Civil Rights

Clayborne Carson of the Founding Director of the King Papers Project, a long-term project to edit and publish the papers of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Journalist Karl Fleming's new book is Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir. As a civil rights reporter for Newsweek in the 1960s, he wrote about major events such as the Birmingham church bombing, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the murders of three civil rights workers in Philadelphia, Miss. While at the 1966 riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, Fleming was severely beaten.

Investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell writes for The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Miss., and specializes in unearthing new evidence from Civil Rights era criminal cases. His coverage has led to the convictions of four Ku Klux Klan members, starting with Byron De La Beckwith for the assassination of Medgar Evers. Recently, Edgar Ray Killen was found guilty of orchestrating the murders of Civil Rights workers Andrew Goodman, James Chaney and Michael Schwerner. Next week Mitchell will be honored with the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism.

Terry Gross talks with author Taylor Branch, who has written the third in a trilogy of biographies on Martin Luther King Jr. The book is called At Canaan's Edge.

As the first African-American attorney in Selma, Ala., J.L. Chestnut Jr. campaigned to free jailed Civil Rights activists in the 1960s — an effort he detailed in his autobiography, Black In Selma. Chestnut died of kidney failure on Sept. 30; he was 77.

Emma Stone and Viola Davis star in the film adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's best-selling novel about a white woman who sets out to tell the story of black domestic servants in 1960s Mississippi. Critic David Edelstein says that both Stone and Davis pull off stunning performances.

According to Russian journalist Masha Gessen, the 2012 arrests were the start of a campaign by Vladimir Putin and his supporters against government critics. Gessen, who is also an LGBT rights advocate, recently moved to New York with her partner and their children in response to the anti-gay laws Russia passed in June.

Harding died Monday at 82. He wrote several speeches for Martin Luther King Jr., including his controversial 1967 speech opposing the war in Vietnam. Harding spoke to Fresh Air in 1988.

In 1986, Angelou spoke to Terry Gross about Southern influences in her writing, her love of autobiography and how, as a traumatized young girl, poetry inspired her to start speaking again.

Cogswell, who died April 20, was executive director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum, which houses journals, trumpets, tapes, photographs and other artifacts. Originally broadcast in 2001.

Lewis, who died July 17, grew up the son of sharecroppers. He later became an associate of Martin Luther King and co-led the 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Ala. Originally broadcast in 2009.

In the 1960s, Moses led efforts to organize and register Black residents to vote in Mississippi and brought national attention to the state's entrenched white supremacy. Moses died Sunday at age 86.

Journalist Mark Whitaker says that much of what's happening in American race relations today traces back to 1966, the year when the Black Panthers were founded and the Black Power movement took full form.