00:00. If you ask American teenagers basic questions about American history, you'll quickly discover that they don't know much about it. One Gallup Poll found that most American teens are unaware that Columbus arrived in 1492. More than 2/3 don't know that states rights were an issue in the Civil War. And three quarters are unaware that the United States gained independence [from Britain] in 1776. More interesting is what they do know. In May 2008, two College professors gave 2,000 American High School juniors and seniors a simple prompt. Starting from Columbus to present day, jot down the names of the most famous Americans in history. The only ground rule is that they cannot be presidents. The top three answers were all black: Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and in first place, of course, Martin Luther King, Jr., who was named by 2/3 of the students. Benjamin Franklin by comparison was named by just 29%. Thomas Edison made the top 10, but was out-ranked by Oprah Winfrey.
1:06. A similar survey of college students between 1975 and 1988 had radically different answers. Their top choices--Betsy Ross and Paul Revere--didn't even make the top 10 by the mid-2000s. This is because sometime between 1988 and 1995 things radically changed. National heroes like George Washington and Ben Franklin were replaced with a new class of central figures in American history. As the authors of the study put it by the mid-1990s, "African Americans and women had moved to the center of American history." Ask any American who went to Public Schools between 1995 and today, they'll tell you the central feature of their social studies classes, as history became known, were the histories of slavery and the Civil Rights Movement. They likely remember watching videos like this one, [of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech] in school. We wanted to show you a clip of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech there, but it turns out we couldn't. That's because King's family owns the audio from the speech. And they wouldn't let us use it. You might think that's weird. This is America. Surely you could use a short soundbite of an extremely famous speech in an educational video. And in most cases you'd be right. But according to our lawyers we can't. In fact, we can't show quotes or read on air any portions of speeches owned by King's estate. It turns out his family has done all sorts of [legal wrangling] to stop people like us including amazingly releasing the speech as an album so they can secure special music rights. They published his life's work as a book to secure additional rights and recently blocked Open AI from allowing users to recreate King's likeness. These gimmicks gave them total control over how King is portrayed in media today. Why would they rig our legal system like that? Well, money is one reason. When CBS broadcasts portions of the "I Have a Dream" speech on air, the family sued and the company settled. King's family has made a lot of money suing media outlets. But another reason is that they want to silence critics like us. They need to protect his legacy to keep making money off of it. What they're doing makes it very difficult to honestly reevaluate Martin Luther King, Jr. and you're about to see why they don't want people to do that. It turns out the King you've heard of is a carefully curated creation. His estate's efforts perfectly illustrate what the civil rights movement has become, and, as we'll show in this episode, what it always was: a gigantic lie. Over the course of this video, we are going to judge Martin Luther King, Jr. not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character. What you will see will shock you. Some of it isn't suitable for young children. We'll also confront the movement that he spearheaded. Were his true aims a color blind Society, or something far more radical? Who bank rolled him? What did other civil rights leaders think of him? What unfolded behind the scenes in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963? Was civil disobedience actually peaceful? And most importantly, is America today stronger, more unified, and racially equal than before King's rise. These questions demand answers, and as Americans we are entitled to a full accounting of the Civil Rights Movement and its consequences. King's movement fundamentally transformed our country and our system of government. That's why we're tackling the topic in two parts. Part 1: the hidden history of the Civil Rights Movement, its key figures, agendas, funding, and scandals. Part 2: the profound and lasting changes to our society and their consequences. This is the real history of the Civil Rights Movement. Part 1: a new constitution.
