REV. JOSEPH LOWERY KENNEDY LIBRARY FORUMS PAGE 1

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1 PAGE 1 TOM PUTNAM: Good evening. I m Tom Putnam, Director of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. And on behalf of all of my Library and Library Foundation colleagues, I thank you for coming this evening. I m pleased to acknowledge the underwriters of the Kennedy Library Forums including the lead sponsor, Bank of America, along with Boston Capital, the Lowell Institute, the Corcoran Jennison Companies, The Boston Foundation and our media sponsors, The Boston Globe, WBUR and NECN. We meet on the one year anniversary of the inauguration of Barack Obama with the man who offered the benediction at that historic ceremony, the Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery. [Applause] It is also two days after the national celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., which we are marking here this evening with Rev. Lowery, the Dean of the Civil Rights Movement, who joined Dr. King on the front lines of the struggle for liberty and justice for all. [Applause] A few months after the inauguration, President Obama awarded Rev. Lowery the Presidential Medal of Freedom, our nation s highest civilian honor. He happens to be wearing it on his lapel this very evening. [Applause] And I thought I would share that citation with you since it is so well crafted: Born and raised in Jim Crow Alabama, preaching in his blood, the Reverend Joseph Lowery is a giant of the Moses generation of civil rights leaders. It was just King, Lowery, and a few others huddled in Montgomery who laid the groundwork for the bus boycott and the movement that was to follow. A founder of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Lowery was later asked to serve as its president. He agreed to serve for one year but wound up serving, as he puts it, for 20 one-year terms. Throughout his life some have called him crazy. But as he stated in the past, There s good crazy and there s bad crazy and sometimes you need a little bit of that good crazy to make the world a better place.

2 PAGE 2 Rev. Lowery, you honor us with your presence here this evening. We thank you for coming to Boston and for all that you have done to make the world a better place. Our moderator for tonight s conversation is Liz Walker who served for 20 years as one of this city s most trusted television news anchors before stepping down to enter the seminary and become an ordained minister and a member of the ministerial staff of the Bethel AME Church in Jamaica Plain. She is also a documentary film producer, a social entrepreneur and a humanitarian activist, currently working in the war torn country of Sudan. Her new show, Better Living with Liz Walker, is a news magazine, which shares strategies we can use to improve our everyday lives. You may recall the twinkle in Rev. Lowery s eyes as he closed the inaugural with some verse, Let the red man get ahead, man. You will hear it all later when we play the clip during the Forum. But with apologies to you, Reverend, for the poverty of my poetry, let me end with these rhymes: With his mother, the teacher, he grew up a preacher With King, the dreamer, an equal rights schemer With our new president, an orator unhesitant And now with Liz Walker, he will be a great talker. [Laughter] [Applause] Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Reverend Lowery. LIZ WALKER: That was very good. Reverend Lowery, I am just thrilled and honored to sit here with you, to sit next to history, to sit with an icon. This is an extreme honor. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Don t make me blush.

3 PAGE 3 LIZ WALKER: We were talking about being dressed in black. I m dressed in black because I m a preacher, but we are in mourning in the Bay State, as you know. [Applause] Some of us are. Some of us are. Maybe not enough of us are. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Everybody didn t applaud. LIZ WALKER: I know. I know. But everybody is trying to assess what happened. What s your take on what happened? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I m from Georgia and I m not meddling in Massachusetts politics. I ve got a few more hours to stay here. [Laughter] LIZ WALKER: But you must have something. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Well, I listened to the Press Secretary, the White House Press Secretary for a few minutes today. And I think the spin they are putting on it is that people are angry about the economy, about Wall Street, about what they gather is leading to help Wall Street more than Main Street. And I think they took it out on the first guy that came along. This is a terrible song, If you can t be near the one you love, love the one you are near. [Laughter] I don t believe in that myself. My wife I don t think my wife is here. But I think and I listened to Mr. Brown s remarks. He was very kind when he came to Ted Kennedy. And he said he had called his wife and tried to assure her this was in no way any reflection on the diminution of Ted s legacy or impact or force. And I thought that was a good thing. That was statesmen-like. But it is not unusual when you are in the midst of a recession to take it out on the guy who is in charge. And I think that is what has happened. It is not the end of the world.

4 PAGE 4 I still think -- and I have to say, I m neither Democrat nor Republican; I m Methodist [laughter] -- so I don t want to make a pot of sorrow here, but I don t think it s the end of the world. Cheer up. I think we are going to get some health reform legislation, and I think Obama is going to get reelected. LIZ WALKER: You do. So the President calls you up tonight, what is your advice to President Obama? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Gee. I thought this was going to be a fun evening. [Laughter] I m mad at Obama, too. [Laughter] No. I m not mad at him. I m not a politician, so I don t understand all the ramifications of the games you have to play when you are in politics. And I recognize, as somebody said, Politics is the art of what is possible. And I think they ve taken the position with the healthcare thing, they ve got to get what s possible. And that s messed up a lot of minds. I m disappointed at the abortion issue, the lack of a public option. I m disappointed with that. I am concerned, deeply concerned, particularly on account that I ve been around the country speaking about Martin s birthday. I m particularly concerned about the war and what was Bush s war in Iraq. We are now going to have Obama s war in Afghanistan. And I just wonder what would happen if we sent 30,000 peace workers to Afghanistan [applause] instead of 30,000 troops. Because I have a sneaky feeling that there ain t no military solution to the problems in the Middle East. You can t intimidate and frighten and you don t even solve the problem killing people who will kill themselves in order to kill you. That is an odd culture that we don t know anything about. And what s frightening is that we are fighting terrorism but we are creating more terrorists. And they are young. And that is

5 PAGE 5 frightening, because that means the problem will be here a long, long time. So we ve got to find a better way than beating plowshares into swords to solve this problem in the Middle East. LIZ WALKER: There are going to be, I m sure, many other questions about healthcare, about what s happened in Massachusetts, but I m going to move on from there for now. And we are going to open this up in a little bit to your questions. Let s talk about the fact that it is so ironic that it was a year ago when we were standing there freezing. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Exactly one year today, the 20 th. It was my oldest daughter s birthday on the 20 th and she was there with me. And we called her just a while ago. I called her. It s her mm-mm birthday. [Laughter] And I m not going to do like that fellow did to his daughter last night. Did you hear him? Oh, he was terrible. He said he s got two beautiful daughters and they are both available. LIZ WALKER: Oh! That would be a little strong. What was going through your mind, though, this time last year when you watched all of this? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Well, when he called me, he called me on my cell. And I wasn t there. And he left his cell. And I returned the call. And when he answered and don t ask me the number because he doesn t have the cell any more. Secret Service got it. When he answered I said, I want to speak to the fellow who is going to be the 44 th President. And he said, That would be me, Brother Lowery. And he said, I called to ask you if you would give the invocation or the benediction at the inauguration. I said, Would you mind repeating that? You are breaking up. I wanted to make sure he said it. I said, Let me check my I believe I can make it. [Laughter] And I looked forward to it. It was a tremendous experience. He didn t tell me whether it would be the

6 PAGE 6 invocation or the benediction. But later it came in the paper I was doing the benediction and Rick Warren from California was doing the invocation. And some of my friends called and said, Oh, we are going to protest. We want you to do the invocation. I said, For God s sake, shut up. [Laughter] Mr. Obama knows how to have an inauguration. And I said, Besides, when I do the benediction, I have the last word. [Laughter] Nothing comes after me but the Star Spangled Banner. LIZ WALKER: Indeed. Indeed. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Which I can t stand. [Laughter] With those bombs bursting in air. But for some reason, on that day, it didn t sound as bad as it usually sounds. But it is a tremendous experience and I ll make a confession if you can get the audience to promise not to tell. LIZ WALKER: Okay. I think we will agree. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I do have one frustration. As a pastor who s pastor of churches for half a century -- you know, depending on offerings and things -- there I was with two million people in the congregation and couldn t figure out how to take up an offering. [Laughter] I was frustrated. I m not over it yet. LIZ WALKER: We have a clip of that event that I think we are going to either hear or see. So we can relive that moment. [VIDEO CLIP OF REV LOWERY S BENEDICTION] [Applause]

7 PAGE 7 LIZ WALKER: You know, I m glad we got to see that again. I was thinking about using it at the end but I m glad we saw it now because it gives us perspective. I loved the ending. It was huge. It was huge. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I got in trouble in some places. LIZ WALKER: Did you get in trouble? I could imagine. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I can t imagine why. [Laughter] And I wasn t sure what I had done wrong until I heard Rush Limbaugh. [Laughter] Then I knew I was right. [Laughter] [Applause] LIZ WALKER: But it s nice to have that perspective and that spiritual perspective, especially now. But let s go back to the movement. What are some of your first recollections of Martin Luther King? Do you remember when you first met him? Tell us about that. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Incidentally, I first met Martin in Boston. He was attending university, and I came up for some seminar or some workshop that was being held for ministers and met him. Somebody introduced us. I liked the guy from the start even if he was Baptist. [Laughter] Everybody can t be Methodist. LIZ WALKER: Everybody can t do that, right? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: But we hit it off and then I didn t see him again for a year or two when he moved to Montgomery, when he moved to Montgomery to pastor Dexter Church, which is now Dexter King Baptist Church. I was in Mobile pastoring Warren Street United Methodist Church. And the Alabama Council on Human Relations, which was an interracial group organized to spread good will

8 PAGE 8 and build relationships between the races -- we both were on a program. He spoke. I spoke. And afterwards we engaged in the usual preacher-istic exaggeration. You know, You were great, man. You were great, too. And we promised to exchange our pulpits. He was going to preach for me in Mobile. I was going to preach for him in Montgomery. And a friendship developed. Later we started meeting monthly, when the boycotts started. And then we started movements in Birmingham -- Fred Shuttlesworth; I was in Mobile; Martin and Ralph went in Montgomery; C.G. Gomillion was in Tuskegee. And we used to meet monthly in Montgomery to share our troubles and woes and plans how to meet the challenge of segregation. We were supposed to meet at ten o clock on Monday morning. I would drive up from Mobile, take four hours. I would get there at 10:00. I would leave home at 6:00, get there at 10:00. Fred would leave Birmingham at 8:00, get there at 10:00. Martin and Ralph would leave home about 12 and get there at 1:00. [Laughter] But we waited and had a good time. C.G. Gomillion fell out; for some reason he stopped coming. I think because he got tired of hearing the preachers rehash their Sunday services. LIZ WALKER: Right. Right. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: That was our first meeting, and we hit it off. And then later we decided in one of those meetings in Montgomery to organize southwide. And that was the birth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Keller Miller(?) Smith came from Nashville and T.J. Jemison from Baton Rouge, from all around the South. LIZ WALKER: Did you know at that point I m sure you all had dreams about the potential but did you know -- you weren t sure what was going to happen -- the depth and the breadth of the movement? Did you have any indication?

9 PAGE 9 REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: No. I wish I could say yes. But, no, we didn t. We knew we had a tough fight. We knew we had to do it. It was grasping the moral imperative of the faith and applying it to political, social, and economic problems. We think the Church and God chose us to do that, because without the spiritual base, the movement could have gone violent. And God help us if it had. But because we were rooted in the faith, we chose non-violence. And because Martin had been the boss, and he looked at some of those other fellows who had talked about non-violence. And we chose it not only to be the methodology for the movement, but to be a way of life. And the problem itself was a religious problem and ought to have been approached from See, if a man discriminates against me because I m ignorant, that s my fault. I don't know what s going down. For the benefit of the older people here, going down is what used to be what s going on. [Laughter] If you discriminate against me because I m loud and uncouth, that s my fault. I don't know when to whisper and I don't know when to shout. But if you discriminate against me because I m black, you have to take that up with God because God made me black and there is nothing I can nor want to do about it. And so that makes it basically a religious, theological, spiritual problem. And that is why it was rooted in the Church. The second thing about being rooted in the Church was that it was the only independent force in the black community. The Chamber of Commerce and other groups couldn t control black Churches. It was independent and the black preacher was not beholden to the Chamber of Commerce, unless he chose to be, as much as he was to his congregation. So it gave us a freedom and it was not only a moral and theological base but it gave us a political freedom and independence that enabled us to speak truth to power.

10 PAGE 10 Martin was chosen as the leader because he was best prepared. He was inspired. He was in Montgomery where the boycott began. And that was the beginning of the self-determination phase of the struggle. Before Montgomery, before the boycott, we depended on Congress, legislature, courts to effect change. With the boycott, we decided we would take it in our own hands. Irrespective of what the courts did or did not say, we weren t going to the back of the bus. We were going to sit where we pleased. And Rosa Parks lit the spark. She wasn t the first. There were other black women, at least two we know who did it before, but God wasn t ready. I guess He was waiting on Rosa. And quiet, simple, plain, hard working, NAACP member, who decided she wasn t getting up to let a white man sit down. And that word spread around Montgomery and people said, He did that to Rosa? Everybody, then, was ready to get on board. So Martin was the perfect man for the leadership. He was calm. He was cool, as the young folks say, I try to be cool. LIZ WALKER: It was the perfect time, perfect person, perfect situation. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Yes. It was a good marriage. LIZ WALKER: Was there resistance or any kind of notable resistance in the Church or did people just kind of fall in line, the official Church, the black Church? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: There was resistance. But in the black Church people are very careful about bucking the preacher. You know, preacher is the leader. But more than that, that is why I know God was in the plan. Montgomery was the perfect place. Every black person who had been on the bus had been

11 PAGE 11 insulted. And if you hadn t been insulted yourself, then your momma had, your aunt, your uncle. It is a vicious system. Segregation all across the South, but in Montgomery you weren t even supposed to get on the front. You were supposed to step up on the platform, put your money on the thing, get back off the bus and go around and go in the back door -- rain or shine. And that is why every African American in Montgomery had a personal thing with the bus. That helped us succeed. There had been other boycotts, boycott in Shreveport, in Baton Rouge with Jemison, and boycott in Tallahassee with Steele, but they didn t catch on like Montgomery. Montgomery caught on. And the other thing that happened was the newspaper helped Montgomery advertise when they passed out leaflets saying, Don t ride the bus tomorrow. I think it would have been effective but the paper saw the leaflet and put it on the front page of the paper and it got around. And when black folks saw the white folks advertise the boycott [Laughter] LIZ WALKER: They knew. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: They knew is right. Well, there are still a lot of black folks where white ice is colder than black ice. But that made it effective and it was demographics and geographics. It was just the right size. It was small enough to affect the boycott. If it had been Birmingham, I don't know what would have happened. Birmingham is so big. But Montgomery was large enough to get national media attention but small enough to manage and organize a bus boycott. And God was in the plan. And Martin was the leader. He had the philosophical, theological basis and training. He was a bad dude. Happy birthday, Martin. LIZ WALKER: I m rereading Taylor Branch s book Parting the Waters and Pillar of Fire. And I was reading about 63 when Martin Luther King does the

12 PAGE 12 speech, I have a dream. And I think -- I know we all agree -- we have romanticized that. We have sentimentalized it. We pull that out. It is just this one moment. But in the context of that year, not two or three weeks later was the bomb in the church. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Yes, 16 th Street Baptist Church. LIZ WALKER: It was just this horrible time. How was that, leading to President Kennedy s assassination, right? That was the same year. What a year that was. You were lifted by this amazing speech and immediately slapped down with bombings and murders. How was that to go through? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Well, it was tough. But we were blessed to have that spiritual commitment. And we had a consciousness of God s presence. We never felt alone. And we read. God said, Go in My name and I will go with you. And we believed that. We certainly hoped that. When the Ku Klux Klan came riding by at night, shooting as they did in Alabama when we were protesting the arrests and persecution of a young, mentally challenged black man we needed God s presence. And we were able to take it because we believed God was going to make it all right. That weeping may endure for a night, but joy said LIZ WALKER: Joy comes in the morning. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Joy comes in the morning. You re a preacher. I didn t know you were a preacher. [Laughter] LIZ WALKER: Don t get me started. You don t want to hear me. So did you believe the black Church, whatever we define that as now, has the potential, or

13 PAGE 13 any Church, the Church in this country, has the potential to be, again, what it was then? And is there even a need for it? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Oh, yes. There is a need for it. Martin said that the Church had been a taillight instead of a headlight. And the movement made progress whenever the church moved towards being a headlight, because the problems, as I said earlier, are basically moral and spiritual problems. So the Church provided not only the physical space that we needed for meetings and rallies and mass meetings, but it provided the spiritual, you know, the spirit, We are going to move when the Spirit says, Move. And we knew that there would be opposition. We had a fire in the belly that fire hoses couldn t wash out. Billy clubs couldn t beat out. Bombs couldn t blast out. Bullets couldn t shoot out. Jails couldn t lock out. And money couldn t buy out. And that enabled us to stay in the storm because we knew that we were able to do it for a night. LIZ WALKER: The joy. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: The joy comes in the morning. LIZ WALKER: U.S. Senator John Kerry plans to introduce legislation that will pave the way for the release of thousands of FBI documents on Dr. King, on the life and the death. How important do you think it is to release this information? Is it important? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Yes and no. You know, we just got papers -- Martin s papers -- that were being held in several places. They are all in Atlanta now, most of them. And they are going on view in a few weeks in Atlanta where

14 PAGE 14 everybody could see them. And I hope people will take advantage of the opportunity, not only to read books that are available but to read notes and papers that Martin did that have never been published. And one of the things you will find, I think, is that Martin had a great sense of humor. That didn t come across in speeches because the situation was so grave he didn t feel it was appropriate. But he had a great sense of humor. And if he liked you, he would tease you and kid you, but never viciously. And he used to introduce me. I was one of the few Methodists in the group. And, you know Methodists, we move, you and I. We have an itinerant ministry. But the Baptists stay there forever. [Laughter] And he used to introduce me, I want you to meet Dr. Joseph Lowery, my good friend, who is a moving figure in the Methodist Church. [Laughter] He had a great sense of humor. And we had confidence and respect for him. And he used to tell me that, Joe, I probably won t live to be 40. LIZ WALKER: Really. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I said, Come on, man, you are going to live to be old with your beard touching the ground. He died at 39. LIZ WALKER: How early did he tell you that? I mean he told you all the way through? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: All the way through the movement. He knew he was being stalked. He knew he was being, at every turn, spied on, lied on. He used a friend s apartment in Atlanta once to go write a book, to get away from everything. And one day he was out there writing. The Fire Department broke in. Somebody called, told that he was there and there was a fire inside. The Fire Department came and kicked down the door. He knew what was happening.

15 PAGE 15 And just before April 4 th when he went to Memphis, he came to Birmingham to speak, mobilizing for the poor people s campaign. They came to our house one night. And later on, as we looked at the FBI reports and Bradford Huey s report and it looked like What s the guy s name accused of killing him? LIZ WALKER: James Earl Ray? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I want to forget his name. That is the reason I can t remember it. We found out later he was in Birmingham that day, and stalking. And whether he actually did the shooting or not I don't know, but he was involved. But it didn t deter Martin. He was never deterred by fear. Although he felt he would never live to be 40. LIZ WALKER: Do you think we will learn new information from these documents that will be released, you know, about his death? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I don't know. I doubt it. We may not ever know who pulled the trigger. We know what killed Martin. I think that is just as important. We know hate, violence, racism these are the factors that killed Martin. That is why we have to fight it today. We have to avoid hating. Hate leads to self destruction as well as destruction of other people. Hate to hate I mean an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth will leave us all blind and gumming our food. [Laughter] LIZ WALKER: I grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas and I remember I was a very young child but I remember those days. And everything from my perspective at the beginning of this movement was black and white. It was about black folks and white folks. And now the situation is so much complex. How would you

16 PAGE 16 assess the state of the union as far as race goes? I mean have we improved? Have we overcome anything? Or are we at a whole other level REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I wish I had known you were going to ask that. I have a sermon I preached [laughter] several years ago called, Everything Has Changed and Nothing Has Changed. And that is the paradox in which we live. We ve got 300-and some black mayors, maybe more than that now. But in the shadows of the city halls where these mayors preside, poverty stalks the lives of millions of people, mostly black, some brown and some white. Everything has changed and nothing has changed. We ve got more black police officers, more black police chiefs than we ever had. And yet we ve still got racial profiling. We ve still got a cop in Cambridge who goes in the college professor s house and sees all the pictures of his family around, and still puts handcuffs on him. Everything has changed. Nothing has changed. Got a black guy in the White House but we ve still got more blacks in jail, disproportionately. Not because they commit more crimes, but because a black person is six or seven times more likely to be arrested for the same thing than whites, six or seven times more likely to be convicted and imprisoned. Everything has changed and nothing has changed. Have we made progress? Of course we have. I still can t believe, even though I was at the inauguration, I m still not sure we ve got a black president. [Laughter] I wake up at night and say, Hey! Were you dreaming? The other day in August when he gave me the Medal of Freedom, Evelyn and I were there with our kids and some grandkids. They gave us, what, six, eight tickets. I could have used 800. I made 800 people mad because I didn t take them.

17 PAGE 17 But I kept sitting there and President and the First Lady were presiding and doing beauty and something in the back of my head kept saying, When is the President coming out? I don't know who I was waiting on. And finally the Lord said, Fool. President is out here. That is right. We got a black President. It is incredible. And I give the nation tremendous credit for what it did, carried North Carolina, Indiana, Virginia and won the prize. That is a marvelous feat for the nation, and I bless America for it. But at the same we have more poverty, an increase in poverty. And with the recession, that has just added fuel to the fire. So my response is that everything has changed and nothing has changed. LIZ WALKER: Well said. We re going to open this up to questions from you, if you have some questions. There are microphones there. And as you think about your questions and maybe make your way to the microphone, what about the prophetic voice, present company absolutely not withstanding. Martin Luther King was kind of the last, big, great prophet in a way. Or was he? Do we have another voice like that now? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Well, I think we have many voices. And I think it s not likely that we have any one, single voice like that again because circumstances don t lend themselves to it. And the media is not going to let it happen anyway. They are not going to put any more leaflets on the front page. [Laughter] They are not going to give attention to When SNCC -- the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee -- was working the same time SCLC was and very effectively. But whenever the media came they ignored everybody but Martin. And he deserved to be blown up. He s, right now, the only American who has a holiday that is recognized in every state in the Union, now that Arizona and New Hampshire have come in. But there are voices. We don t get the attention that Martin got in those days because media now is part of the problem. And we

18 PAGE 18 are as scrutinized a stewardship of media as well as the bus company and other places now. So they don t lend themselves to that. But there are many voices and there should be. And there shouldn t be any one voice. There ought to be proliferation. And people need to make witness wherever they are. Teachers can make a witness by being the best teachers they can be and taking time with kids who have challenges. Barber shops need to cut hair. My barber does. He preaches to me all the time when he cuts my hair. So wherever we are, we can make a witness. We can love and we can respect each other. We can turn to each other and not on each other. So, yes, prophetic voices exist and God s got a ram in the bush. When Barack Obama first came out everybody said, Barack who? And I said, about a black person, Well, I m not going through none of the Jesse campaign. I m not going through that no more. And everybody said, Well, this guy has got a real chance. What did you say his name was? They said, Barack Obama. I said, Sh-e-e. Not him. Not only are they not going to elect a black. They are certainly not going to elect no Negro named Obama. [Laughter] What do I know? That was his voice. God had a ram in the bush. And there are many brilliant voices in the country that don t get heard like Martin s did. He is not going to get that kind of media coverage. But they are working hard in their communities. They are witnessing for truth. They are speaking truth and power. LIZ WALKER: That s great. We ve got these questions out here. And speak up, please.

19 PAGE 19 QUESTION: I have probably more of a comment and a thank you. First I would say that I bring you greetings from Huntsville, Alabama where I practice medicine. And I m here for a year. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: You do practice medicine in Huntsville? QUESTION: In Huntsville. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: I got sick in Huntsville. I didn t know you [Laughter] QUESTION: I ll leave my card. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Bring your card. QUESTION: I was born in Selma. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Is that right? QUESTION: And I m going to give you some names. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: What is your name? QUESTION: My last name is Wyatt. I grew up in Marion. And I was a member of the Mt. Tabor AME Zion Church. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: How about that.

20 PAGE 20 QUESTION: Coretta is my cousin. You probably remember the name Randall Osborne. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Never heard of him. [Laughter] QUESTION: Okay. We call him Crosby(?). REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: He was my assistant for years. QUESTION: He was my cousin. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Is that right. You don t look like LIZ WALKER: Now we are going to do this family reunion thing here [Laughter] QUESTION: So a guy named Sunshine I knew. You probably knew Sunshine. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Yeah. I knew. QUESTION: And Albert Turner. And James Orange was our field director in Perry County. And when I was about to decide about college I actually went to talk to Albert Turner. And I had two choices. That was Tuskegee or the University of Alabama. And Albert Turner said, Are you crazy? People fought and bled and died that you could to the University of Alabama. So I attended the University of Alabama and I graduated from the University of Alabama School of Medicine. And I now practice medicine in Huntsville, Alabama. So that is the thank you. I would say that for you and for those people, I would not be standing here. So, thank you.

21 PAGE 21 LIZ WALKER: Amen. [Applause] REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: You might be interested in knowing that -- I guess you may know; you were there. A few years ago, 2005 I believe, that the University of Alabama in Huntsville gave me an honorary doctorate degree. And I don't know what George Wallace did in his grave. [Laughter] LIZ WALKER: Let s go back and forth. Yes. You, sir. QUESTION: My name is Kevin Slates(?) and I go to the John D. O Brien School of Math and Science in Roxbury, Massachusetts. [Applause] And I have sort of a two-part question. You had brought up the topic of the Church and the black Church. And it caused me to think about New Age Church. And so my first question is, do you believe that the New Age Church compared to the Old Age Church -- I don t want to compare the two -- but do you believe that the evolution of the Church has become more effective or ineffective to the American society? And my second part of the question is, why, basically? LIZ WALKER: The Old Age Church and why? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Oh. You ve been working all day to get a complicated question. [Laughter] I m not sure what you mean by the evolution of the Church. Are you talking about the mega churches? LIZ WALKER: How do you define New Age? QUESTION: Sort of. The youthfulness and the more -- how can I say this without being offensive -- the more compromising, the less radical I should say.

22 PAGE 22 REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Well, first of all, you can t put all the churches in one bag. In Montgomery, you may be interested to know, there were preachers that didn t participate in the boycott. There were some preachers who were very critical of Martin. In Mobile, where I was, there were preachers who were very critical of me, so that you have always had a pluralism in the church. Some churches are more conservative than others. Same is true today. We still have a number of prophetic voices coming out of our churches that, as I said, you don t hear about like you used to when the media was giving coverage. Civil Rights now, in terms of media priorities, Civil Rights would be about two steps below a spotted snail in terms of media interest. So you don t get it. But it does exist. I wish, however, and I have to say it, I d like to see the Church more vigorous. I d like to see more churches take seriously the moral imperatives of the faith that ought to be lifted up. And I think it is particularly true over predominantly white churches. I saw something the other day on TV in Atlanta. And it s the Church of God Universal something Choir, beautiful choir. There were about 100 people in the choir, about black and white. And it is in churches like that, not the mainline denomination, not the AME Zion, nor the AME nor the United Methodist, in the borderline, in the new churches where people are coming together. And they are growing. And I think one day we are going to wake up and be surprised that 11 o clock hour may no longer be the most segregated hour in the country. But we must continue and you, it s in your hands. What church do you belong to? QUESTION: I go to Holistic Life Church, Main Street in Manhasset.

23 : Okay. Is your church witnessing? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY PAGE 23 QUESTION: Yes. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Good. Then help it witness more vigorously. And lay people who belong to churches, stand up and challenge your leadership to get involved in the struggle, because the questions are moral. The issues are moral. There is still time and room for demonstration. Look at the demonstrations that the Tea Party groups! They have taken our thing and fighting health reform. Of course, it is not really a voluntary people movement, you know. Those folks are programmed and structured by the insurance companies and other corporations. Hello? So don t get fooled that they are. LIZ WALKER: So you don t think it is a spontaneous thing. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: No. No. No. No. No. They ve got roadmaps and instructions. [Laughter] LIZ WALKER: I m going to go right here. Yes, sir. Thank you. QUESTION: Good night, Mrs. Walker. Good night, Rev. Lowery. The question I wanted to ask you, you sort of alluded to a couple of minutes ago. So if I make you repeat yourself, please forgive me. I m 22 years old and I recently graduated from the University of Massachusetts with a degree in Black Studies. So my peers and I, we would often have discussions about the poverty in the black community, racial profiling, things of that nature. And often they would respond by saying, We really need another Malcolm X or a Martin Luther King to come save us. So as a person who was very much

24 PAGE 24 involved in the movement, how would you encourage them to foster and develop their own leadership rather than fall victim to this messianic complex that can be so damaging? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Well, that s a real problem. I think you already are fighting it. You are already showing it. You go ahead and do your thing, use your own initiative. Don t wait on anybody else. Martin Luther King was Martin Luther King. And that is that. There is not going to be another Martin Luther King. I served as president of the organization and we founded it together. I served longer than he and Ralph put together. But that isn t Martin Luther King. I never tried to be Martin Luther King. I can t be Martin Luther King. It is not my style. But in your own way, in your own style, speak truth to power. Stand up for what is right. Reach out across racial lines. White people I mentioned Pearly Big(?) -- When Pearly left town, the last thing he told black people, he said, By the way, you all help save the white folk. Help them learn how to love and respect across racial lines. I think we ve always been the catalyst. And I think we need to be more vigorous in challenging our neighbors and loving people so much they can t help but love us. It s hard to hate somebody who is loving you. And I think we did it and we brought the country a mighty long way, the non-violent movement showed the power of love and the efficacy of non-violence in effecting change. And we got to continue that. So don t sit around waiting on the Messiah. I argue with theologians waiting for Jesus to come back. I think He is already back. And I think we just have to reach out and touch him and use Him and let him use us. Do your own thing. Don t wait

25 PAGE 25 on someone else. Martin won t be back. He is still here. He never left. He is in my heart, in your heart. But we can t wait on some Messiah to come. Go ahead and start a movement. If you can t find one to join, start one in your own neighborhood, bringing people together, small groups doing good things. And it can spread. Look at what the students did with Obama. Small groups here, there and everywhere. I saw a group of Georgia Tech students in Atlanta. And I saw a group of students from Tuscaloosa, Alabama where the University of Alabama is. And they had a big sign that had Alabama on it. And they had scratched the ALA out and put an O. And it said, Obama, and it spread. So go ahead and do it. LIZ WALKER: Thank you. Going to go back over here. QUESTION: Well, I guess I probably should say that s one of my students. So I didn t put him up to it. I want to put that on the table. Good evening. My name is Steven Goode and I m a teacher here in Boston at the John D. O Brien School of Math and Science. I teach US History and AP Government Politics. My question for you tonight, how can the Church be more of an effective tool to educate the public about politics, about the inner workings of politics? Because you had mentioned that you weren t very good at this but I guess you seem to be a very good study from what I ve heard tonight. So you obviously are a quick study. So what I m asking is how can the Church be more of a tool to educate the general public, which I find to be apathetic about politics, a lack of just basic knowledge? And I ll qualify this and I will let you answer the question. Sometimes I think we forget the purpose of political parties, whether you are a Democrat or Republican or Independent, whatever party the purpose of a party is to get your members elected. And once you get elected, the purpose is to stay in office. So if you don t

26 PAGE 26 stay in office, you can t wield the power. So the party that is out of power, their job is actually to make the party in power look bad. But the general public does not know that. They fall victim to the rhetoric of television, the media, which sometimes is owned by one person. So how can we use the community churches as a way of educating people about the true power of politics? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Well, I think you ve got the answer in your question -- that we have to do more teaching. We have to hold more workshops. We have to have more seminars. We have to get more people involved. There is still a residue of thought in the Church that politics is dirty and that the Church ought not get involved. I think that is as wrong as it can be. I think that politics is public policy, how you develop and shape public policy. And public policy impacts all our lives. And if a church is concerned about helping people have an abundant life, it has to be concerned about public policy because public policy impacts their lives directly. So we just have to have more workshops, teach ins, keep them busy, keep them doing it, that sort of thing. That s all I know. I don t have any magic solution. We just have to keep working at it. And God will help us. He will help us work at it. LIZ WALKER: You didn t ask me, but [Laughter] You have got to go to church because it is going on. Go to church. There is the Greater Boston I don t mean that against you. But I mean the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization is amazing, active in all of the issues -- in healthcare, in housing. Right here. Many churches. Very committed. So it is going on, you know, in the churches. You know, how they get the word out and messaging might be part of the problem, which is kind of a church problem anyway.

27 PAGE 27 REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: You are not going to get the media support that we ve had. They are off on to other things. But it will spread. It s contagious. And the more you do it, the more it will spread. LIZ WALKER: A lot of churches are doing it. QUESTION: I just go to school. LIZ WALKER: [Laughter] I m going to have you come to Bethel next Sunday. QUESTION: Hi. My name is Gary and I ve been an activist for many years on a number of different peace and justice issues. And it is just an honor to be in the same room with you, Dr. Lowery. REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Thank you. QUESTION: I wanted to ask you in regard to you oftentimes talk about the hand of God. But I always wondered if you have ever had a crisis of faith yourself when you ve seen such issues as the death of Martin and the death of Medgar Evers and so many other people that gave their lives as well as or despair with humans that constant move towards violence as opposed to peace or even making silly decisions like replacing the Edward Kennedy seat with someone who is against the Obama agenda. So I guess my question really is have you ever struggled with your own faith in regard to those crises and setbacks, especially within the Civil Rights Movement? REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: All the time. Anybody who says they don t wrestle, struggle with their faith, I don t believe are serious about being faithful and having faith. Because the other day I wanted to ask God, Why Haiti? It is

28 PAGE 28 already the poorest place in the hemisphere. I ve been to Haiti twice and it is one of the most depressing experiences I had. Why, Lord, Haiti? But you have to back off from that and say, None of your business. That s a realm I can t understand. I believe faith has been strong enough to stand the storm. And I go back to that verse, one of the greatest verses, Weeping may endure for a night. Maybe we ought to change it, weeping is going to endure for a night. And sometimes the night is long. But hold on. Don t give up. Persevere. There is a ram in the bush. Every dark cloud has a silver lining. And by morning, when the morning comes, it is going to be all right. And we have to have that faith. It is not an exact science. And I don't know why some things happen. And I don t have the capacity to figure it out. And that is where faith comes in. My reasoning, my rationalizing, my mentality goes to certain places and it stops. And my faith takes over and I leap over the wall. Remember Job? That s a perfect example of how a man wrestles. And Job ended up saying, The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. So we have to wrestle with our faith. We have to keep on wrestling and keep your eye on the prize. And remember that weeping may endure for the night. But if we hold on, joy cometh in the morning. Friday is not the end. When the movie -- one of the movies, The Crucifixion or something -- came out, they were giving Mel Gibson, they were giving him the devil for the wrong reason. The reason I didn t like the movie is because the crucifixion is not the end of the story. The crucifixion is the middle of the story. The story doesn t end until early LIZ WALKER: Early Sunday morning.

29 PAGE 29 REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Early Sunday morning. That s when the story ends, early Sunday morning. And that is why your faith has to say, Always look beyond that crucifixion to the resurrection because it is coming. God moves in His own way and His own time. And I believe in the final triumph of righteousness. And that is what your faith is about. Hard, yes. Easy, no. Nobody told you the road would be easy. But I don t believe God has left us. Brought us too far to leave us now. QUESTION: Thank you so much. LIZ WALKER: We are having church up in here. Amen. Amen. Yes, sir. QUESTION: My name is George Drew and I teach U.S. history. I have been teaching it for 31 years in Thomson, Connecticut, just over the Massachusetts border. I had my degree in political science. And I want to say thank you to both of you for your service to your country. And it is touching to see two people in the church. I also had my three-year Master of Divinity in political ethics. One of the great courses was the study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Protestant minister who opposed Hitler. I can t feel after yesterday to say what I want to say and then ask the question. I sincerely believe this in my heart. Having been here a couple of years ago -- and I attend the Kennedy Forums regularly -- when Jackie Robinson s daughter was here, and having read and studied about when he was first brought up with the Brooklyn Dodgers, how he could not sit at the same end of the dugout, how he could not stay in the same hotel, he could not eat the same food. He had to sign a contract that he would not fight. The owner of the Dodgers said, You have to be

30 PAGE 30 a success for the future of all the other African Americans who might have the possibility of playing. I cannot help but feel that the undercurrent of what we are seeing is against President Obama. I see it. I don t like to see it but I see it in some of my friends whose comments are, I m shocked that he has not been shot yet. You see it in the lack of civility with the Tea Party people. You see it in that Congressman who yelled out at the President, You re a liar. You see it in the former Vice President. This is a challenge. This is a wake up call. The new Senator is probably a very decent human being. He sort of reminds me of Charles Lindberg who led the America First Committee, went to Nazi Germany and came back and said they could not be beat a decent man but on the wrong side of moral conviction. For me, personally, this new election is the very antithesis of what this establishment, what this building, what this President and his brothers and his family stood for. And to the state of Massachusetts, to allow them to use the Tea Party name in a way that is derogatory to the civility of our political system is shocking to me. I don't know. That s the way I feel. But my direct question is I really feel that this President is just like Jackie Robinson in many ways. He has the pressure to have to succeed. And they are trying everything they can do, using these issues, Rush Limbaugh, the Tea Party people, they are trying to make him look bad. And they are using the economy. Just think about it. All this nation has done is given this President one year from the mess he inherited. And they are succeeding in convincing the people in the United States that this is a failure. They have not given the man a chance. I would just like to have both of you comment.

31 PAGE 31 REV. JOSEPH LOWERY: Do you want to comment first? [Applause] I hate to say it but I think you re right. I think there are forces in this country and I ve said it before, that would risk the country s peril to bring Obama down. And they have not accepted yet the fact that the country elected an African American. There is a verse in the Bible that says, Children of darkness are wiser than the children of light. My translation of that is that they are not wiser. They work harder. They are better organized. People on the right are better organized, computerized, better financialized. They work harder. While the people on the left and center, progressive people, tend to be more laid back and tend to depend on other people to do it, rather than becoming participatory, participating themselves. We ve got a fight on our hands. And I think this is a wake up call. I couldn t believe it when I heard that Massachusetts -- who voted for George McGovern! You were the only state that had the courage and the clarity of vision to vote for George McGovern. I couldn t believe it. I don t think it is all levels. I think it is a mixed bag. But the answer, the response is up to us. What are we going to do about that challenge. Are we going to get better organized, better financialized, better computerized and more dynamic in our activity? We ve got to get up and work. While we are relaxing and enjoying six-card kitty, they are scheming and planning, plotting, finding people to put in office for support, planting seeds of dissension, planting lies. You would be surprised how often on the radio they are still arguing about the man not being a citizen. I mean there are still forces. They spread it out. And we are too gullible. Somebody did say that a while ago and we have to stop being victimized by weapons of mass distraction. They get us off the issue. [Applause]