Fifty years ago last August, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. This morning historian Taylor Branch and legal scholar F. Michael Higginbotham discuss that most fundamental dimension of democracy: voting. We’ll talk about how federal anti-discrimination laws at the time were insufficient in opening up registration and we’ll discuss the status of voting rights as the 2016 presidential race picks up steam.
And, a year after Dr. King’s death, his widow, Coretta Scott King, visited Baltimore to support health workers who were organizing for higher wages at Johns Hopkins Hospital. We hear from two union members and civil rights organizer who recall that day.