under because Roy Wilkins, whose executive director of the NAACP is a very cautious, pragmatic civil rights leader.

He’s a civil rights leader who’s very competitive with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Constantly feels the NAACP is losing credit to competitors that don’t put as much skin in the game financially, at least as the NAACP does, and Medgar Evers. Is really at the center of these concentric circles, which include Roy Wilkins, which includes Martin Luther King Jr.

Who’s a friend of Medgar Evers, which includes young student activists who are connected to the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee who want the NAACP to be a much more direct action centered. Civil rights organization getting arrested, boycotting being in the Scrum, and we see Medgar Evers as somebody who’s under the constant threat of death.

Uh, I show the way in which, um, there are white activists like Joan Trump Hour, who’s still alive. Who’s getting arrested alongside of Medgar Evers at sit-ins. Uh, John Salter is the half native American half white professor at Tougaloo who’s getting arrested and beaten and brutalized alongside Medgar Evers.

And so I. What’s going on in Jackson, Mississippi. I also look at what’s going on in Greenwood, Mississippi in April of that year where people like Bob Moses are being brutalized and arrested. Somebody tries to assassinate Bob Boas in April of 1963. And Bob Moses is the, the, the, the Hamilton College graduate, uh, philosophy major.

Uh, mathematician, uh, who later is a MacArthur Genius Award winner, uh, and author of the book Radical Equations, who is really one of the single most influential student activists of the 1960s. He goes to Macomb, Mississippi, and influences and inspires people like Tom Hayden. Who follows him into Macomb.

And Moses writes that famous letter from a prison in Macomb, Mississippi about SNCC activists being in the middle of the iceberg. And the iceberg is a metaphor for, uh, the racial subjugation and the white supremacy that they’re under. And Moses vows, um, to resist, nonviolently to resist. And he becomes this figure who attracts really hundreds.

Uh, and then thousands of students. Um, and Moses of course wears the sharecropper overalls of local people in the Mississippi Delta, and that becomes sn C’S def facto uniform of blending in. And Moses does it in a completely ego free manner. Uh, he’s one of the most humblest people you could ever meet.

He’s since passed away, but with such deep. Humility, um, Greenwood for a while is on the front pages of the New York Times because of the brutality that’s going on. So when we look at. The March on Washington. The March on Washington is a culmination of one, a very brutal winter where civil rights activists are hoping against hope and organizing that the, the civil, the, the federal government’s gonna be on their side, and that President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy will lead.

They’re very disappointed, perhaps none. So as much as James Baldwin. Um, but by the spring, Birmingham and the crisis in Birmingham gives civil rights activists an entree into compelling, coercing, shaming the administration into taking a moral stance. Uh, Jimmy Baldwin sends the Kennedys a, a public telegram saying What’s happening in Birmingham?

It’s their responsibility. This is a human rights movement, a human rights campaign, and over the course of that spring, especially after the Mother’s Day bombing in Birmingham, which is an assassination attempt on Martin Luther King Jr. At the AG Gaston Motel, you start to see the Kennedys. Respond and do more.

And Malcolm X, who’s in Washington DC uses Birmingham as an entree to really become in 1963, a national figure. It’s very interesting to watch all these different stories unfold, but they intersect, which makes them so even more interesting.

[00:21:40] Zachary Suri: That makes a lot of sense. Um, of, of course, 1963 was also defined by two other tragedies In September of 1963, the, the church bombing in Birmingham that killed four little girls, uh, and the assassination of of GFK in November of that year.

Um, what effect did these tragedies also obviously public televised, how did, what, what effect did they have on the movement? Um, and how in particular did the. The JFK assassination helped change public sentiment around, around civil

[00:22:06] Peniel Joseph: rights. Well, I think the, I wanna stick for a second, Zachary, with the March on Washington, just to talk about what happens that day.

August 28th, I think 250,000 people come to Washington DC and what’s so powerful is the coalitions we’re seeing of labor. Um, labor movements, different social justice movements, political, religious movements. Um, you’ve got, um, Jewish and Christian organizations and secular organizations that come together, but you also have the left that gets in there too.

There are people who are socialists and Marxists and feminist at the march, and so the march is really extraordinary in showing a kind of solidarity publicly. In front of a global audience, including the Kennedys, right? The Kennedys invite the March leaders to the White House afterwards, and they spend 75 minutes there.

And what’s so extraordinary about the March on Washington is that it’s a generational march. We see. A Philip Randolph, who is 74 years old and the head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car. Porters is the titular head of that march. Uh, we see Byard Rustin, who is his lieutenant, uh, former member of the Young Communist League, a socialist, uh, somebody who socialist and a social Democrat.

Who spends years in prison in Lewisburg as a conscientious objector, um, around the same time that Elijah Muhammad is in prison as a conscientious objector. You see all these different stories coming together. Ozzy Davis, who’s a friend of Malcolm X’s, is the, um, master of ceremonies and. We of course remember, uh, Martin Luther King Jr’s speech, and it’s a 17 minute speech.

We remember it as a, I have a dream speech. Uh, but he begins that speech with the words, now is the time to make real, the promise of democracy. And in that speech, he talks about reparations. He says, we come here to cash a check, a check that has been stamped, insufficient funds, but we refuse to believe that the Bank of American Justice is bankrupt.

So it’s an extraordinary. Day, and I want us to remember the electricity that’s in the air that day, but that entire year and, um, in freedom season, I have John F. Kennedy, uh, telling his, um, favorite White House staffer, uh, who’s part of his personal staff, his butler Bruce, how he wishes he could be out there.

Um, John F. Kennedy is telling, uh, the activist after they come in and these leaders. You know that he’s proud of them. Uh, LBJ is there as well. So it’s really an extraordinary, um, day and moment, uh, not just for the movement, but for really the idea of multiracial, uh, democracy in that sense. And, and that’s important because it’s a real high point that year because Zachary, by the time.

Birmingham happens the second act of Birmingham, which is, uh, the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing on September 15th. And there’s four girls who are, are murdered that day. Um, and their names are. Uh, Carol Robertson, Addie Mae Collins, and Cynthia Wesley, who are all 14 years old. And then Denise McNair, who’s just 11, are all killed in that blast.

And two other black children are also killed that day. Uh, one is a 13-year-old who’s riding his bike. Named Virgil Peanut Ware, who shot by two white Eagle Scouts, who, who, who, who tell the police and the authorities later that they wanted to see what would happen if they shot an Negro and he shot and murdered.

One of the boys serves six months in juvenile detention, uh, and is released and the other boy is let go and released. Um, and there’s a 20-year-old. Uh, Johnny Robinson, who shot and killed in the back by Birmingham Police, uh, in the, in the aftermath of Ale where people are protesting against the, the bombing that has just happened at the 16th Street Baptist Church.

So those six deaths really impact James Baldwin and I show, uh, as we, um. Continue the narrative, how Baldwin is leading demonstrations and efforts at a Christmas boycott and, and a, a real searing critique of what kind of country are we that allows these six children to die? And you know, John F. Kennedy.

Doesn’t go to any of the funerals. Um, and he’s implored by Martin Luther King Jr. In the White House to attend. And we have the tapes and, um, he doesn’t go to the funerals, so it’s really an extraordinarily disappointing moment as well. Right? And so the interregnum between the 16th Street Chap Baptist Church bombing September 15th and the Kennedy assassination November 22nd, you see, um, folks like James Baldwin who are getting, um.

A lot angrier, uh, and a lot more bitter about, um, and realizing what the stakes are, right? Real, real criticism. And so by the time of the Kennedy assassination, the Kennedy assassination provides the context for. Mourning, but it also provides the context to, and Merley Evers does this. James Baldwin King does it too, is to place Kennedy as one of the martyrs like the, the, the, the, the martyrs of this movement.

So it’s, it’s, and Baldwin says this at Howard University, November 30th, 1963 says, we, we mourned separately the. The deaths of Medgar Evers and the children of Birmingham, and now we’re collectively mourning JFK because black Americans were bereft at the Kennedy assassination because they were, um, his most enthusiastic supporters as that administration went on.

So it becomes really interesting. JFK becomes part and the most well-known martyr of America’s second reconstruction, but for much of the year it doesn’t. Seem as if, um, we’re ever gonna mourn collectively, uh, any of the fallen. Um. Heroes, uh, in this struggle for citizenship and dignity.

[00:28:48] Jeremi Suri: Uh, pail at, at the end of your wonderful book, you, you connect of course, the moment you’ve just described to the rise of Lyndon Johnson and how in this, this terrible, violent, chaotic moment.

Lyndon Johnson, who was a largely ignored vice president by the Kennedys, uh, comes. Comes into office and is able to create, as you say, a more powerful bully pulpit than any president had really had before. At least not in recent memory and. Is the progress that’s made, particularly in 64 and 65, the Civil Rights Act of 64, the Voting Rights Act of 65, where so many of us focus our attention.

W was that a necessary outcome of Kennedy’s death? Would another vice president ascending to the presidency have done the same thing? Or was there something particular about Lyndon Johnson?

[00:29:38] Peniel Joseph: Oh, I think that Lyndon Johnson is really the right person who steps into history at that moment. I don’t know if, um, if another vice President would’ve been able to take command in the same way.

I think that trying to make. Kennedy’s assassination and his death, trying to leverage that for the passage of legislation, I think most people would’ve tried to do, and I think it’s important for us to remember in the context of the time of 63, 64, 65 LBJ needs, uh, black votes where, where he can get them.

And we’re thinking about states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, uh, and of course not the south. And he needs to hold on to a coalition that now has venerated, uh, the slain President Kennedy, um, and who’s now this very, very iconic figure. So in a lot of ways. Being proc civil rights was also pragmatic.

Like there was no way to hold onto that coalition, uh, through cautious deliberation in the immediate aftermath of the President’s assassination. So his instincts are correct, you know, uh, LBJ had great instincts and I think what’s interesting about. LBJ in 63 is that even months before the assassination with his Gettysburg address, his, uh, Tufts University commencement speech, him receiving an award by the National Association of Black or or Negro Journalists, they’re giving him an award.

LBJ had really, really stepped up on civil rights in very public ways, to the point where he became at least a part of some of the Kennedy private deliberations on civil rights and was speaking to Ted Sorenson. The tension with Bobby Kennedy is always there and with the assassination only amplifies, but he’s in the White House on June 22nd when Dr.

King has both a private meeting. With Bobby Kennedy and Burke Marshall, and then the very famous private walkthrough, the Rose Garden with Jack Kennedy, and then being surrounded by the 28 or 30 civil rights leaders. LBJ is there and he’s speaking and he’s upright. He’s there when, um, I. They, they meet after the march on Washington, but he’s also telling Ted Sorenson and he’s, um, uh, he mentions James Baldwin that President Kennedy should use the presidency as a bully pulpit.

He admires Kennedy’s June 11th speech, which I get in depth in, in freedom season in the Chapter Kennedy’s finest moment, but feels Kennedy should constantly, uh, use that bully pulpit. So he was much more. Willing to use a much more, um, understanding about the way in which the presidency in and of itself, it provides a kind of ballast, uh, for, for whatever political situation you’re in.

Uh, because people are really looking towards the president, especially I think at this time period, 1963, then Kennedy. So I, I think Kennedy. And you could see it in hearing some of the White House tapes, Jeremy with the a DA, Americans for Democratic Action. Kennedy saying, and Arthur Schlesinger is in the meetings with him, um, saying, well, um, FDRs fire chats, he ne he never gave more than four a year, and I don’t have FDRs velvet voice.

So there’s a kind of lack of confidence. Uh, that Kennedy has that, that really the polling, um, disputes, right? He’s a very, very popular president. I mean, really in 63, at his lowest. I mean, he’s, he’s still in the sixties. Can you, can you imagine? Right, in terms of popularity and people, people wanna see Kennedy.

People wanna listen to Kennedy. So there’s a kind of underestimation of, uh. What he’s capable of doing through the V bully pulpit in a way that LBJ um, really embraces, uh, uh, in the immediate aftermath of the assassination.

[00:33:44] Jeremi Suri: Yeah. One of the things I love about your book Pen is you. You show a variety of figures larger than life characters.

We’ve talked about some of them, but certainly not all of them. Uh, j James Baldwin, the Kennedys, but also Malcolm X, uh, a, a variety Medgar Evers, uh, all kinds of figures, uh, you, you touch on. Um, and even though they have a lot of differences. They all one way or another are seeking to grapple with the problem of civil rights and they’re trying in one way or another in their own, from their own views to advance the country.

Um, what do we take for today? I mean, this is where we always like to close the podcast. What do we learn for today at a time when, uh, political leaders. Seem so unwilling to engage these issues, and even those who care about these issues are afraid to engage these issues, university leaders are afraid to engage these issues.

What do we take from this story that’s useful for us today as we think about uh, uh, what you called in your prior book, a third reconstruction?

[00:34:49] Peniel Joseph: Well, I think, I think there’s three lessons to take, uh, from, from the book, at least three. Uh, one is this idea that really becomes universal in 1963 is that America must strive to be a multiracial democracy.

I. And I think you see that throughout the course of the year in 1963. And what’s so important is that by 1963 in the aftermath of the March on Washington and the Kennedy assassination, we get a rough consensus by the aftermath of JFK’s death led by Lyndon Baines Johnson that. Multiracial democracy has to be the beating heart of the republic.

That’s, that’s very, very important. Um, and I think for at least the next 50 years until the Supreme Court’s decision, Shelby V Holder five four, we had a 50 year racial justice consensus that was imperfect. But provided the most opportunities for historically marginalized groups to have access to building wealth, to becoming elected officials, to being educated at some of the best universities in the country, uh, to being in corporate America, so on and so forth.

Um, and that means African Americans, but it also means, um, uh, women. It means, uh, south Asians, it means people who are, uh, Latino. Just, just the whole gamut, uh, which is extraordinary. So I think that idea of multiracial democracy is really important and the idea of building consensus around that, it’s not, um, unanimity.

There’s gonna be disagreement of how we get to it, but consensus around the idea of multiracial democracy. Um, the other lesson is about coalitions and coalition building. So I think throughout freedom season, you see the way in which, uh, civil rights leaders from the grassroots all the way to those who could have the privilege of meeting.

With President Kennedy and Bobby Kennedy and meeting with governors and leaders, um, really were interested in coalitions. They were interested in listening and, and, and learning from, but also debating with people who held different views than they did, but they were all interested in, in good faith advancing.

Country. So this idea of coalitions is, is very, very important. And then finally, I would say this idea of, um, you know, ideas and actions mattering. So what’s so interesting about 1963 is the way in which, uh, words and rhetoric. And the, their ability to persuade people mattered. You know, I think Martin Luther King Jr.

Is who we always look at, but it’s Malcolm X, it’s Gloria Richardson, Lorraine Hansberry, and then certainly it’s Jimmy Baldwin, where Baldwin’s words are so, uh, extraordinarily profound. You’ve got the right wing, the left wing, the middle of the country. All trying to grapple with him, right? William F.

Buckley calls him an eloquent menace, right? Um, and others say, no, he’s this prophetic figure. You know, uh, Izzy Stone, IF Stone says he speaks with the passion of a Hebrew prophet, right? And so ideas matter, words and rhetoric matter. And I think we can see that. Right now in 2025, uh, because I think there was a, a, a feeling before our current situation that if you had presidents who rhetorically supported civil rights, I.

That that wasn’t enough. And I understand that that isn’t enough, but just the act of saying it actually was a much more positive thing for the country than, than somebody who’s saying the exact opposite and saying, and, and belittling people and, and discriminating against people. Um, so words really matter and ideas matter and placing those words and ideas into action matter.

So there’s a, there’s an intellectual. Um, uh, Praxis that happens in 1963. That is, that is massive and national and monumental, and it’s really global in scope because there are, there are students who are part of the Peace Corps and Crossroads who are going into Africa, who are going into Latin America, and those countries are also looking at the United States, and people are trying to walk the talk.

They’re trying to live up to their social, political, cultural, moral, religious ideals. Uh, which is really extraordinary to see. They don’t always succeed, but the very fact that in good faith they’re trying to live up to those ideas, it’s really important to see. And that impacts the kind of, um, civic nationalism that really comes to a high point in 63 really.

The most important year of America’s second reconstruction. If we look at those years as 1954 to 1968 is the high points, 63 is the turning point. And it takes all those, not just deaths, I mean there’s also these triumphant moments. So I hope it’s a hopeful story, uh, as well, because I got a lot of hope from, um.

Being with Baldwin and being with all these folks, and I got a lot of hope from having a presidency and administration that even with their flaws, really wanted to do the right thing. Um, and at times, um, actually did.

[00:40:14] Zachary Suri: Yes, I, I think you’ve, you’ve provided us today with a, a wonderfully hopeful story, although realistic, uh, one that I think makes the case, uh, for 1963, um, as a critical year, not only in the history of our democracy, but of global democracy, uh, which of course is the topic of our podcast.

Every week. Um, the new book is called Freedom Season, how 1963 Transformed America’s Civil Rights Revolution. We highly encourage all our listeners to get a copy and read it. Um, thank you so much for joining us, professor Joseph.

[00:40:45] Peniel Joseph: Hey, thank you, Zachary. I really enjoyed it. And Jeremy, this is, this is wonderful and thank you for both of you for the work that you continue to do in these, in these challenging times.

[00:40:56] Zachary Suri: Yes. Thank you Jeremy as well. And, uh, thank you to our listeners for joining us for this, uh, episode of This Is Democracy.

This podcast is produced by the Liberal Arts ITS Development Studio

and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin.

The music in this episode was written and recorded by Scott Holmes. Stay tuned for a new episode every week You can find this is Democracy on Apple Podcast, Spotify and YouTube.

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