'Dream' Speech Writer Jones Reflects On King Jr.
http://npr.org/story/132905796?url=/2011/01/17/132905796/dream-speech-writer-jones-reflects-on-king-jr
Published: January 17, 2011
The most enduring images and sounds of Martin Luther King Jr.'s life
come from his "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered at the Lincoln
Memorial on Aug. 28, 1963.
Clarence Jones helped draft the speech that day, and he was standing
a few feet away when King spoke.
He was a young attorney and part of King's inner circle when the
March on Washington was planned. He tells his story in his new book
Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation.
But it almost wasn't to be.
As Jones recalls in a conversation with Fresh Air's Dave Davies, he
initially turned down the opportunity to meet King, because it would
have meant moving from his home in California, where he was a newly
married lawyer, to Alabama, where a legal team was preparing to
defend King on charges of tax evasion and perjury.
But a visit by King to his home in the winter of 1960 changed his life.
"To put it in historical context, he was then a celebrity," Jones
says. "At least, he was regarded as such by my wife, who thought when
Martin Luther King Jr. was coming to our home, it was a combination
of Moses, Jesus, George Clooney, Sidney Poitier and Michael Jackson.
So in he comes and we have some pleasantries and he gets down right
to the point. He said, 'You know, Mr. Jones, we have lots of white
lawyers who help us in the movement. But what we need are more young
Negro professionals because every time we embark on something, we are
being hit with some form of legal action.' "
Jones turned him down -- until King left the house and Jones' wife stepped in.
"Soon after he left, she turned to me and said, 'What are you doing
that's so important that you can't help this man?' She was angry at
me and then I began to be angry at Martin King. Because I thought to
myself that like all young couples, we were living in domestic
tranquility, and here this total stranger comes into my house and
gets my wife angry at me over something I had nothing to do with."
The following morning, Jones received a phone call inviting him to be
the special guest of King at a speech he was giving in a California church.
"My wife was standing nearby and I told her verbatim the conversation
I just had. And she said, 'Well, you may not be going to Montgomery,
Ala., but you're going to that church,' " he says. "So I go to the
church. ... And I had never heard anyone speak with such
extraordinary eloquence and power."
By the end of the sermon, Jones had made up his mind.
"I walked over to him and put my hand in his hand and I said, 'Dr.
King, when do you want me to go to Montgomery, Ala.?' Since then,
that transformed my life."
--
TRANSCRIPT:
DAVE DAVIES, host:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, filling in this week for Terry Gross.
The most enduring images and sounds of Martin Luther King's life come
from his "I Have A Dream" speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial
on August 28th, 1963. Our guest, Clarence Jones, helped draft the
text King held that day, and he was standing a few feet away when
King spoke. As he'll soon explain, the words I have a dream weren't
originally part of the speech.
Jones was a young attorney and part of King's inner circle when the
march on Washington was planned, and he tells his story in a new book
called "Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a
Nation." Clarence Jones is currently a scholar in residence and
visiting professor at Stanford University's Martin Luther King Jr.
Research and Education Institute. He also writes regularly for the
Huffington Post.
I spoke to him about Martin Luther King and his historic speech last
week. I asked him to read from the beginning of the book.
Mr. CLARENCE JONES (Author, "Behind the Dream: The Making of the
Speech that Transformed a Nation"): (Reading) A quarter of a million
people, human beings who generally had spent their lives treated as
something less, stood shoulder to shoulder across that vast lawn,
their hearts beating as one - hope on the line when hope was an
increasingly scarce resource.
There is no dearth of prose describing the mass of humanity that made
its way to the feet of the Great Emancipator that day; no metaphor
that has slipped through the cracks waiting to be discovered, dusted
off, and injected into the discourse a half century on. The march on
Washington has been compared to a tsunami, a shockwave, a wall, a
living monument, a human mosaic, an outright miracle.
It was all of those things, and if you saw it with your own eyes, it
wasnt hard to write about. With that many people in one place crying
out for something so elemental, you dont have to be Robert Frost to
offer some profound eloquence.
Still, I can say to those who know the event only as a steely
black-and-white television image, its a shame that the colors of that
day - the blue sky, the vibrant green life, the golden sun everywhere
- are not part of our national memory.
There is something heart-wrenching about the widely shown images and
film clips of the event that belies the joy of the day.
DAVIES: Well, Clarence Jones, welcome to FRESH AIR. I thought we'd
begin, before we talk about the march, I want you to tell us how you
and Martin Luther King met, how he got you involved in the movement?
Mr. JONES: Well, it was - I was a 29-year-old lawyer, just a graduate
of law schools since seven months previous. After that, I'd just
moved to California. And I got a call in February of 1960 from Judge
Hubert Delaney, was a well-known lawyer and judge here in New York.
And he said: Clarence, The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., you know,
the preacher from Alabama, has been indicted for tax evasion and
perjury, and I'm the head of the defense team.
But, he said, we need a law clerk. We need someone who can do all the
legal research. But we need you to come to Montgomery, Alabama, and
work with us. And I said: Judge, I'd like to, but, you know, I just
got here, and I just can't do it.
And I could tell that he was disappointed with me, and he hung up the
phone. The following morning, I get a call from Judge Delaney, and he
said, you know, I didn't know it at the time that we had our
conversation last night, but Dr. King, he is - he's on his way to
California. He has a speaking engagement there on Saturday. And I
suggested to him that he stop by and see you.
And so Friday evening, there's a knock on my door. Two gentlemen show
up. One has a hat on, and he says: Mr. Jones, I'm Martin King, and
this is my colleague, the Reverend Bernard Lee, so forth.
So he comes in, and to put it in historical context, he was then
regarded as a celebrity, at least he was regarded as such by my wife,
who thought that when Martin Luther King Jr. was coming to our home,
it was a combination of Moses, Jesus, George Clooney, Sidney Poitier
and whoever - Michael Jackson.
So in he comes, and he sits down, we have some pleasantries and so
forth, and he gets right to the point. He says: You know, Mr. Jones,
we have lots of white lawyers who help us in the movement. But what
we need is that we need young Negro professionals, more Negro lawyers
who can help us because every time we embark on something, we are
being hit with some kind of legal action, and it's draining us.
And I listened very attentively, and I said: Dr. King, I admire you
and what you are seeking to do, but as I said to Judge Delaney, you
know, it's just really not possible for me at this time.
DAVIES: But, you know, as you describe this in the book, although you
say you were respectful, and you were - you know, admired what he was
doing, as you describe it, it sort of sounds like you were a little
bit disdainful, some preacher...
Mr. JONES: Well, my wife thought I was. That's why I was going to
continue because she said - as soon as he left, she turned to me, and
she said to me: What are you doing that's so important that you can't
help this man?
And so, she was angry at me, and then I began to be angry at Martin
King, because I thought to myself, you know, like all young couples,
we were living in domestic tranquility, and here this total stranger
comes into my house and gets my wife angry at me over something I had
nothing to do with.
So that was not a pleasant evening, and so the following morning,
however, the telephone rings, and a woman on the phone says: Mr.
Jones? I said: Yes. She says: My name is Dora McDonald. I'm Dr.
King's secretary. Dr. King enjoyed so much his visit with you and
Mrs. Jones. But he forgot to extend to you an invitation to be his
guest tomorrow. He's preaching in Los Angeles, and he would like for
you to attend as his guest.
So I listened, and I said: Well, thank you very much. My wife was
standing nearby, and I told her verbatim the conversation I just had
with Dora McDonald. And here again, she said: Well, you may not be
going to Montgomery, Alabama, but you're going to that church.
So I go to the church. Now, this is a church in Baldwin Hills. Now,
at that time, Baldwin Hills was, and still is but maybe to a lesser
extent now, since blacks can move into Bel Air and Brentwood and
other places, but at that time, Baldwin Hills was the section,
neighborhood in Los Angeles where the black bourgeoisie, the
so-called accomplished black professionals lived.
So I go into the church. Dr. King is introduced, and he gets up, and
he says: Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, the text of my
sermon today is the role and the responsibility of the Negro
professional to aid our less fortunate brothers and sisters who are
struggling for freedom in the South.
So I thought to myself: This is one smart dude.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. JONES: This is actually - he's come right to the right church and
the right pew. I had never heard anyone speak with such extraordinary
eloquence and power.
And then during the course of this very eloquent description of what
he was seeking to do through the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, he pauses, and he says: And for example, there's a young
man sitting in this church today. And he's not looking at me, he's
just preaching.
There's a young man sitting in this church today, and my friends in
New York, whom I have great respect, they tell me that this young
man's brain has been touched by the Lord. They tell me that this
young lawyer, when he does legal research, he can go into the books
and go all the way back to the time of William the Conqueror, 1066,
and the Magna Carta.
And then when he finds it and writes it down, my friends in New York,
whom I have great respect for, tell me the words he writes are so
compelling they just jump off the page.
DAVIES: Did you know he was talking about you?
Mr. JONES: No, so I have not the - I don't - he's not looking at me.
I don't think he's talking about me at all, and if it - it could not
have been me because it would have been an exaggerated description of
me. So I actually -I'm thinking: I want to meet this dude he's
talking about. I want to connect up, and, you know, see who this person...
And then he goes on. He says: But I had a chance to meet with this
young man the other night. And he began to describe his coming to my
home, and he described his meeting with me. He's not looking at me.
And he, then in the course of telling that, he says: But - and this
young man has forgotten from whence he came. And he says: Like so
many of you in this audience, in this church here today, somebody
made it possible for you to be -have a measure of success.
And I got tearful. The sermon's over. As I said, he's like a rock
star. So he's standing on the steps to the entrance to the pulpit
outside the church, and I walk over to him, and as I walk over to
him, he looks at me like a Cheshire cat who had swallowed the mouse.
He never - he says: I never mentioned your name, Mr. Jones. I never
mentioned your name.
And I walk over to him, and I put my hand in his hand, and I said:
Dr. King, when do you want me to go to Montgomery, Alabama? Since
then, that transformed my life.
DAVIES: So if we fast-forward then a few years, it's 1963, and, you
know, the movement's rolling. You're at this point an attorney.
You're working with Martin Luther King, part of his inner circle,
traveling with him. And they begin to plan this march on Washington
for jobs and freedom, kind of a revival of an idea that A. Philip
Randolph had come up with in the '30s, as you mentioned.
Mr. JONES: That is correct.
DAVIES: And you said: King's life at that time was so frenetic that
he needed a place to be a little more secluded so he could plan. So
you gave him your house in Riverdale for that purpose.
And one of the interesting things about your description is that you
were having all of these conversations about how to build a crowd,
how to build a coalition of people, of speakers of interest, and the
FBI was listening to all of it. Did you suspect that at the time?
Mr. JONES: No, we did not suspect it at that time. Every telephone
conversation that took place from my home or my office, where Martin
Luther King Jr. was on the other end of the phone, was wiretapped. I
didn't have any suspicion.
But as it began to be like in '64 and '65, I began to have some
suspicion. It was just a gut reaction. And at that time, our
conference calls would frequently start around 10 or 11 o'clock at
night, and I would have had maybe two or three martinis and maybe a
little Jack Daniels before the conference call.
And I remember, just before we'd start the conference call, we'd get
on the phone, and I would say: Hold on everybody. And I would say
something like: Now, Mr. FBI Man, now are you ready? Do you have your
pencil and paper? Now, I just want you to be sure you get this down
accurately because we have a lot to talk about.
And Dr. King would say: All right, Clarence, you know, enough with
the theatrics. I mean, they've got better things to do. He would say,
they have better things to do than be listening to our conversations.
I said: Yeah, yeah, Martin, but I'm sure they are.
DAVIES: Well, and you later learned that Robert Kennedy himself, the
attorney general at the time, had personally authorized the tap on your phone.
Mr. JONES: That is correct.
DAVIES: I'm wondering, would you have behaved differently, would the
conversations have been different if you'd known the FBI was listening?
Mr. JONES: Yes, I think we would have. We would have been less forthcoming.
DAVIES: Now, as you planned the march, the plan was that the march
would end at the Capitol building and that Martin Luther King and the
other leaders would speak on the top steps of the capital. And as we
all know, it ended up being at the Lincoln Memorial. Why was that?
Mr. JONES: Well, initially, when it was - when the march was
unfolding, the plans - it was planned to be on the steps of the
Capitol building. But President Kennedy and the attorney general,
particularly the president, there was a pending civil rights bill in
Congress, and he very strongly said that it would be
counterproductive, that the Congress would regard the demonstration
at the Capitol steps as considering the civil rights bill with a gun
pointed to its head.
And so we - when I say we, A. Philip Randolph, (unintelligible), and
Dr. King, the other members of the several organizations, decided
that yes it would - to make that question a non-issue, we moved it to
the foot of the Lincoln Memorial.
DAVIES: We're speaking with Clarence Jones. He's the author, with
Stuart Connelly, of the new book "Behind the Dream." We'll talk more
after a break. This is FRESH AIR.
(Soundbite of music)
DAVIES: If you're just joining us, our guest is Clarence B. Jones. He
was a close advisor and attorney with Martin Luther King in the
1960s. He's written a book about the "I Have a Dream" speech,
delivered at the march on Washington. It's called "Behind the Dream."
So there was enormous planning building up to the march on Washington
that August of 1963, and there was the matter of Martin Luther King's
speech. There were going to be a lot of speakers. He would speak
last. Was there ever any question that Martin Luther King would be
the final speaker or that he would have more time than the others?
Mr. JONES: Oh, absolutely there was a question of that. During the
week preceding that, there was the behind-the-scenes discussion among
the big six, or their representatives, about who was going to be the
last speaker.
A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin and Cleveland Robinson,
(unintelligible) labor leader, myself, we felt - and Martin himself
felt - that he should be the last speaker. But he felt - he certainly
felt it was inappropriate for him to suggest that.
And so I had a discussion with A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin
to join with Cleveland Robinson, and I said: Well, I think he should
be the last speaker. I said: I believe that most people who are
coming to this march, with all due respect to the other members of
the big six organizations, they are really coming in anticipation of
hearing Dr. King.
There was some resistance. So finally I remember saying: Let's think
about it. Do you really want to follow Martin Luther King Jr.? Do you
really want to follow him?
DAVIES: Right.
Mr. JONES: And there was dead silence, and that was it.
(Soundbite of laughter)
DAVIES: You know, I know that at this point, you know, this was 1963,
and the movement had years of experience with the media, with local
officials, with tactics of, you know, protest. And I know there was a
lot of savvy consideration of how it would be perceived and how the
message would be generated. Were people thinking about television
then, about how it would look on television?
Mr. JONES: Yes, absolutely. In fact, the person among us who gave us
an education on the power of television was really Harry Belafonte.
He said: You have to look at this as a media event, not just as a march.
And so, for example, Harry was responsible for assembling what was
called the celebrity delegation, a lot of celebrities from Hollywood
and performing artists. And he was very firm that they should sit in
a certain strategic part on the podium because he knew that the
television cameras would pan to them, would look to them.
And so he wanted to be sure that they were strategically situated so
that in looking at the celebrities, they'd also see a picture of the
march and the other performers. Yes, we were very much concerned about that.
And then Martin King was, he was especially concerned about the
white-black composition of the march. So we were hopeful that there
would be, oh, like a minimum of 25 to 30 to 35 percent or more of
white people who would attend the march.
In fact, the participation was somewhere between 20 and 25 percent
maximum, and to that extent, he was disappointed.
DAVIES: So the day arrives. You wake up in the morning. You, Martin
Luther King had stayed up working on his speech, and you write that
you were relieved to see that it was finished, and copies were being
mimeographed for distribution to the media that would be assembled.
And a concern occurred to you about whether it should be copyrighted.
Tell us about that.
Mr. JONES: Well, when I learned that the speech was being
mimeographed, I actually got over to the press tent, where all the
media was assembled, and I saw them putting this copy into brown
envelopes along with a lot of press materials, folders about the march.
And I cannot really say why I did it. Something occurred to me
because I'd had the experience of so many people trying to rip off
and take advantage of, use material that had either been written or
spoken by Martin. And so I said to myself: I'm going to put a little
circle with a C in on the mimeographed copies just to protect what is
called the common law copyright.
Without getting into a lot of discussion, it's just that a lot of
people may not know, is that anything, anytime a person creates a
book or a writing, is that you have what is called a common law
copyright. That's, you created it, it's yours.
But that common law copyright, if you distribute it over a wide
audience, so it is not a limited distribution, you will extinguish
your common law copyright. So putting a notice of the common law
copyright was a way of protecting that. So that's what I did.
DAVIES: And what's been the impact of your having copyrighted that speech?
Mr. JONES: Well, the impact of that, you'd have to understand - after
the march was over, okay, I'm in New York City, and I'm walking down
the street. And I hear record stores playing a recording of the speech.
So I got back to my law office, and I checked the information in the
record check, and I finally reach the offices of 20th Century Fox
records, and I called them up.
And I said, you know, are you putting out this record? And they said:
Oh, yes, of course. The speech is in the public domain. Anyone can -
I said: No, it's not in the public domain.
We worked feverishly to bring an action in federal court, and in the
hearing in federal court, the decision was rendered that this speech
was not in the public domain, and little did I know that that single
act of statutory copyright protection would protect one of the most
invaluable pieces of intellectual property that the King estate currently has.
DAVIES: Yeah, how much has it been worth over the years? Any idea?
Mr. JONES: I have no idea, but it's been the principal source of
revenue, I'm certainly of that.
DAVIES: Clarence Jones' book is called "Behind the Dream." He'll be
back in the second half of the show. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.
(Soundbite of music)
DAVE DAVIES, host:
This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies filling in for Terry Gross, back
with Clarence Jones. He was a young lawyer and adviser to Martin
Luther King in 1963 and helped draft Kings I Have A Dream speech.
He's written a new book about the experience called Behind the Dream.
Lets go back to the day of the speech. It's interesting that you tell
us that the phrase I have the dream was not in the text that Martin
Luther King took to the podium, but it was an idea he had spoken of
before, right?
Mr. JONES: That is correct. He had used that phrase, I have a dream,
in other speeches, and specifically, he had used it in a speech he
had given in June in Detroit at, I think, at a place called
Cobalt(ph) Hall. Martin Luther King, Jr. could speak in real time and
he could cut and paste from speeches or articles or things that he
said before. So the speech the so-called celebrated I Have A Dream
speech was an entirely spontaneous and extemporaneous speech. He was
not speaking from written context except for the first nine
paragraphs of textural material, which I had contributed to, you
know, for him to use after...
DAVIES: Right. Which is yeah, if I - I'm sorry to interrupt, which is
really worth listening to, and folks can hear the whole thing. But
you describe this incredible moment on stage at which you watch him
decide to depart from the text and go on the I have a dream theme.
Recreate that for us.
Mr. JONES: What happened is that as he is reading from the paragraphs
which he had written, incorporating some of the language and material
which I and others has contributed, Mahalia Jackson who was his
favorite gospel singer, who had previously performed, she turns to
him and she shouts to him, tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell
them about the dream. And he acknowledges her and momentarily pauses
and he pushes the - I watched him push the text of the speech aside,
grabbed the podium, lean back and look out at those 250,000 people or
more assembled, and I leaned to somebody standing next to me, I said
these people don't know it but they're about ready to go to church.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Mr. JONES: And that's when he started this extraordinary
extemporaneous proration and it was mesmerizing. It was something as
I think I used the word it was like he had captured lightning in a
bottle. I say that was Martin Luther King, Jr. What you saw you will
never see again in a millennium.
DAVIES: You make the point in the book that you don't get the power
of the words by reading them. You really have to hear them. So why
don't we just listened to a bit of that improvised I Have A Dream speech.
(Soundbite of I Have A Dream speech)
Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING, Jr. (Reverend; Civil Rights Leader): I still
have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the
true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal.
Unidentified Woman: Yeah.
(Soundbite of applause, cheering and whistles)
Dr. KING: I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia,
the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be
able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state
sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of
oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
(Soundbite of applause)
Dr. 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.
(Soundbite of applause and cheering)
Dr. KING: I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its
vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the
words of interposition and nullification - one day right there in
Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands
with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
(Soundbite of applause and cheering)
DAVIES: After all these years does it still move you to hear that?
Mr. JONES: Oh it certainly does. It moves me and, you know, as I yes.
The answer is yes. In fact, I in my lectures and teaching at Stanford
University I say to students, the only speech historically that I
think that has a comparison as Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
DAVIES: Did it feel at the time that you were experiencing something historic?
Mr. JONES: After the speech, I thought that I had witnessed and I had
participated in a transcendental moment. Actually, I went up to him,
as several people did, and pulled him on the shoulder and I said, you
know, listening to you was like listening to Charlie Parker and John
Coltrane and some of the great artists. He was, he had this ability
to improvise. It was something so extraordinary that you have to see
it and hear it to appreciate it and believe it.
DAVIES: We're speaking with Clarence B. Jones. He has written the
book with Stuart Connelly Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech
that Transformed a Nation.
You know, you mention in the book that in a meeting, I believe I'm
remembering this correctly, with Robert Kennedy in June of 1963, that
he asserted that because of the, you know, progress that he and his
brothers and others were making in the area of civil rights, that in
40 years a Negro could become president. Did you ever think you'd see
an African-American president in your lifetime?
Mr. JONES: No I did not. And I think you're referring to a meeting
that Robert Kennedy, I think, when he made that statement it was
during a course of his meeting with James Baldwin, Lena Horne and
Harry Belafonte.
DAVIES: Okay.
Mr. JONES: No. The answer to your question, no I did not believe it
would happen.
DAVIES: Last summer, Glenn Beck, the, you know, cable talk show host
held a restore America's honor rally at the Lincoln Memorial,
hearkening back to the, you know, the march in 1963 in Martin Luther
King's speech. And many people were very critical. Al Sharpton
accused him of hijacking a movement that had changed America. You see
it differently, right?
Mr. JONES: I see it differently. The way I see it is that the rally
that Glenn Beck held, first of all you have to just it was an
extraordinary acknowledgment of the power of the legacy of Martin
Luther King, Jr. I mean he was seeking to make his rally relevant
because of what took place on August 28th, 1963. There will always be
efforts from persons who differ with what Martin King stood for, from
those persons to appropriate him for their own purposes. This is one
of the reasons that prompted me to write a earlier book called What
Would Martin Say?, because I got sick and tired of having people pimp
Martin King's legacy for their own personal political purposes.
And I watched the Glenn Beck rally from beginning to end and I
thought that, while I disagreed with some of the ways in which he
interpreted the prior rally of Martin King at the same place,
nevertheless, he did give due deference and acknowledgment to the
contribution of Martin Luther King, Jr. on that date and at that place.
DAVIES: I have to note that at the end of the book you take some
stock of how far America has come since 1963. And you talk about the
importance of redressing some of the economic inequalities that are
the legacy of slavery and discrimination. This is a big question, but
where are we on race in America today?
Mr. JONES: You'd have to be deaf, dumb and blind not to recognize
that extraordinary progress has been made. But still, even with an
African-American president, the question of race or race relations
still remains what I call the 800 pound gorilla in the living room of
all American households. It's still something that taunts us, that
makes us uncomfortable, and I think that is largely because there's
never been a sufficient reconciliation after slavery of the American
psyche the American institutions.
Yes, there's been an apology for slavery. But the question is that
institution, which was so searing and so extraordinarily deep in our
national fiber, that we are still suffering from the consequences of that.
The principal issue today is one, not just for African-Americans, but
really the income inequality. And then for the African-American
community, I mean if Martin were alive today, I mean he would be
appalled, as I am and I'm sure many other people of good will who are
concerned about the progress of African-Americans, I mean, how can
you not be concerned when you see the wanton violence that takes
place, principally gun violence, the high incidence of out of wedlock
children in the African-American community, the 45 percent or more
incidence of HIV virus?
There are things which are occurring in the African-American
community where African-American leaders have to be very candid and
comfortable enough to say hey, these things are not because of what
quote, the white man did to us, it's because of what we are doing to
ourselves or what we are failing to take advantage of. So, even with
the extraordinary achievement of an African-American president, yes,
the glass is half-full, but we still have a way to go to fill the
glass up to the top.
DAVIES: Well, Clarence Jones, thanks so much for speaking with us.
Mr. JONES: Thank you.
DAVIES: Clarence Jones is Scholar in Residence and visiting professor
at Stanford University's Martin Luther King, Jr., Research &
Education Institute. He also writes regularly for the Huffington
Post. His new book is called Behind the Dream: The Making of the
Speech that Transformed a Nation. Transcript provided by NPR,
Copyright National Public Radio.
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