Still work to do on Martin Luther King's dream, civil rights leaders say
(CBS News) WASHINGTON - Dr. Martin Luther King put the finishing touches on his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Willard Hotel in Washington. And that is where we sat down with three leaders of the civil rights movement: Marian Wright-Edelman, president of the Children's Defense Fund; Andrew Young, the former mayor of Atlanta; and former Georgia state legislator Julian Bond.
All of them were part of the March on Washington a half century ago.
ANDREW YOUNG: When the trains started unloading from the South and a trainload from Philadelphia, and then the movie stars flew, I realized that this was something big.
SCOTT PELLEY: On that day, what did you think would be achieved by the March on Washington? What could be accomplished?
JULIAN BOND: Dr. King's speech and in the speeches of the other people, we had explained: Here are the problems we are facing, these are the reasons why we're here, we're marching, we're protesting, we're sitting in. We've had several years of disruption around the country, and we've shown you about it. Now do something about it.
ANDREW YOUNG: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King set out to redeem the soul of America from the triple evils of racism, war and poverty. Now, I think we've made enormous progress on legal racism. We've made progress on war. But we have retrogressed on poverty.
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: I am so worried about this country moving backwards. A child is dropping out of school every eight seconds. If 60 percent of all of your children cannot read and compute at grade level, you are not going to be a strong, competitive nation. And we need to just see the growing gap between the poor and the rich, and the wealth and income inequality at an unprecedented stage with poor children are everywhere.
SCOTT PELLEY: For decades, CBS News has been polling Americans about their views on race, and we have a brand new poll on that subject. We asked whether there is real hope of ending racial discrimination. In this new poll, it's 52 percent, the very first time there's ever been a majority saying that racial discrimination in our country could end. Why is that happening?
ANDREW YOUNG: Because it's happening. I mean, the truth of it is- University of Georgia elected a black student government president, as did University of Alabama --
MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN: And Mississippi.
ANDREW YOUNG: -- a few years back. And Mississippi State. To me, the hope of dealing with racism is in the South because we've been struggling with it for several hundred years. And we really are making progress.
SCOTT PELLEY: We have a photograph of a young Julian Bond and a young Marian Wright in the crowd. What's happening in that moment?
Watch: MLK says March on Washington was "One of the great days of America."
JULIAN BOND: We are singing ... "We Shall Overcome," by that time, '63, had become the anthem of the civil rights movement. People are leaving, going home, and we're standing there hand in hand singing "We Shall Overcome."
SCOTT PELLEY: And if -- if you said to a young person, "If you don't take anything else away from the March on Washington, understand this?"
ANDREW YOUNG: Understand that the struggle continues. And the future is in your hands, in your heart, in your mind.
