karen said a moment ago i've been fortunate to write about seventeen books now and i have for most of those books been on tour and i have always insisted that every publisher that i've been with have always insisted as i did this time that seattle be on my tour stop lis indeed to be back in this great city and i certainly want to start tonight by thanking kay you say this all the time and for those who have seen me at town hall or other places in this great city over the years you've heard me say this so many times and he's just handsome still in the room somewhere they're used to my left as a general manager at hansen's been there for quite a while as the program director and it is never ever lost on me i never ever lose sight of the fact or forget that when i first signed up for my show on n p r at the time and as many of you know i was the first african american in the history of n p r to have his own daily radio program so now there are the african americans have come through the door but i was the first to have his own program daily on n p r shows you how far america still has to go that i was the first negro through the door just a few years ago essentially to have his first program signature program heard on n p r across the nation five days a week and i want you to you for being on my side all those years later in seattle became a sort of test market for what we could do on public radio by challenging folk to reexamine the assumptions they hold by helping them to expand their mentor your ideas by using this public radio platform to introduce americans to each other seattle becomes sort of a test ground and i just i figured if it worked in seattle it might work someplace else because it works so well in this city other stations started to pick it up and here i am all these years later because of my ability but i'm sure hear your comments as well that might enlighten encourage and power and inspire me for the rest of this tour so i want to get to that q and a as quickly as i can but let me just take some time to give you a sense of why this book i think is so so branch david garrow and clay one carson and there is no way i want to acknowledge every time i step to a microphone on this tour want to acknowledge that there's no way that this will get to be king could have been written if branch and carroll and carson had not done the heavy lifting of bringing to us the life and ritual legacy of dr molly king jr so i couldn't read my text without them having done all the work they've done and yet up until this book no book has ever looked at i believe that for every one of us in this room this place is just packed in here tonight and i'm bored by that but for every one of us in this room for every one listing the watching this room tonight we get to know who we really are we come to know who we truly are in the dark and difficult days of our lives somebody say man that's what i feel it's it's not just to be learned who we are but can i tell you something else that you learn who ride or die as we say in my neighborhood you learn who's going to be faithful on today you learn who is with you on to the end when you go through the dark and difficult days of your life and so if you think you know dr king but you don't know him in the dark and difficult days of his life then you really respectfully don't know dr chain and most of us american citizens have no idea what the dark and difficult days were like for  because most of us i'm in seattle so this is nobody in this room but but but most americans i believe think dr king only gave one speech it is whole life and then they think this speech only had one but i want my children to live in a nation where the not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character i actually go no further because i know that's all you know so i think we think we act like  march on washington delivering that i have a dream speech i was in memphis the other day on tour and what an honor it was and it was a rough and emotional night for me i've been there so many times but it was it was an amazing honor to have been invited back to memphis to the national civil rights museum where dr king was assassinated on that balcony at the lorraine motel august for one thousand nine hundred sixty eight so i was asked to come back with this particular book about his life and to lecture at that museum and of course spent time on my knees in thanksgiving for the life and legacy of dr king on the spot where he was assassinated almost fifty years ago at the lorraine motel i raise that only because when i was in memphis the other night i said to the audience of memphians so many americans believe dr king only gave one speech in his whole life but in memphis ya know that he at least gave two speeches for you historians you get that joke  young at the age of thirty nine but he does live five years after i have a dream and in that five year period he evolves he changes he has a different view on life on america and that is the part of his life that we have yet to come to terms with it so one thousand nine hundred sixty three king is talking about his dream but by the time this book starts april of sixty seven he's saying publicly that that dream has become a nightmare so it's a dream in sixty three and sixty seven it's a nightmare in sixty three he's talking about in fighting for integration by sixty seven he is saying  belafonte and others that i believe for all of that we have done to fight for integration i believe that we have integrated into a burning house this is king sixty seven that even a great into a burning house is sixty three he's talking about a dream and trying to hold america to its highest ideals he has a if not an optimism certainly a hope that america can become a nation as good as its promise and that's all we wanted america is to live in a country that's as good as its promise that reality is the and even now that the gap between the promise of america and the possibility in america for all our citizens that gap is still too wide so martin is again if not optimistic certainly hopeful about the future of america in one nine hundred sixty three let me jump ahead and i'll come back i warn you right now hold on to your seats strap yourself down for just a second here in sixty three martin is hopeful about america he's assassinated on a thursday night in memphis on the balcony of the lorraine motel while the last calls he makes from the rain as you see in this text is his church ebenezer in atlanta that he co pastor with his father daddy king king is on the road all the time but every thursday or friday he calls in the sermon he's going to preach on sunday morning so they have time to get it typed up into the sunday morning bulletin so when you show up on sunday morning they hand you the bulletin with the order of services and the sermon that dr king is going to preach that sunday morning so one of the last calls he makes from the rainbow tale is back to his church he tells his secretary and tells his father that come sunday morning had he lived he was going to preach a sermon entitled why america may go to h it was a sermon topic on sunday had he lived why america may go to hale may is the operative word here he didn't say america was going to hail he didn't declare america he didn't say go to hell america was going to be why america may go to jail his thesis was that if we don't get serious about what he'd been talking about for the year prior as he called it the triple threat of racism poverty and militarism martin called it the triple threat of racism poverty and militarism if we don't get serious about this triple threat facing our country we're simply going to lose our democracy and america may opposing these two persons they can't quite figure that out that's because we don't have any real understanding of who king becomes from one thousand nine hundred sixty three to nine hundred sixty seven so he's day april fo sixty eight had he lived a few more days he was going to preach to someone why america may go to hell the thesis again was that we've got to get serious about this triple threat of racism and poverty and militarism so let's back up all year to april for  sixty seven the year prior when king introduces this notion so this book is about the last year of his life april fourth sixty seven when he gives this speech in new york at the riverside church called beyond vietnam he's david literally one year to the day later april for sixty eight and this is what this text is all about just that last year who has martin luther king jr become what is he up against what kind of a hail and hate is he having to navigate every day and how does he get up every day and continue to tell the truth with everything coming at him so it's april for nine hundred sixty seven martin goes to new york to the riverside church and gives a speech called beyond vietnam he's been on the record already opposed to the war in vietnam but had not come out and given a major speech explaining his position in declaring that he was publicly against the war in vietnam and so riverside church becomes the place it before sixty seven is today everybody in his camp except james bevel tales here martin do not give this speech we have to stay focused on civil rights and human rights and voting rights you've got to get off on a tangent you go miss up everything we have worked for you go anger the president who's been good to us on voting rights and civil rights lyndon johnson and we have worked with they gave reasons why martin should not give this speech and martin got to that podium at the riverside church and say good i come to this place tonight because my conscience and leaves me no other choice martin says that night that silence is betrayal sometimes silence is betrayal and so i've come to this house tonight to speak out against the war in vietnam and then he uses a phrase that got him in a world of trouble he says that night that america my country is the greatest pervy year of violence in the world today the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today let me can text realize that for you first of all you would know you couldn't get away saying that today without catching some hail but imagine this  nobel laureate now a peace prize recipient but this is still dr king a black main i want contextualizes you got a black man in the sixty's who white folks have given  license to talk about civil rights but anybody ask his opinion on foreign policy what they're saying is negro we gave you license we gave you the freedom and the right to talk about civil rights they nobody told you you can talk about foreign policy stay in your lane this foreign policy is none of your business that's the stand i'm on basically martin is saying hold up i'm against violence here i'm against bottoms they're i'm against violence everywhere so  got martin king black man in the sixty's who's already repeatedly by hoover and the f b i been labeled and called a communist who stands up at the height of the vietnam war and say as to america you america you are the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today inside the hall inside the beautiful edifice riverside is a look around this wonderful martin had seven standing ovations appalls all throughout the night the speech was deliciously received on that night but oh come the next morning they went after him with a vengeance they built a fire king the next day i believe and i suspect you believe as well that there is no such thing as an overnight success but i also equally believe that you can go from being a success to being present in a non grata over night one day you on top of the world the next day you're being crushed by the world so no such thing as an overnight success it doesn't work this way but it can work that way you can turn on your real faced and that's what happened to dr king one day he's dr king and the next day he is out of step and out of touch and everybody in america turns on him the next morning now i was on fox news the other night talking about this book and i walked out of the studio would rush limbaugh have sea what what would fox news have done to him the day after he declared that america was the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today now fox news wasn't around the end but that's ok because the liberal media did their job the liberal media establishment when you read this tax debt that we came and you see what the new york times said about him it's embarrassing when you read  liberal washington post said about him is cool upset should make you may when you read about what time magazine said about him that week it might even make you cry the liberal media turned on him quicker than right now and sooner than at once they turned so fast on him his head was spinning he woke up and it will go up the next morning and every major newspaper every major news outlet in this country him the very next day so first after giving that speech the media turns out and then the white house turns on him martin is work with lyndon johnson is i intimated earlier to get the two most important and i think similar piece of johnson and for most negroes in the country johnson has been the best friend that negroes ever had in the white house since lincoln freed the slaves because he works so assiduously to get the voting rights act and civil rights act passed and now martin is but in hades with lyndon johnson martin ascend the president mr president you call it for a war on poverty i support you in there but now you're in gaze on a war in vietnam and philosopher j c you can say what you say but you are what you are and when you put your budget on the table we see your priorities then we know who you really are and what really matters to you because budgets are maro documents mr that's what he's saying to lyndon johnson johnson don't want to hear it so the white house turns on me after the media has already turned on and being white america turns on dr king hold your seats again the last poll taken in king's life the harris poll found that seventy five percent nearly three quarters of the american people thought that dr king was irrelevant in the last year  as life i know your head is spinning that you have a hard time trying to juxtapose the way we have put this deified him in death with the way we demonized him at the end of his life but those are the facts three quarters of the american people thought he was irrelevant in the last year was life so the media has turned on him the white house has turned on him and johnson continues to meet with other black leaders but percent of black people thought he was irrelevant and a person the non grata almost sixty percent of his own people and let me unpack that for you when i say his own people i mean as you see in this t that roy wilkins and the in double a c p come out and publicly against dr king i'm talking about whitney young and the urban league who come out publicly and castigate dr king i'm talking to his face the ugliness kind of disrespect that i could ever imagine when you read in this text what adam clayton powell jr deed and say to  when martin comes out opposed to a war hello you have a peace process how you budding here is what martin when he's opposed to war i don't i didn't  it in the research and i don't get it now but it goes to show you how much hail and hate king was catching from everybody at that time if that's not bad enough ralph bunche is on the board of directors for the in double a c p wilkens they decide to pass a resolution to condemn martin king that released that resolution publicly going to ralph bunche saw the resolution the language wasn't demeaning enough it wasn't tough enough for him he made the relay which even worse he wrote the resolution to make it tougher and more damning for dr king so bunch turns on him publicly call roland one of the most famous black journalists of that air turns on him publicly writes a scathing piece in reader's digest you see in the text scathing piece he writes about dr king and in the black media starts to turn against dr king and i can't even tell you a town hall tonight i would dare not quote but it's in the book i will tell you this i can quote this part thurgood marshall called martin luther king jr boy on a man's and the worst thing the man in the worst in the day you can ever call a black man is what a boy thurgood marshall called model king junior on a man's hair and that's the nicest thing you see as you see in the text it gets worse from there so the media has turned on him the white house has turned on him white america has turned on him black america has turned on him and then inside his own organization king can't get a consensus from his own team to support his position against the war in vietnam his own board of directors at s c l see his board of directors passes  resolution to condemn him he's on board condemning him on his position on the war if that's not bad enough king had no idea that his treasurer  treasurer james harrison was a paid f b i informant hister toher for was a paid f b i informant so he's got folks inside his can't with him every day who are reporting back to hoover and the f b i every day reporting on what's happening on the inside so he's being a he's being betrayed and obstructed and catching hell and hate from the inside by his team which he referred to as a team a wild horses that's his description of his own team  they don't agree with him on the position is vision on vietnam and he can't get them to support him on these poor people's campaign that he's trying to get off the ground so he's catching hell and hate on the inside kitchen hailing hate from the outside and on top of that he knows he feels the death angel hovering in his face he knows he's living on borrowed time he knows there's a bullet out there with his name on it he knows the death threats are coming every single day he knows his time is limited and  hours before martin walks out on that balcony to be assassinated he says i would rather be did than be afraid that no one two hours later he in fact would be  and rather be dave than be afraid martin says repeatedly a man who has not found something which is willing to die is not yet fit to live marches repeat of the i'd like to live a long life but it's not about how long you live it's about how will you live martin says repeatedly that the only thing that we have control over is not where we die or when we die or how we die we only control what we die for not the where the when of the how we only control what we die for so with all this swirling around him martin king has to get up every day and somehow muster the courage and the conviction and the commitment gave him hail in the last years of his life is hard this is to say as hard as it is to say i'm going to say it anyway because i believe it with every fiber of my being in a very real way we help to kill d king strong indictment we have to kill him and we help to kill him because we abandoned him in the dark difficult desolate days we  we abandon him so now we're honoring him on the cheap as it were with the holidays and the monuments in the postage stamp his name was on school streets and libraries name was everywhere now we honor him on the cheap but we have yet to come to terms with the truth he was trying to tale perhaps because it was the end is still now too subversive for us to handle the truth he was trying to tell us about that triple threat facing our democracy which still exist trying to tale so martin is breaking up every day trying to put one foot in front of the other one day the story in the book one day he wakes up gets dressed fully dressed puts his suit and tie socks and shoes on and he gets back in that walk back in gets back in to be fully clothed shoes it all gets back in the bed pulls the covers over his head and he cry and cry and cry until he falls asleep he's drinking a little bit more than he should he's smoking little bit more than he should he's gaining weight let me advance and i'll combat the autopsy on his body in sixty eight found that while he was dead at thirty nine he had the or the insides of an almost sixty five year old man the pressure and the stress was eaten him alive and yet every day he got up and continued to tail the inconvenient uncomfortable unconventional on housing truth he did every day with all that going on there were times that night martin couldn't sleep in the last year of his life as you read the text he couldn't sleep one night they're in a hotel three o'clock in the morning ra of mania and there psychiatrist tell us today that for those folks who have that kind of mania that martin had it helps develop in them a sort of radical empathy makes sense to me makes sense to you because they themselves are so they're struggling with this their own sense of mortality in their own mania it actually makes him have a greater sense of empathy for other people so that mania can lead to a sort of radical empathy and there's a book coming out next dr king that's going to be very controversial a psychological profile of him by a professor who makes that argument that what allowed him to have that sort of radical empathy was the mania that he suffered he was depressed and despondent there were days in the last year his life he was hospitalized for what they said was exhaustion and to be sure he was exhausted but he also had that that that depression of despondency he was dealing with you read in the text that when martin was twelve years of age he tried to kill himself as a young child he tried to commit suicide i won't spoil the read for you but you read what happened to twelve relative to his grandmother that made him feel responsible and he goes up to their roof top of their house and jumped off and tried to kill himself thankfully he lived but he had that sort of radical empathy even from the time he was just a child and so martin is trying to love his way through this but there are times he can't even sleep and so because they knew that martin was suffering from this and he walks out around the corner and there is martin standing in his pajamas looking out at the ocean at three in the morning singing a song called rock of ages rock of cleft for me let me hide myself in the he knew his time was limited rock of ages cleft for me let me high myself in the can't convince martin to go back to his room because martin can't sleep he's just singing his way through this night ralph goes back to big comes back at eight o'clock in the morning martin is still standing in the same place in his pajamas singin rock of ages cleft for me in the book you see that in the last year of his life martin just singing and preaching and praying and pushing and pulling his way through this last year but every day he still committed a matter what he had to do there was talks in his camp you read about this there was a talk there was a meeting in new york one night amongst his  a circle and the conversation centered around whether or not they could convince dr king to see a therapist to see a therapist and it never happened while the reader you'll see why it didn't happen but that conversation happens inside his own camp they're concerned about martin but martin is telling them that he's of sound mind he's telling them that my time is limited i'm not going to be around here much longer and credit didn't want to hear that is in a circle don't want to hear that they how do you tell somebody that you're about to leave them they don't want to hear that but martin know that his time is almost up and that's why he's working so aggressively to get that poor people's campaign off the ground we think of occupy and we think of new york in when going to new york he was going to be the original occupy when he was going to the nation's capital and he and thousands of others were going to camp out on the national mall in a tent city they call resurrection city he was going to stay there and live there until they embarrass congress to do something about the issue of poverty in this country memphis was a test case he was a mixed with sanitation workers as you know on the issue of income inequality and poverty and that was a test case but he was on his way to washington and they knew th martin got to washington he was on be a major embarrassment for the country and they killed him before he got there they didn't want that level of embarrassment consider this j edgar hoover in the f in the last year martin's life has martin listed as the most dangerous man in america he had a mob of the king jr the f b i and who  declare is the most dangerous man in america seattle i ask you how is it that you can be the most dangerous man in all of america when the only weapon that you are the most dangerous man in america and your only weapon is i think that says something even today about the power and the potency of this thing called  me offer you a kenyan definition our rap this definition of what we could have a hold of the conversation on another night maybe we'll come back one day and talk about this there's a great conversation to be had in seattle about whatever happened to the notion o f in our public discourse whatever happened the notion of love in our public discourse teen put love in the public square gandhi put love in the public put love in the public square mandela put love in the public square whatever happened to the notion of love in our public discourse about love all we mean is simply this that that's what we mean we mean that when we say love we're all worthy just because everybody somebody is child everybody somebody is kid it matters not how many degrees you have where you went to school how much money you make what kind of car you drive  who your mom and him are which a last name is how much access you have a car to hook up you have to you know that the color of your skin that is irrelevant every one of us is equally worth the all life is precious and has the everybody is worthy just because that means everybody ought to have a job with a living wage in the if everybody is worthy if everybody is worthy just because everybody ought to have access to that would fundamentally change our nation if we could ever operationalize debt kantian definition of love that everybody is equally were the just because so that's why people and you can't save people alicia serve people that's leadership you can lead if you don't love you can't save if you don't serve so if you would call yourself a leader a would be a leader all i care about is one what is the depth of your love for everyday people and secondly what is the quality of your service to them was the depth of your love was the quality of your service so leadership is all about loving and serving people and by that definition i regard dr king and i dedicate this text to maga the king jr america's greatest democratic small d america's greatest democratic public intellectual so all these years later we still don't know who martin king really was and that's what this book is all about taking you inside the dark and difficult days of his life which happen to be for him the last year where he had to wrestle with who he really was and what kind of immutable principles he was really going to live his final days by in hope that like me when you read this text if you think you love martin if you think you respect hell and hate coming at him in the last year i closed on this no it's not just a look back at the history of the last year his life but i hope and believe that this book will also be a cautionary tale for those of us who are alive today why cautionary tale taboo is glad  there's a huge price that our society pays a huge price that we pay when we ignore our truth tellers you pay a heavy price when we ignore our truth tellers and in seattle and beyond there are truth tellers every day trying to get us to deal with the truth of what we're doing to the environment global warming and climate change that's not a joke but we are turning a deaf ear and a blind eye to the truth tellers among us who are trying to get us to get serious about the environment we turning a deaf ear in a blind eye to the truth tellers who are trying to get us to see that poverty is now threatening our very democracy that poverty is now a matter of national security one percent of the people cannot continue to own and control forty percent of the will the top four hundred richest americans four hundred individuals have wealth equivalent to the bottom one hundred fifty million of us these days there's a sidewalk is a highway a highway into poverty but barely a sidewalk out that's what we're dealing with today one out of two americans either in or near poverty you've got the parade nearly poor you've got the near poor and you've got the new poor and the new poor are the former middle class weak these numbers  sustainable call it a few tacos she called an oligarch but this ain't no democracy and these numbers are not sustainable we ignore the truth tell us talking about income inequality and poverty we ignore the truth tellers talking about immigration and while meaningful reform has to happen we ignore the truth tellers about this drone program on steroids we ignore those truth tellers is whale there's a huge price that our society pays when we ignore the truth tellers so this is not just my love letter to martin king although it is indeed a love letter to him but it's also a cautionary t when i was twelve years of age i was brutally beaten as i discuss in my text what i know for sure on our previous books my father snapped one night and i was so brutally beaten as a twelve year old kid that i was in the hospital for two weeks two weeks in traction and for some reason i don't know a lot of this day remember my church a member of the church came to visit me and he brought me a box and the box contained nothing but l p s turns out that berry gordy of motown fame had the good sense to send an engineer around to follow dr king as he was giving speeches and record a lot of those speeches and years later gordie put allow those speeches out on lp and this deacon in my church was collecting those l p s and whatever reason i do not know why he came to me and gave me this gift box with all these recordings in it and when i got out of that hospital and i heard the love in his heart and the hope in his soul it gave me a reassurance i was mad at everybody i hated my father hated my mother hated the world power but about the power of love king was saying that love is the only force in the world capable of turning an enemy into a free and king was talking to the country but it might as well have been talking to a twelve year old broken hearted broken spirited boy broken bone boy name tag us what i heard king saying to me is that love is your only option that you're going to have to find a way to love your way through this that hatred and bitterness and revenge tavist are not options if you want to live a life of meaning and purpose and value and since i was twelve all i've tried to do is my small part in this book is another down payment on that i didn't want to go out in april around his assassination anniversary because i believe that his martyrdom has undermined his message and so i don't want to get caught up in trying to celebrate a text that gets caught up in all that celebration and and po circumstance and i wanted to but come out in september for two reasons one i would have a clear lane unobstructed by all these holidays and celebrations to get you and get us to focus on who martin king was absent all the other hoopla that's the first reason but the second reason was is my love letter to dr king i wouldn't made it to fifty if he had not saved my life at the age of twelve he'd long since been day but he really brought me back to life when i was a twelve year old kid and all i can tell you that from that day until now i've been doing my small part when you hear me on the radio or see me on television or anyplace else all i'm trying to do is ma small part to make the world safe for his legacy and what is that legacy justice for all service to others and a love that liberates people justice for all service to others and to love liberates people thank you would you be willing to talk about the only trial ever held in the nation of martin luther king that there was a conspiracy to kill him involving governmental agencies yes i've always believed  that there's no way that james earl ray could have done this all by himself having said that this book does not address that only because the book starts april for sixty seven before sixty eight although it is with king being shot on that coworkers he was doc and to you on page one of this book he's doc the book moves really fast it's like a movie it's like a screenplay we put you in king's inner circle you are right there in his space and everything that doc experiences in real time over the last twelve months of his life you are right there with him every step of the way and i think you'll appreciate being in that space with him and experiencing what he experiences but you start on page one with doc about to get to the podium riverside church and you hear what's going on inside his hated how frail he is because you know he's going to some hail and some pushback he didn't have any idea how bad it's going to be but we put you in his space and you with doc every step of the way so the book does not talk about or the assassination because when doc is assassinated the story ends for him and you're in this space with him and so he goes the story ends but since you ask i'm happy to tell you that i've never believed that james earl ray could have done that by thank you for your voice but you're good humor in the global community coming from a background where i spent four years in prince edward county the last legal strout stronghold or one of the last legal strongholds of segregation and spending two sermon then than hear a sermon and so you have to be as you already are continue to be a living the pistol of those things that you believe i believe that every one of us has to be and clearly you are every one of us has to be committed to living the life in search of truth in search of the truth if there's any lesson that comes from king's life what it took to your question it is that every one of us has to commit ourselves to seeking the truth and in speaking the truth and then standing on the truth and staying with the truth you've got to seek it and speak it and stand on it and stay with it that's the only way that you become that sermon that people need to see and i believe even today that courage is still contagious courage is still contagious when people see that you are bringing those truths out and you committed to telling those true isn't it can be contagious but what's wrong with our society is not enough folks are seeking truth let alone speaking the truth and nobody wants to stand on it because everything everybody is up for sale we're like commodities to be bought and so everybody is up for sale so it's hard to seek it and speak it and stand it and certainly staying with it that's the message of king's life so that you put that it's polite and packaging that's just not been for the record that's not just here in seattle that happens across the country and that's why we have to be the truth  tellers that we need to be because again not enough of us are really willing to have the courage to do that thank you for your question i appreciate it yes sir my question is regarding a controversial cartoon called the boondocks now this show episode nine of season one is called return of the king now in this show dr king comes back from a coma and addresses the world on nine eleven the war in iraq and then of course the black community the current state of the black community i know you see michelle because they referenced your character they referenced you on the one how accurate do you think that dr king's opinion was on those topics and what do you think he would have to say in light of today's topic in light of ferguson and everything going on community great question if we're here today and i'm always loath to speak for him but when you read the book you see these speaks very clearly for himself and what makes him so powerful is that he's not a politician he's a pro he's prophet he's prophetic and so it's clear to me what king would have being would be saying here if you were alive today he'd still be continuing his critique of the triple threat racism poverty in militarism that's what we saw in ferguson the other day i said earlier his critique when you get to the story about carl stokes i don't want to get i don't want to you know destroy or spoil the read for you but look at what carl stokes does to dr king to his face  mayor of the city of cleveland comes to king's hotel room entails king dr stay close tonight because when i win which i believe i'm going to i want to call you up on stage to stand next to me i want to acknowledge you to thank you publicly but i want you on that stage with me told martin i want you to come stand next to me on the podium i want to acknowledge you cross those realized you few minutes later that the last thing he really wanted was to be seen standing next to dr king in a photo i say that to give you some sense again of the context of how despised and how toxic king was that folk did and black leaders didn't even want to be seen standing next to him in a photograph in a photograph garden variety politicians as opposed to statesman left to their own devices they end up being transactional but not quite transformational when barack obama was running for office and race was an important issue he took the time to write a major speech on race you'll remember this everybody loved his speech on race but he was running any couldn't run away from it any longer he tried to run some of the entire campaign when he couldn't run no more he writes he gives a speech about race in america when he's campaigning but now that he's president and he didn't want to deal with it eric holder gets the phone call so as the washington post said the other day since holder has been the black man that obama wouldn't be or right with what he's saying he was right when he finally got there but it took him six years to get there do you honestly think that dr king would have stayed quiet for six years waiting for obama to say some poverty absolutely made it night when he's in the oval office making his war planes we have a war president with a peace prize and those are two very difficult things to navigate yes