On August 21st, 1966, six Black Civil Rights Leaders convened on NBC’s Meet The Press to discuss the state of the Civil Rights Movement for Black people in America. The panel in the Washington, DC studio included Roy Wilkins, the Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Whitney Young, the Executive Director of the National Urban League, Floyd McKissick, the National Director of the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE), Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Ture), Chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and James Meredith, leader of the March Against Fear in Mississippi and integrated the University Of Mississippi in 1962. Broadcasting from the Chicago studio was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC).
This should be mandatory viewing for everyone. Fifty-three years later and we still fighting for these same rights. Still fighting to be seen. Still fighting to be heard. Still fighting to have our needs taken seriously.
Listen. Take notes. Become inspired. The time is now. Get mad. The revolution has begun. It is time to get uncomfortable!
Full video and transcript can be found HERE.